A few little stories

So, nothing major has happened over the past couple weeks – not that eating at the Waffle House was anything major, but at least it made for a good story. Consequently, here are just a few quick stories of things that have happened recently.

We went to the Ordnance Museum at my work a couple Saturdays ago. If you’ve ever watched a History Channel documentary about a war and they showed the types of guns, rifles, or cannons used during that war then you’ve probably seen the stuff they have in the museum. The museum is actually getting ready to move to Virginia as part of the BRAC moves, so we wanted to make sure we got in to see it before it left. It was really interesting for me and Thesha, but for Tyler it was just a new place to run around. With all the cold weather, this was probably only the second or third time since we’ve moved here that he was able to get out and run around. There was one area of the museum where they had put up a clear plastic wall to keep kids out or something. Tyler was running around and slammed right into the clear plastic. It was hilarious. I tried to snap a quick picture with him flat on his back wondering what the heck had just happened, but this was the soonest I could get the shot off. If you look close maybe you can see his face print on the plastic.

No need to fear, after a slight whimper he was up and running around again. Unfortunately the clear plastic wasn’t the only inanimate object that assaulted him there. When he was running around outside he stumbled into a big rock. He wasn’t going to take that one lying down, however, so he started to yell at the rock and told it “Na, na” (Tyler for No, no).

Yes, Tyler is learning all kinds of new words and noises. The other day I was walking out to the car to head out to work and noticed I had a flat tire. Thesha and Tyler came out on to the balcony to ask if everything was ok and when I yelled up to them that I had a flat tire, Tyler’s immediate response was “Uh ooohhhh.” It’s one thing to say stuff like that, but when he uses it in the exact right context it just makes me laugh.

Another sound Tyler likes to make lately is his version of what a cat says. One of the gifts we got at the baby shower was a saucer that had a bunch of activities on it. One of the activities is a button with a Cat’s face on it and when you push it, it says “Cat, Gato, Meow.” I don’t know if that’s where he learned it, but the other day there was an episode of Super Why (PBS show for kids) on TV and they had to save the cats. Tyler was staring up at the screen and kept making a “meow” sound except it sounds more like a wolf howling than it does a cat. I tried to get a good howling video, but this is as good as I could get.

This is so cute when he really makes the meow sound. When the meow turns in to a howl, however, it’s freakin hilarious. The best, though, was when we were riding in the car the other day and the song Zombie from The Cranberries came on the radio and he just started howling away. Ok, so I can accept the idea that maybe The Cranberries wouldn’t make it on American Idol, but howling, really?

Tyler is also now officially in the nursery at church. We were kind of worried that he would have a hard time making the adjustment, but he only had a short time of uneasiness at first and then he settled right in. In fact, I’m pretty sure I was more on edge about him being in there then he was about being in nursery. For a year and a half I had said I couldn’t wait until he went in to the nursery so I could actually get something out of church again. As it turns out the only thing I did for two hours was wonder if everything was ok. That only lasted a little while, though, because now he seems to think that half way through the Sunday School lesson is the perfect time to poop. Yes, the feeling of “I can’t wait until he’s in the nursery” was only one stinky diaper away from coming back.

In non-Tyler related news, we celebrated Thesha’s 31st birthday today – actually a day early, but today worked out better for going out to dinner. I caught about 2 minutes of a morning talk show that came on after Tyler’s shows and it had Jessica Simpson talking about turning 30 and she said she was actually happy because now she was a young 30-something instead of an old 20-something. It’s pretty bad when you’re relying on the logic of Jessica Simpson to rationalize why it’s ok to get another year older, but I figure if she can figure it out then there’s no reason why we can’t feel good about being in our young 30’s. Plus everyone in our branch thought Thesha was in her mid 20’s, so she’s got nothing to worry about. Happy Birthday, Thesha!

Lastly, this should be the last blog post that we’ll have while we still have a house in Roy. We FINALLY sold our house and we’re scheduled to close on Thursday. Things didn’t exactly work out the way we would have hoped, but at least it’s finally going to be a done deal. Now if we could only find a 2,000 square foot, 3 bedroom, 2 bath house in Maryland for less than $300,000 we’d be set. Oh well, I guess we’ll just enjoy the razor thin walls of our “luxury” apartment for now.