T is for...

Tad has a favorite letter.  I bet you can't guess what it is?! 
You would be amazed at all the places Tad can find the letter T.  During lunch he found 3.  Two on his fork (the back says sTainless sTeel)  and whatever brand of corndog he was eating had a T on the stick. 
He'll say "Can you find a T?" when we're on the computer, until we let him push the T on the keyboard.  
His other favorite T words are: Train, Track, Truck, Two, Tad, Tickle, Tease, Turn, Tiger, Thunder, Trailer.
Mom's favorite T words are:  Timeout, Talking and Toilet Training  (Most of the time.) 

Our Two and half year old.....
* Has stopped taking naps (we're lucky if we get one a week, lucky for us, he's a happy kid).
* Is on Pepcid everyday for his acid reflux (without it, he wakes up crying and hurling every night between 12am-1am.  I've gotten really good at remembering to give him his medicine so we can all sleep through the night.  Before we got his medicine, I have to say, Fred was a really good sport for sitting up with him.)
* Thinks everything and anything is a "Snowmobile Trailer" for his "barrels".  His favorite is piling stuff on the recliner with the footrest up.  I'm hoping he grows out of his hoarding soon- I hate piles of toys all over, but even if I pick them up, or make him pick them up, they grow back the next day.  
* Says "Yuck" if we kiss his cheek, but loves to give kisses and "squeeze your guts out".
* Is one Tough kid- he can almost tackle us, and if he runs full speed at you, there's a good chance you'll lose your balance.
* Picks out his own t-shirt: Elmo or Bob-the-Builder.  If you tell him to get dressed, I can guarantee it's going to be one of those 2 shirts, but he'll put it on himself. 
* Can be bribed with bananas, chocolate, bread, ice cream, truck books, stickers, McQueen (Cars), Apple Juice, Grandpa's Gummy Bears, and cinnamon toasties. 
*LOVES the shower.  He'll only strip himself down (even put his clothes in the laundry without being told!) if I tell him he can have a shower.  If I say bath, he takes forever to get his clothes off.  :}  
* Knows his Traffic lights.  Red means stop, green means go, yellow means be careful.  He is the best backseat driver you could ever find..... as soon as he sees the red light, "It red, that means stop".  "Okay buddy, I will when I get up there."  :}  The other day walking home from church he could completely point the way to our house.  Comforting, if he's ever lost within a couple blocks of our house. 

* I say talking is my favorite, but the phrases I DO NOT like:  *"Would you get me that?" (it's usually 2 feet from him, or he just threw it).  *Every time he cries and I ask what hurts it's always "My Eye" (that's a tear, not a pain). *"No, I doesn't need to go potty". *"Yes you did see it" (repeated 5X after he asks if I saw something and I didn't). *"Where's your puppy?" (He's a puppy about 3/4 of the day and refers to himself as "Puppy".  Funny, since we don't have a dog.  Not funny, because I can't put him out in the yard when he's too hyper.) 
* Toilet Training is going well.  He completed one chart and we took him to the store right away to get a "yellow" treat (Yellow is his favorite color, it had nothing to do with pee.) Now we're working on a second chart to reinforce "rewards" and this time he'll earn Pizza (that's what he chose) and a treat.  I spent 25 minutes in a bathroom stall at the zoo with him because he can't pee if he hears other kids.  He did finally go.  :}  We've moved on to trying to stand and I have to say it is so worth it!  I'll take 4 minutes (2 to pee & 2 to clean up the misses) as opposed to the minimum 10 to completely strip him, get him settled and wait. 

Our goal for the summer is to work on mastering the rest of the alphabet! I'm excited, I don't know if he is.  
AbCdEfGhIjKlMnOpQrStUvWxYz

Adventures of a 2 year old.

Tad has been awfully busy during January.  He's growing so fast and makes us laugh often.  He's a pretty smart kid which also gets him in trouble.  

Daddy's box is now Tad's "car" and he drives it to the "country". His favorite place to play on it is on the trampolene and often stands it up and asks us to put him in it - he'll play for hours.

He watches mom put her makeup on, so now he uses one of my old brushes and paints everyone's eyes until they're "pretty". 

"Horse" has become his new best friend.  Horse gets to do everything Tad gets to do.  (almost)

Tad taught himself to have "oreo parties"  we went through a whole package of oreos and have now moved on to crackers because they're cheaper!

Notice the yogurt on the wall, above his head?  He's still mastering eating by himself.

I'm loving my fast camera that caught this funny picture of a monkey!  
We've gone to the zoo a lot since there's no snow.

Rockin' at the zoo.

Notice the "mommy" and "daddy" figurines in front of him.  Now we get to do everything with Tad! 

The other day he wouldn't let me help him brush his teeth, he said Dolly would help him. 

I think he needs a friend.  He's good about helping Dolly play with everything.

Tad put socks on, so Horse had to put socks on.   He even tried to put his sunday shoes on the horse.  I gave him a pair of my socks instead. 

He's not afraid to ride his horse anymore.  (Notice the socks?)

What a busy body!   But we love it! 

Welcome to 2012

Tad had a runny nose Wednesday, the 5^th. Thursday, he woke up and had really labored breathing. He was breathing fast, his collarbone area was sinking in, and his tummy went from round to flat with this ribs with every breath. I set him down to watch a movie to see if it got better once he was resting. It didn’t, so I took him into the doctor. Besides the breathing, he was acting fine. 
Visit #1 - Saturday before Christmas, I’d taken Tad into Instacare because he had spots all over his side and thought maybe he was getting pneumonia (he'd been exposed to it a few days before).  The red spots ended up being Viral Xantham. The spots are caused when your immune system goes into overdrive, there’s nothing to do for it, they’ll go away. The doctor also told me signs to watch for pneumonia, one of which was the labored breathing and sinking around the collarbone.

Visit #2 - Tuesday before Christmas, Tad complained that there was something in his ear. He finally started crying his pain cry. I took him to the doctor and he had an ear infection. The doctor rated it an 8 out of 10 for how bad it was. And said it was the worst one he’d seen all week. (At least Tad does it right if he does it.)

Visit #3- While we waited at the doctor's, Tad told me he needed to go potty, of course the buzzer saying it was our turn went off as soon as I got him seated - but he went! Dr. Spencer was pretty concerned and wouldn’t really say what he thought it was. He just kept looking at him like he was almost nervous. He debated sending us straight to the hospital, but finally said, “Let’s do a breathing treatment and if that doesn’t help, we’ll send you to the hospital.” What? How did that happen? Right before the nurse came in to do the treatment Tad told me he needed to go potty again.   (I'm not a fan of this potty training stuff!)

The breathing treatment helped, and he set up a hope nebulizer. He told me to do treatments every 4 hours, but if I felt like I needed to do them every 2 hours, after a couple of times, take him into the hospital. Tad also still had an ear infection, so we got another dose of amoxicillin.

I had my mom come over and watch him for a little bit while I ran to get groceries and his medicine. The homecare people finally brought us a nebulizer around 7pm. 5 hours after his first treatment. (They didn’t come sooner because they said they were waiting for the doctor to let them know that we were home and could bring it.) Crystal and mom were nervous about his breathing. I did a treatment at 7pm and Tad was still breathing hard. When Fred got home from work, he started timing Tad’s pulse and breaths. After a treatment at 9pm, Fred called the nurse line to see what they thought. We did a treatment at 11pm then drove to McKayDee Hospital.

We were put in a room right away. It was annoying to have to tell “the story” of our day so many times: to the nurse, to the doctor, to the respiratory therapist, to the xray tech, to the resident doctor, to the pediatric nurses, at the same time, I do see the point for some cases that they see.

They put a pulse monitor on his left thumb. He didn’t love it there, but he managed to leave it alone. Even at 12am-2am in the morning Tad is pretty pleasant. He entertained himself and us pretty good as we waited. I was happy with the ER staff. The doctor made sure to stop by often to double check on us as she monitored his breathing and waited for x-rays (negative for pneumonia), but showed Bronchialitis. Bronchitis is generally in your Bronchi that come down from your esophagus. Your Bronchial are the smaller parts that connect to your air sacs (lungs). Bronchialitis is inflammation of your bronchial. It’s often caused by various viruses, including RSV, which is why they get so concerned.

While we waited, Tad colored in a coloring book and looked around the room. Then he asked me for his tools. I told him we didn’t bring his tools. He insisted, so I pretended to reach in his diaper bag and gave them to him. He happily went around the hospital bed “fixing” it. He’d also step on the wheels and say “whoosh” filling them up. :} 
The respiratory therapist was impressed that Tad would hold the treatment mask by himself. Several of the hospital workers also commented on how big he is for a 2 year old. Our favorite person was the one that came in and said “They say he’s 2 years old?” then looked back at the paperwork to figure out his age from his birthdate. “He’s not even 2 ½ yet!” Nope, he’s just big. :} After the respiratory therapist gave him a treatment, we waited awhile, then the nurse came in to release us, papers in hand. The doctor came in one last time and saw that something on the monitor had dropped to 89. She was afraid that as he fell asleep it would drop even lower, so she admitted us overnight.

As we waited for them to get paperwork and a room ready, Tad finally started to get grumpy. I can’t blame him, it was 2:30am. He’d tried to suck his thumb to go to sleep, but the monitor was on his left thumb (the only one he sucks). I climbed up on the bed and held him so he’d go to sleep and so I could hold the oxygen up to his mouth.

The resident doctor from the pediatric unit came in and had to do some chart information, then they were ready for us to go upstairs. I moved Tad to the bed so I didn’t have to be rolled through the hospital. The nurse driving the bed was a little crazy in her steering, but we made it without scraping any walls or waking him up.

The worst part was getting settled in his room. The nurses were not very good, maybe they were just overly excited to have something to do in the middle of the night. They made us wake Tad up to get his weight. They couldn’t just take his weight from when we got to the ER. Tad wasn’t happy about being woken up at 3:30am. Inside his room 3 nurses seemed to attack us. Tad continued to cry, almost hysterically, completely unnatural for him. I sat in the bed and held him to try to calm him down. Before I could get him calmed down, one nurse tried to put a nose oxygen tube on him and taped it down (I’d freak out too, if someone tried to tape something to my face). The 2^nd nurse was hooking up monitors and moving the pulse monitor to his toe instead of his thumb. And the 3^rd nurse was talking over Tad’s crying to give us instructions about the pink wristbands she was putting on our wrists and telling us what codes we needed if we left the area, or called in for information, etc. Tad ripped the oxygen right back off, and eventually settled down as he watched Cars. After he was asleep again, the nurse told us they come in at 6am to do blood work, and they needed to do another breathing treatment. Fred and I shared our displeasure. I also tried to convince them to set up the oxygen now, so that if he needed it during the night it was there and I wouldn’t have to come searching for one of them. They said he could actually drop to 88 and be fine. I was annoyed, but left it alone (the oxygen was there when I woke up). We finally settled into our uncomfortable recliners at 4:30 am. I didn’t sleep well at all, as I was awakened each time a nurse came in to check Tad’s vitals.
  
The morning nurses were MUCH better. They worked well with Tad and actually listened to Fred and I. Tad still freaked out about the monitor on his toe. He wouldn’t even stand on that leg, like it was broken. :} He had breakfast and watched cartoons, snuggled with Dad and looked out his window. The media trailer for the Ogden Police shot earlier in the week were right below our room. Tad saw the trailer and told me there were horses in there. I told him I didn’t think so. The thing that entertained him the most was the connector for his monitor. It was about 1 in x 2 in. He called it soap and used it to “scruba-dubba” daddy’s face and arms.
  
The doctor for the day just happened to by mine & Fred’s doctor. Dr. Tensmeyer looked him over - Tad’s gotten really good at lifting his shirt and taking deep breaths. They had told us they’d release us after lunch, but the nurse came in shortly after the doctor with release papers. We opted to go home and get some sleep. Of course they had to wheel him out in a wheelchair.
We hadn’t moved our car from the ER parking so we had to be wheeled out through the ER. There was one lady sitting there, waiting to be checked in, holding a barf bag. I didn’t think too much about it, until we all got the flu the next week.

After lunch at home, Tad went down for a nap and Fred went into work for a few hours. I don’t know how he did it, I was exhausted. Tad ran around all afternoon, making me even more tired. We ended up giving Tad a treatment that Friday night because he was sounding wheezy, probably from playing so much. He’s been fine since then.

Saturday night Tad woke up throwing up. We thought maybe it was just all the medicine and some food he’d eaten. Fred & I hadn’t recovered from our lack of sleep, but stayed up together to manage Tad. He was fine the next day, Sunday we stayed home from church to recover and per the doctor’s suggestion. Monday, Fred and I went to the ranch to go hunting. We took our snowmobiles. One needs a new drive belt, so we rode the other one double. 5 minutes into our ride that one stopped working. We hiked for awhile to look around. I am SO out of shape!!!! We hiked back down to the truck, drove to the snowmobile and loaded it. Our picnic lunch on the back of the trailer in the sunshine was nice. On the way home I started to not feel good. By 6pm I had figured out that Tad had really had the flu, not just indigestion. My dad came over to help Fred give me a blessing. Fred caught it around 1am. Luckily, my parents came to get Tad in the morning so we could spend our lovely 9^th anniversary sipping 7up on the couch. Unluckily, they all caught it that night. Tad was spending the night, but they said he was asleep by the time it hit them. Fred calls it the plague- 6 or 7 hours of feeling like you’re going to die & wishing you were going to die, then 1 ½ days of exhaustion.

Wednesday we took Tad to his regular doctor, for a follow-up appointment. The tests they ran in the hospital to see if it was caused by RSV were negative, it was Rhino-?  (basically just a strong cold virus that had caused all of our trouble!)   The student Physician’s assistant pointed out that all of our trauma had started 6 days ago. Only 6 days? It’s been the longest month of January ever! :} We weren't even 2 weeks into the new year!

I help you.

We have the MOST helpful 2 year old on our hands.   He's a pretty good kid, but I don't really need help doing EVERYTHING.   "Mommy, Mommy, I eed you help" is the phrase of the day!  or he'll find me and say "I help you". 

He helped daddy open his birthday presents.   A new fire pit for the backyard.  We celebrated all weekend.  Friday was with his parents for Grandpa's soup, per Fred's request.  Saturday, we went bowling with some friends from Fred's work. Sunday, we enjoyed dinner and spice cake with my family.   Finally, we celebrated with our little family on Monday.   We ended up trying a new Mexican restaurant (excellent chips!) and the dollar theatre for "Johnny English Reborn" (fun movie, and clean!).

Tad has been helping around the house.  He washed his truck windows.  :}   

 Helped mommy fold socks.   Whenever I fold laundry he takes the socks and folds one on the top of each of the piles I have on the couch. 

 Then when I do actually fold the socks we use his dump truck to put them away.  I load up one person's socks at a time and he takes them to the correct room and dumps them in front of the dresser.  

 After putting up lights outside and having Tad be ENTIRELY too helpful as we were sorting lights, I wondered about having him at home to put up our tree.   First we picked out our tree.  This is the first time we've gone during the day.  It was warm enough we made it all the way to the back of the lot and found the perfect tree for a good price. 

 Tad ran to help dad carry the tree to the truck. 

 While I put the lights on, Tad was surprisingly good.  He would hand me lights and I'd let him plug in the next set.  A couple of times he'd take a strand of lights and stand on the step stool and call for daddy.  "Daddy, I eed you help with Christmas lights".  (He is talking in pretty clear sentences and we love it!)
Ornaments..... if we would have left them up to Tad would have been tucked away in the inside of the tree. 

I have to say I'm a genius.   We have bell ornaments that I usually only put one or two on.   As I was vacuuming our mess, I bumped one and thought that would be a perfect way to "booby-trap" the tree.   We put the whole set around the bottom branches and about as tall as Tad is so that when he touches the tree, I'll hear the bells.   :}
Unfortunately, I don't trust Tad enough to put presents under the tree, even though we had a talk about if he touches presents "I get in trouble, go time out."   Sad that I love to hear him say this.  :} 

Watch what's on TV!

  What do these pictures have to do with Tad? 
Saturday night at Nannies house, Tad convinced Nannie to let him paint.   Nothing new, he HAD to paint earlier this week when I was painting a craft.   This time though, he lifted his shirt and painted his belly, then his forehead and cheek.  :}   Nannie rushed to put his clothes in the wash after a slight scolding.  Fred's dad laughed pretty hard because he saw fans on tv with painted bellies.
That is the ONLY place we can think of where he would have learned about painted bellies!   I couldn't help laughing when he told me that night "Tad paint belly".   My 2 year old is too smart!   Surprising that he could already figure things out like that.   We are in for some big trouble if he keeps this up!  And we definitely have to start watching what we have on the TV and what we say (no more roadrage..... Tad says "Come on cars" everytime we get in the car now).  :{ 
He's using a lot of sentences.  Our favorite from the weekend was when Fred was teasing him, he said "Don't eat me daddy."  :}   And later when he was hiding, "Where's Tad daddy?"

What to do WITH daddy!

Tad is getting really, really tall, and smart!   And..... helpful.  

 He helped carry the pumpkins inside the house and up the stairs (one day after grocery shopping he carried a gallon of milk from the car to the steps.  Awesome!) 

I asked if he wanted to help draw faces on the pumpkins.   He took it literally and found a pen to start drawing.  :} 

Daddy cut them open and we helped scoop.  Tad helped for about 2 handfuls and a couple of pictures, then he was done. 

He continued to "draw faces" on the pumpkins even after Fred and I had started carving them. 

 Of course he wanted to blow out the candles.  After a few times telling him "no" he's been good about leaving them alone. 

 Then we made carmel apples!   I THINK Fred likes them......   He couldn't let a single bit of carmel stay in the bowl.  :}  

Monday, for Halloween, I ran errands, stopped by a trunk or treat, then went to my parents' house for make-your-own-pizzas.   Tad loves to ring their doorbell before he goes in.  

After pizza, we went to their ward Trunk Or Treat and visited a friend.  Instead of candy, my parents gave him a pig book and some cars that shoot off when you push a button.  Probably the hilight of his Halloween.  The only candy he really likes is M&M's and now pop rocks.  :}  He was NOT a fan of a Hot Tamale we tricked him into eating.   

When Daddy got home (He switched jobs within his company--- FINALLY! and started training on Halloween, which meant he was home earlier!) we took Tad around part of our neighborhood.  He loved it.  I'm not sure if it was because he got to ring doorbells, or because they gave him attention.   He'd set his bucket down to ring the doorbell, we had to remind him to pick it up, then he was good about saying "Trick or treat" and "Thank you" (unless there was a dog, then that's where all his attention was).  He'd turn to where I was at the end of the driveway and yell "Mom, I got trick or treat!"  :}  

He got more candy than any 2 year old should have!   Luckily, he doesn't like the same kinds that Fred & I like! 

My new hobbies

So, a few new hobbies for us!   

I've learned how to needlepoint / applique quilt.  This was my first attempt! 

We've spent some time enjoying the fall covered mountains (dreading the freezing cold). 

We evidently have a new hobby of visiting Instacare.   Not to get my stitches out, nope, we took those out ourselves.  This time (13 days after my stitches) we visited the Logan Instacare for Fred to get some stitches!   We were up visiting my sister and helping put a new door in.  She was weed whacking her yard and flipped a rock at her glass door.   You might say bad luck runs in the family.  :{   He slipped with a chisel and off we went to Instacare.   It was a very pleasant experience though.  :}   35 mins in and out!   We still made it perfectly to enjoy the Pumpkin Walk which was our main reason for being up that way.  

And my final hobby of the month....... Hanging out in the bathroom!    But, we are up to successfully peeing in the potty at least 2 times a day.   Not on his own, but I'll take 2 less diapers any day!  

This morning "Dolly" was using the potty too.  After Tad went he had to show Dolly.  :} 

Come on, that's funny!  

Mini Fred

I realized the other day just how much Tad looks like Fred when I saw this picture.  

I showed it to Fred and he said "When did you take that picture of Tad?"  The little boy in the blue shirt and tie is Fred at about 3 or 4 years old.  Such a mini Fred - in more ways than one! 

September - month of the State Fair (& camping)

We took Tad camping for his first time in the camper over Labor Day weekend.  Whenever we're working on it he loves to climb the ladder up to the top bed.  He was more than happy to climb in and out all evening (without any accidents!). 

We cooked stew for dinner and tried to get Tad to roast marshmellows.  He didn't want anything but the chocolate!  For some reason, he kept crying during the night.  I got up a couple of times to make sure he was covered.  Finally, I put him in bed with Fred & I.  He slept, we didn't, he's a bit of a bed hog!  The next morning he was ready to play again.   Fred took him down by the river to throw rocks in while I sat peacefully by the fire and read my book!  We had planned to go tubing in the river, but it was too cold and windy.   

 The weekend before Labor Day the State fair starts, at least for those of us working!   I LOVE the State Fair, it's work, but I get to spend time with Lauralee, I get to compulsively organize,I get out of the house for a few weeks, and do a little playing.  And this year, I got a private quilting lesson!  (I was shocked at how much I enjoyed it.  Hopefully I'll have my first one to show you before the end of the year.) 
A day of set up, a day of entering exhibits, a very long day of judging exhibits (we were short judges and didn't have ribbons so we had to do double work).  After Labor Day weekend we have 2 1/2 days of setting up exhibits.  Then my reward for working- 3 days of rodeo and showing Tad the animals! 

He'll willingly pet them this year!

Farmland with Crystal

Of course the Butter Cow Sculpture!

Rodeo with Tad and.... Tad!
He was pretty confused for a little while as we tried to explain that both of their names were Tad. 

 



We got to hold the baby pigs this year. 

Tad was distracted by every tractor or trailer that he could climb on.  Oh, and he got his own cowboy hat so he'll leave daddy's alone! (This was another moment of confusion for him when he saw both he and dad had a hat.  He was looking at both trying to understand.  I love this 2 year old stage of figuring things out.)

We tried signing him up to Mutton Bust (ride the sheep during the rodeo- for you city slickers).  I'm guessing he wasn't picked because of his age.  When they weighed in to register, the 4 year old before him weighed 39 lbs.  Tad weighs 38 lbs at 2!  The only requirement to sign up is they had to weigh under 50 lbs.  He might not make it for next year!  (We're guessing he'll stop gaining weight and just get taller actually.)    

Grandpa and Fred were cheering at the rodeo.  Tad joined in.  Fred cups his mouth to yell, this is Tad's version.  :} 

After 3 days of fun it was back to work.  Ending with an evening at the hypnotist with my sisters.  When everyone else is done having their fun, we come in one last day and spent only 4 hours taking it all down. 

Tad had fun staying with Grandma and Grandpa.  He now requests often "Grandma, Grandpa house".  He's learned to say the last word of each page while reading books with Grandma. And, thankfully, Grandma worked on potty training.  He'll go for her, but when I try, he still won't.  Grandpa spoiled him by blowing bubbles on the front porch with him every day. 

This kid has become pretty fun lately.   He learns things so fast!   Like how to steal the beaters while I'm making a salad and lick them clean.    

And he can almost do up all of the buckles on his carseat.  Lucky Dolly, gets to go for a ride! 

My favorite is after Dolly is securely in the seat he says "Here go Dolly." 

Unfortunately, he's finally started saying "No" more often.  I'm grateful it's not a firm, defiant "NO".  It's a "No mom, No nap." :}  Sometimes when I ask if he wants a nap he says "Stop it, No, Shhhh."  But once he lays down, he always takes his naps without a fuss.