So much has happened I had to put it down on paper before my head explodes from trying to remember all this stuff. Tyler began giving real hugs. He's been dishing out the motion of hugs for a while, but now he puts a big umph into in and squeezes tight. It is the sweetest thing and I just can't get enough of it. Luckily, he doesn't get tired of giving them away. He can be across the room focusing intently on pulling two legos apart and sticking them back together, and all I have to do is ask for a hug. He'll look up, drop everything, get up and come running over to squeeze so tight. He's also begun speaking in long sentences. Long ones that don't contain many words I can understand. When we leave in the mornings, he says "Bye bye, dada. Dada, bye bye. Bye bye, dada. Dada, bye bye." That we understand. It's a little redundant but at least we know what he's saying.

We moved his crib out of the bedroom and he falls asleep on his mattress. This isn't working the way we planned because he still ends up in our bed by midnight. But he is getting better at falling asleep without getting up to play in his bedroom. We may move to plan Z (having already tried A-Y): Put the crib back up and let him cry it out all night. Nothing seems to help those nasty eye teeth. Although, he recently discovered biting my fingers feels good so now he constantly tries to grab a hold of my hand or arm and slowly brings it up to his mouth watching me to make sure I don't know what he's going to do. I think he moves slowly because his brain is telling him this is not okay to do and he's waiting for my reaction. Hopefully it's not because he thinks I won't notice if he moves slowly enough. He can't start thinking like that. I am terrified he is going to do this to one of his classmates at school and warned his teacher to keep an extra eye on him. She said so far he's been so occupied keeping his own fingers in his mouth, he hasn't gone for anyone else's. He got bit by Alana last week at school and Shawn is convinced that is why he's so interested in biting now. I'm pretty sure the two have less to do with each other and more to do with the age they are at and the teething they are going through.

He climbs out of his playpen. While we distraught parents were desperately trying to get him down for an overdue nap over the weekend, we finally resorted to putting him in the playpen and shutting his bedroom door while we left to try cooling down. Next thing we know, he comes running down the hall. This was shocking to all of us, Tyler included. We're not sure how he did this but haven't tried putting him back in it yet for fear of him breaking something as he falls out. He's been swimming a lot. Doesn't seem to mind getting his face under water one bit. We're a bit confused about his lack of a kicking instinct while under water. If he goes under, so far he just lets himself sink until we get him out of the water. I thought everyone kicked and instinctively fought to keep their head above water. I guess we'll learn more about this in another couple weeks when he starts swimming lessons. Hopefully we won't discover we've been doing everything wrong up until now.

We accidentally discovered he knows how to drink out of a straw. We went out to dinner at Strings to celebrate the onset of my contractions (Strings was where we ate when I told Shawn I was pregnant again) and had forgotten Tyler's sippy cup. I planned on just letting him sip out of a cup I held, but Shawn put the straw up to his mouth to see what he would do...he sucked and even ended the sips with a big ahhhh. We were impressed! Bring on the crazy straw.

His favorite things are still his favorites: peas, spaghetti, crackers, wearing Chili's leash around the house, balloons, bracelets (this includes anything that fits around his arm; my purse, his ring-toss rings, Chili's frisbee disk, etc.), Daddy's hat, Mommy's fascinating belly button, and talking on the phone. I am exhausted all the time. Keeping up with him is not an easy task. We've recently tried wearing him out before bedtime by taking him swimming, to the park, on car rides, soaking in warm bath, etc. he still doesn't seem interested in sleeping for more than 2 or 3 hours in his own room each night. Then he comes into our bed. I predict we get a king sized bed soon, as he prefers sleeping perpendicular to us, leaving Shawn and me with about ten inches each on the edge of the bed. That's what we have been up to for the past week.