The West Side Story: Tucker Dean

Tucker Dean,

Let me tell you a story about the adventures of showering with a toddler and a newly crawling baby:
Mom puts both kids in toddler's room to play while showering in connected bathroom. Toddler and baby try to craw under the crib. Toddler gets stuck and cries. So Mom takes crib front off. Mom tries to get in shower again when she notices baby crawling toward space heater so she moves that to the next room. Tries showering again only to hear baby choking. Runs to baby who found random sliver of a wood chip in toddler's room to eat. Mom gets wood chip out of Baby's throat then does a complete room search to make sure there are no more choking hazards. Like the popcorn kernels toddler hid under his bed....Mom is finally able to take the quickest shower of her life only to get out and hear Toddler yelling, "NOOOO baby!!!!!' Then baby crying. Baby was crawling toward a toy Toddler wanted and Toddler ripped it from Baby's hands....shower accomplished. Stress level elevated.

whew....That, my dear child, was a true life event that happened this month! Since you started crawling you are all over the place and zooming around stealing Trenton's toys. Most of the time he is really good and sharing with you though. But Mommy really needs to figure out a better showering system......

Some other new things this month:
-You love the grass and pulling grass out of the ground to eat. Extra fiber right??
-You barely started at the end of this month to pull up on your knees and take a few "steps" on your knees :) You are also starting to try and pull yourself up to a standing position!
-It is so funny because you squawk and squeel like you have really bad asthma. When you laugh it's not really laughing; just a bunch of smiley gasps like you have smoker's lungs or something. I love your goofy little laugh. All the boys really think you have asthma. Don't worry, you do not :)
-Another thing you have started to do is to growl. You will just be sitting there and all the sudden start growling and keep going. It is so funny! You love to growl at the puppy the most (don't worry, we will get to this later!)
-You love to play with your brother's cars and can even roll them back and forth! Daddy and I were pretty impressed when we saw you using cars the correct way. Another one of your favorite toys is the gumball machine. You are so good at putting the balls in the machine and pressing the button!
-Throwing has becme a new favorite pastime...much to our dismay. Of course you think it's the funniest thing in the world to throw something out of the stroller and watch Mommy and Daddy play fetch....!
-We had to finally put the baby gate up around the stairs because Trenton taught you how to climb the stairs. Luckily you have only figured out how to stand up on the stairs and not actually crawl up them. You (aka we) are not ready for you to start climbing stairs!
-Even though you sleep from about 8:30pm-12:30am with only an occasional wake up, I am noticing that you wake up more when you roll over and hit your head on the railing. All this time you had just a mesh bumper up in your crib but I decided to try the soft bumper Trenton had to see if it helps your head. Well, I am glad to report tha tit has helped you be able to fall back asleep yourself sometimes! I know, I know, you aren't supposed to have soft bumpers in the crib...causes suffocation,,,blah blah blah.....it works for us though and that is all that matters.

A big and exciting news of this month is we got a puppy!!! At first you were absolutely terrified and would cry from pure fear everytime a dog would come near you. But now that we have had our puppy for a few days, you are warming up to him! His name is Roosevelt and he is an 8 week old labradoodle. He is just so cute! One of the main things we are working on with him (besides potty training) is not biting. Especially you and Trenton. He and Trenton love chasing each other around the yard already though :) You have even started crawling after him and petting him! I mean, tonight you even tried to bite him. Silly baby :)