Learning Daddy's tricks

New vocab word included in this post: Gar Gar = (n.) one of Ty's favorite new made-up words.

Saturday morning Ty decided that 5am was a great time to wake up for the day. Jeff and I quickly brought him down to our bed with hopes that the lingering darkness outside would encourage him to go back to sleep.

Although Ty laid down, he wouldn't stop talking. We told him over and over again that it was time to sleep. I think he could tell that we were getting a little annoyed because he decided to pull out one of his Daddy's tricks--when you're about to get in trouble, try to make your parents laugh. After another admonishment from us that it was way too early to get up, Ty put his face about 1 inch from mine and said "How do you spell Gar Gar?"

A fisherman's dream

Here's what happens when you give a toddler a new fishing pole the same day that you're working on potty training:

Our own Kentucky Derby (with Big Brown in his underwear)

His favorite things, Part 2

One of my first posts on this blog was about Ty's favorites. Although I could give you a few updates (his favorite number is still 6, favorite color is brown--although it was green yesterday, and favorite letter is T), the purpose of this post is a little different.

I'm posting to tell you about a new habit Ty's developed: Whenever you give him a choice, he picks what he wants by saying "(insert choice) is my favorite."

Here's an example:
Me: "Tyler, do you want a cheese stick or applesauce."
Ty: "Cheese sticks are my favorite."

The nice part is that he frequently says the opposite when he doesn't like something. Instead of saying "I don't like that" or "Ewww, that's yucky," he simply says "That's not my favorite."

If he keeps this up, it may come in handy later in life. I can just see his wife asking him if he likes the dress that she's wearing and him responding "It's not my favorite." It probably will work better than "Eww, that's yucky."

The next American Idol

On Monday morning, I was driving Ty to school with the radio on. All of a sudden, I heard him mumbling something in the back...saywhatyaneedtosay, saywhatyaneedtosay. Our little boy was singing along to the radio for the first time to John Mayer's "Say What You Need to Say." Guess it's time to make sure we're paying attention to what comes on the radio--there are quite a few songs that I wouldn't want to hear in his sweet little voice.

Christening of the kayak in the waters next to JFK

As I mentioned a few posts back, Spring has begun to show its face every once in a while here in NY. Since it was a balmy 70 degrees and sunny yesterday, we decided to take our new kayak on its first trip. In an effort to make it a fairly short, but interesting trip (since we weren't sure how Ty would react to sitting still for an extended period of time), we ventured to Jamaica Bay, which is right next to JFK airport. Basically, you can look in one direction and watch the planes take off and look the other direction and see the Empire State Building...an interesting "nature" experience. Interestingly enough, the Bay is well known for having 200 species of birds and excellent fishing.

Although we'll probably go east on the island next time we go, we had a great time. Ty loved having a picnic on the water and had fun turning the reel on Jeff's fishing pole. He was thrilled everytime they caught some seaweed. He stayed seated and loved his new "special" jacket (aka life preserver). Below are a couple of pictures from our trip (if you expand the picture and look closely, you can see the subway train and JFK in the background).

Advice from a toddler

Tonight I showed Ty a band-aid that I had on a small cut on my arm. He looked at me sweetly and said, "Aww, Mommy, you have to be careful."