The Johnston Family: February 2012

Dear My Ty,

My next post, in less than a month, your going to be one. This is blowing my mind! I love watching you be you everyday. You're so funny. You have the greatest scrunchy face smile that I wouldn't change for anything! I love that you stop and dance when you get excited. Who needs music?! I was rocking you to sleep for your nap today and I had to force myself to lay you down. I could totally lose myself in snuggling with you and you were fresh out of the bath so you smelled so good on top of that. I love to lay my head on yours and just breath you in. You are the sweetest!!!

Here you are at 10 and 11 months (sorry I'm such a slacker... we moved in between and I haven't quite gotten it together since then).

Sleeping: FINALLY!!!! Yes, you are finally sleeping more like a normal person! You start to meltdown between 7 and 8 and once the meltdown starts there's usually no going back. You're ready for bed. We try to keep you up until 8. Sometimes we can hold out. Sometimes we can't.

You are still napping in the morning around 9:30 until 10:30ish. Your best naps is still at 2. God put you and your brother on the same afternoon napping schedule. He knows I'm fragile and need a break midday. You guys usually sleep close to 2 hours at that nap.

Eating: Let's see. You LOVE sweet stuff. No surprise there. The docotor said you can have regular food at your 9 month appointment. I give you tastes of lots of things but your main source of food is still formula and baby food. You love most fruit combinations, yogurt, and strangely you will almost always eat apples and chicken. That's not apples in one container and chicken in another. That's apples and chicken all mixed together. Weirdo! Other than that I can rarely get you to eat anything with meat. Just one of many reasons, including the fact that they ripped you out of my stomach, that I'm pretty sure you're mine. I'm afraid you're going to be a really picky eater. I keep giving you bites of "real" food but the only ones you seem interested in are sweets and cereal.

Ty's first cookie at Meijer (before)

(during)

(after)

Ty eating the wrapper of Case's fruit snacks doesn't really
support my theory about him being picky does it?

Toys: You pretty much love WHATEVER happens to be in your brothers hands. I sometimes let Case play at the Kitchen table because it is the only way for him to avoid a "Ty Attack". Case will try to hand you another toy to distract you somtimes but more than likely he will just push you down to get you away. So we are going to have our work cut out for us when it comes to parenting you two. Just wait until you are old enough for time-out. I'm pretty sure you are going to end up spending the better part of the day in the corner until you get it figured out.

You like to bury your face in stuffed animals, which is super cute!

You love balls too! This makes Grandpa VERY happy. You like to play "catch", which consists of you walking over and handing us the ball and then taking it back. You also like to play fetch with yourself. You throw it and you chase it. It's the perfect game for the younger brother with an exhausted mommy.

You seem to have the same obessession about the vaccuum and the broom that your brother had/has. Yours seems to have a lot to do with things that are tall but you can put your hand around. You've been pretty dangerous with curtain rods and yardsticks that you've gotten a hold of but prying them out of your hand is next to impossible and ALWAYS ends in a tantrum!

You also canNOT wait to get your hand on anyone's phone or computer, which will probably be the source of many fights between you and your brother in the years to come.

Clothes: You are wearing a range of clothes. I'm buying 18 months but you can usually still wear 12 months. I think you even have a 24m shirt that you wear. Your jammies are all 18 months. Your diapers are size 4. I'm not sure what your shoe size is but I'm guessing it is about 4.5 or 5. Lucky for you Andrew passed some shoes down to you so you are no longer walking around in socks ALL the time but probably still most of the time! (Thanks Andrew!)

New Things: You have started to love books. You like to look at them yourself, which is what you are doing at this very moment, and with us. You're learning to turn the pages and you get the biggest smile when you see pages you like. I love that you and your brother are such great fans of books. Clearly that came from Daddy's side, sadly Mommy's always been more of a movies/Cliff Notes girl. I wonder if Cliff Notes still exist. Hmmm... your mom is WAY old! I'm guessing we're living in more of a "find me online and pay me to write your paper" world now... boy that would have been easier than Cliff Notes. Don't listen to your Mom! She didn't make good choices growing up and now when smart people talk about books like The Great Gatsby and Where the Red Fern Grows, that I may or may not have skimmed growing up, my eyes sort of glaze over and I all I can add is a smile and a nod. Be smart Ty... keep reading!

Tubes... in your ears. That's right you have these pretty baby blue tubes in your ears now. You had ear infection after ear infection and that landed you in a surgery center getting gas, which you probably didn't even appreciate the fun of, and getting tubes in your ears. You didn't wake up from that gas very well. In fact you were flat out MAD! You pretty much screamed until we finally got you to sleep for the morning. The people in recovery kept telling us that usually the babies stop crying as soon as they leave. HA! Now I know why they said that. I can assure them that is a lie but I fell for it and they got their wish... screaming baby out of recovery. Everyone kept telling me you'd be a whole new kid immediately. I hate to tell you this but you had turned into a pretty big whiner but rightfully so. This immediate change was masked by your puking off and on with the stomach flu for the whole week after the tubes were placed. I'm happy to report that you are now back to your happy self again.

You are starting to mimick us constantly. The doctor said your speech would take off after you got tubes. He was right (I'm glad he was more honest than those recovery nurses). You are always making noise and "talking". I never know what truly counts as your first word but I think the first word you've seemed to say fairly discriminately and consistantly is "done". I could be way off but there's no one else out there documenting this so we're going with it!

You wave now and you are the CUTEST! I feel like you are doing all of this faster than your brother did but I think in reality it is just that he keeps me distracted and everytime I turn around you're doing something new. You also clap a lot especially every time we say "good job".

Here's a look at you at 10 and 11 months...