Tyler and Daphne's Blog

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Bridge Pedal

Click on photo to get to the album. Michael and I have enjoyed participating in Portland's annual Bridge Pedal in past years and were excited to take Tyler on his first Bridge Pedal today. We did the 5-bridge family ride (11.5 miles). It is a rare opportunity to bike without traffic and on some bridges that don't normally allow bike traffic (I-5 and I-405). Michael pulled Tyler in the trailer the entire ride, which can be quite a challenge on the inclines up to the top of some of the bridges. Tyler took about a 30-minute nap during the first part of the ride, but seemed to enjoy the rest of the ride. We have been using a pillow in the trailer to make him more comfortable because he is still a little too short for his head and helmet to be up high enough to reach the helmet "pocket".

Dancing

Tyler loves to dance and it always makes us smile! When we recently turned Tyler's car seat around to face forward, we removed the mirror from the car that helped us check up on Tyler when he was rear facing. The mirror also plays kiddie music when activated by a remote you can attach to the driver's visor. We never used the music (why listen to kiddie music when you can play the radio?), but when we brought the mirror and remote inside Tyler wanted to play with them. Now he loves to use the remote and dance to the music. It's like a brand new toy!

Friday, August 6, 2010

Adventures in Eating

Tyler has enthusiastically been wielding a spoon for a few days now! I have been taking advantage of the novelty by cutting stuff up into bite size bits (e.g. enchilada casserole) and putting it in the bowl. He is much more likely to eat it!

This morning I put Tyler's yogurt in a bowl and let him have at it. He got it everywhere... and even managed to get some in his mouth!

Look Mom- no hands!

Eating while falling asleep! Tyler has slowly been transitioning to 1 nap a day. He only gets 1 nap a day at daycare but often takes 2 naps for us. The key to a long nap when it's only once a day is to make sure Tyler eats lunch first. Tyler was pretty tired today when we got home from storytime at the library. I got him started with a piece of cheese while I started getting his lunch together. However, Tyler was too tired for lunch! He ate some of his cheese while falling asleep and then conked out. Then of course he took a much shorter nap than he needed because he was hungry!

When Tyler did finally eat lunch, he decided it might be easier to eat his cottage cheese directly out of the bowl instead of with his spoon. Tyler quickly went back to the spoon though.

This afternoon I bought a bowl with a suction cup on the bottom that promises "less mess" for toddlers. Yeah right! At dinner Tyler grabbed at the bowl for quite a while trying to pick it up. It probably didn't help that he wasn't wild about the pasta salad in it. Eventually he pulled the bowl loose, dumped the pasta salad out, and tossed the bowl on the floor.

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Summer Reading

Tyler finished his summer reading requirements and earned a t-shirt from the library. I tried to get a good photo of him in his shirt before dinner but he was too busy playing. Essentially we just read about 15 minutes a day to work up to the t-shirt. Tyler loves reading these days so it was pretty easy to get lots of minutes in!

Tyler is currently fixated on his shapes book that has big foam pages with four shapes (square, circle, rectangle, and oval) that you take out of the book and then try to match back up in the book. He wants to take the shapes in and out over and over again. Tyler doesn't quite have the finger dexterity to get the shapes out on his own or press them all the way back in so he needs our help and is not shy about asking.