Calvin at 8 Months

Calvin you are now 8 months old.  You chose this month to do some pretty amazing things.  You are really able to crawl now.  You chase Daisy, your sister and your mom around the house on all fours.  Standing up is your new thing, you love to pull yourself up on anything available.  While you are really good at standing up, you are not very good at getting back down.  You have not yet learned the art of the graceful landing, so currently you either cry for your mom or I to put you on the ground, or you plop down very abruptly, which does not make you very happy.

Speaking of happy, you are happiest when you are with your mom.  She touches your nose and you smile and giggle.  It is really cute.  You are second happiest when you are eating.  Little man, you can really pack away the food.  We call you the bottomless pit.  Your meals generally contain the following, 20 or 30 rice puffs, that you eat while we are getting your meal ready.  A packet of what we lovingly call space food, which is a foil packet containing baby food.  Your current favorite is the salmon, which oddly enough is our least favorite because it smells like salmon.  We then cut up some fruit/vegetables for you, which you scarf down and finally you wash it all down with a couple of ounces of formula.  You are not a big fan of the bottle/formula combination, so it is a bit of a battle to get you to drink the formula.

Are you going to eat that?

You still are not sleeping through the night, usually you wake up at 2 AM and 5 AM for a night cap.  We are still waiting for some little teeth to appear, but the lack of teeth has not slowed down your food consumption.  Mom and I keep expecting them to appear any day.
Maria and you give us little hints at what the future will be like.  Maria likes to play with you, but does not like you to play with her things.  She will wrestle with you and poke you. You tend to retaliate by pinching her or pulling her hair, smiling the whole time.
We took our first family vacation this month.  We drove up to Dallas and stayed at Great Wolf Lodge, an indoor water park.  Your sister loved it and you tolerated it, and aside from the post vacation cold that you both got, the vacation was a success.

Indoor water park!

As for the day of your eighth month birthday, we didn't do much that was interesting.  The highlight of the day was mom making lemon poppy seed muffins. We are excited to celebrate your 9 month birthday, or as I call it "Longer out than in day".

Windows 8 So Easy a Toddler Can Use It

Last year at the Microsoft Build conference I got a tablet with Windows 8 pre-beta on it.  I was initially unimpressed, but two weeks ago I put the release version on the tablet and my opinion has changed.  Maria loves it, she uses it to paint pictures.  We love the fact that she gets to finger paint without making a mess.  Most of her pictures trend toward Jackson Pollock, but her pictures are fun to look at.  Here is a video of my 21st century digital girl.

Here is an example of our little artists work

Calvin at 7 months

Calvin turned 7 months old today, and he gave us an exciting present.  He can now crawl.  To be honest it is more of a protocrawl/low crawl given that he keeps his belly on the ground.  Earlier in the month Amelia and I were taking bets as to whether or not Calvin would crawl or walk first because he didn't seem to be very interested in moving himself around, so imagine our delight when he started sliding himself around on the hard wood floors.  The original motion was all arms, but he is now using his legs to move around a little faster and we wouldn't be shocked if he is crawling with his belly off the ground by the end of the week.

Aside from crawling, Cal is still not sleeping through the night, but generally he only wakes up once a night.  He often wakes up in the morning and plays with his toys for a while.  He coos a happy song and plays with the "Hungry Friends" book or his first preferred wubi, a longhorn with a pacifier attached. 

Cal is an eating machine.  Amelia has taken to making his meals, so he gets amazing concoctions like peas with corn, pears and spinach.  Amelia commented today that he is our all natural child.  He arrived with no epidural (unintentionally), he doesn't get/like formula and he prefers his mom's creations to store bought food.  He is our little organic granola/hippie child.

For his birthday we had our usual Sunday breakfast of Rudy's breakfast tacos.  We went to home depot and bought some mint to replace the potted plants that did not make it through the hundred degree days in August.  Later in the day we went swimming and he spent most of his time in the pool flirting with the life guard.  He would grin, slap the water and hit her with his blue lasers.  She would smile back and the cycle would start all over. 

All good things must come to an end

Today was a jam packed day for the Tylers.  We started the day off with breakfast tacos from Rudy's.  Amelia and Maria went to Locomotion, a local jumpy gym. Cal and I stayed home and watched the USA Men's basketball team win gold.  Both kids took a long nap simultaneously, which is unheard of in our home.  For dinner we went to Hyde Park Bar and Grill, where for the first time we put Cal in a high chair, which he took to immediately.  For dessert we had some ice cream at Amy's.  I like Amelia's homemade ice cream the best, but Amy's will do in a pinch.  When we got home, the closing ceremony for the London Olympics was on TV.   Maria loved the music and spent much of the telecast showing off her elite dance moves.

Slip Sliding Away

Today, Maria and I went out on our usual Tuesday Daddy daughter night.  We went to Costco to get a couple of things and then had dinner at Firehouse subs.  Kids eat free on Tuesdays and kids get a little fireman's hat.  Maria had a blast wearing her fireman's hat and best of all she got to eat some Oreo cookies that came with her kid's meal.  After dinner, we went to Maria's favorite playground and she did something that is very unusual.  Maria is best described as an incredibly cautious child, she doesn't like slides.  She refuses to go down them.  At the playground she ran into another little girl who not only would ride the slide, but would ride backwards screaming with glee the entire time.  I can't say for sure that it was peer pressure, but Maria decided that she likes riding down slides and climbing back up the slide. 

Calvin future Olympian

The Olympic Opening ceremonies were today. How better to celebrate the best athletes in the world coming together, than to sit on the couch eating pizza.  The opening ceremony got various reviews from the Tyler's, Amelia did not much care for them. I (Chris) thought they were as culturally relevant as the  Beijing ceremonies.  Whereas the Chinese made the statement "We are up and coming", the Brits said that "We are responsible for culture".  I did think that Danny Boyle should have gone with John Cleese over Rowan Atkinson as the comedy relief.

 The only Tyler that got any exercise tonight was Cal who happily bounced with wild abandon in his exersaucer.

Calvin at 6 months

Calvin is half a year old today. He went to the doctor and is 50% in height, weight and head size, which we like to refer to as perfectly average. As a parting gift the doctor gave him 3 shots and he handled them like a champ. Although later on in the day it got real emotional in the Tyler household as both Maria and Cal fought taking a nap.

Cal has begun to eat solids, his favorite is peas with carrots and corn, but he has tried squash, zucchini, peaches and sweet potatoes. He is truly a Tyler in that he can always eat. This month he has begun to verbalize and regularly seems to want to talk to us.  Cal has moved to the bathtub for his bath and still finds anything Maria does hilarious.

Happy half year birthday, little man!