Whoa

I took Tate in for his 15-month well baby appointment several weeks ago and he weighed in at 19.5lbs. As we did with his sister before him we decided that was close enough and today we finally turned his carseat around. He sat back there saying "whoa" for several minutes and made a bunch of cute confused faces...

Vroom Vroom

Tate's pretty cute when he pushes cars around the floor.

Baby Tate Loves To Walk

The Toddler Diet

It seems like each of the other kids freaked me out when they transitioned from the baby who never stops eating to the toddler who never seems to want to eat. Tate has just started doing this. Yesterday for lunch he had crackers and juice and that was it. Then for dinner he had a few green beans and some milk. Today for lunch? Cheese puffs and juice.

Thank heaven he's my third, instead of freaking out about his loss of appetite I can rest easy knowing that he isn't going to starve himself if I keep trying to feed him, and that it really isn't the end of the world if he doesn't want to eat now. But him being in this phase reminded me of a funny thing that I first heard in Seminary when I was a sophmore, and at the time I had no idea how true it was. For those of you who haven't seen it here is the funniest diet ever...

The Miracle Toddler Diet

People are always on the lookout for a new diet. The trouble with most diets is that you don't get enough to eat (the starvation diet), you don't get enough variation (the liquid diet) or you go broke (the all-meat diet). Consequently, people tend to cheat on their diets, or quit after 3 days.

Well, now there's the new Toddler Miracle Diet.

Over the years you may have noticed that most two year olds are trim. Now the formula to their success is available to all in this new diet. You may want to consult your doctor before embarking on this diet, otherwise, you may be seeing him afterwards. Good Luck !!!

DAY ONE

Breakfast: One scrambled egg, one piece of toast with grape jelly. Eat two bites of egg, using your fingers; dump the rest on the floor. Take one bite of toast, then smear the jelly over your face and clothes.

Lunch: Four crayons (any color), a handful of potato chips, and a glass of milk (three sips only, then spill the rest).

Dinner: A dry stick, two pennies and a nickel, four sips of flat Sprite.

Bedtime snack: Throw a piece of toast on the kitchen floor.

DAY TWO

Breakfast: Pick up stale toast from kitchen floor and eat it. Drink half bottle of vanilla extract or one vial of vegetable dye.

Lunch: Half tube of "Pulsating Pink" lipstick and a handful of Purina DogChow (any flavor). One ice cube, if desired.

Afternoon snack: Lick an all-day sucker until sticky, take outside, drop in dirt. Retrieve and continue slurping until it is clean again. Then bring inside and drop on rug.

Dinner: A rock or an uncooked bean, which should be thrust up your left nostril. Pour Grape Kool-Aid over mashed potatoes; eat with spoon.

DAY THREE

Breakfast: Two pancakes with plenty of syrup, eat one with fingers, rub in hair. Glass of milk; drink half, stuff other pancake in glass. After breakfast, pick up yesterday's sucker from rug, lick off fuzz, put it on the cushion of best chair.

Lunch: Three matches, peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Spit several bites onto the floor. Pour glass of milk on table and slurp up.

Dinner: Dish of ice cream, handful of potato chips, some red punch. Try to laugh some punch through your nose, if possible.

FINAL DAY

Breakfast: A quarter tube of toothpaste (any flavor), bit of soap, an olive. Pour a glass of milk over bowl of cornflakes, add half a cup of sugar. Once cereal is soggy, drink milk and feed cereal to dog.

Lunch: Eat bread crumbs off kitchen floor and dining room carpet. Find that sucker and finish eating it.

Dinner: Drop pieces of spaghetti onto back of dog, insert meatball into ear. Dump pudding into Kool-Aid and suck up with a straw.

REPEAT DAYS AS NEEDED!

I Want You

Tate has started pointing at things he wants now. He wants you to hold him? Pointing. He wants that bottle up there? He points. He wants you to carry him to the left? He points the way. It's cute to watch him with his little finger out as you play the "Is this what you're pointing at?" game.

I'll Cry If I Want To

A Tale of Two Farmhouses

As you may remember from Tate's birthday pictures Jared and I got him the Little People farm house for his birthday. The poor kid was sooo tired that he was in bed by the time we got batteries in it. It was pretty cute and made a lot of noises. Except a cow, which seemed sort of retarded to me...being that it was a farm and all. After confirming with the back of the box that it was indeed supposed to make cow noise I took out a few screws from the bottom to see if I could tell why it wasn't working. I think I was just looking for something to do that didn't involve laundry.

I fussed with it and Jared looked at it and we finally figured out that if you put your entire body weight on the stupid plastic gate when you opened it, it would moo. Well that's not going to cut it. We threw all the pieces it came with it back in the box, along with a handful of the miserable plastic twistie things just for good measure, and took it back to WalMart. They only had one on the shelf and it had obviously been tampered with and returned. We should have known better but we're optimists, and they didn't have the toy I wanted instead, so I picked up another farm at another WalMart and brought it home. This time I opened it from the bottom and stuck some batteries in, same problem. Seems the Fisher Price people have some beef with making cow noise...hahahha I just caught that myself.

Anywho, we bulldozed the farm to make way for this...

and Tate loves it!

A Year in Review...

Good Gummings

Tate is fascinated with the remote control for our TV. If you aren't careful to put it well out of reach, he will eventually find it, and eat it. And watch out, he climbs on sofas. We were watching Emeril on Food Network earlier today (not sure why, we never watch Emeril) when all of a sudden things started changing. We started looking for Tate, underneath the table and going to town on the DVR remote. The screen tells us that it is updating timer events for the DVR. Tate set our DVR to record every new episode of Good Eats. He's so smart, and such good taste in programming, too.

A Haircut? He Doesn't Need a Haircut

Before:

After: