Tyler is our little helper these days. The other night something made him dump every toy in his bedroom onto the floor. Then he got on the floor and ripped every letter of the alphabet out of the floor mat. Then he came out to tell us about his big mess. "Mess!" he loves to say. When I told him we needed to clean up his mess, Tyler ran off and came back with a broom. After convincing him it would be easier to clean this mess up without a broom, he promptly helped clean it all up. He loves carrying dishes to the dishwasher and you can see him beaming with a sense of responsibility as he carefully places the silverware in the basket and throws the bowl any old place in the dishwasher.

We were locked indoors on a rainy Sunday and Tyler began rolling a basketball to the wall. "Ready, go!" he exclaimed as he rolled the ball to the wall, then ran to pick the ball up and take back to the launch zone. After watching this a few times, I remembered his teacher mentioning they learned about bowling recently. So Shawn set up some plastic cups like they were bowling pins along the path of Tyler's rolling basketball. As much as Tyler enjoyed rolling the ball to the "pins" we noticed he was far more passionate about picking them up and resetting them in the proper place.

Last night Shawn asked Tyler to help him feed Chili. He handed Tyler a big scoop full of food and said to put it in Chili's bowl. I was waiting for Tyler to put the food in his mouth, he has eaten it more than once. But he carefully carried the scoop full of food and poured it right into Chili's water bowl...even though the empty food bowl was right next to the water bowl. Not one to hurt a learning child's feelings, Chili ate the soggy food anyway and Daddy praised Tyler for being such a good helper.

We had our annual holiday visit with Mack, Owen, Jacob and their parents recently. This year, Jacob came down with croup and bronchitis so the gathering was changed a the eleventh hour to a restaurant. Not an ideal setting for the little ones, so we took them to a park to let off some steam first. Mack, nine months older than Tyler, is such a big boy. He's talking in great sentences, sharing better than ever, running and climbing like a grown up. He's a good benchmark of things to look forward to from Tyler in nine months.

We parents, Nickie & Mark, Val & Kelly, Shawn & I have these boys' future relationship already planned out. They'll grow up doing fun functions with each other. Boating, camping, trips to Disneyland, birthday parties. Everything fun! I had a couple friends like that, who lived in another town and I got together with for trips and adventures. These are some of the best memories I have and think we are so lucky to have these friends and their sons to create new memories with.

I learned a lot about Tyler's developing personality as I watched him open presents. He is diligent. He had to remove every single piece of wrapping paper from the present before he even attempted to play with whatever he was unwrapping. This comes from his Dad, who is quite detail oriented. A book on Astrology described Shawn's attention to detail best saying he "Spends more time polishing door knobs than he does opening them." Tyler doesn't seem to have it quite as bad (or good!) as Shawn yet, but he showed signs of what some might call anal retentiveness.

Tyler was able to listen to direction, even while caught up in the delight of opening presents. I think he listened to me about 50% of the time--consistent with his behavior during non-holiday times.

Showing his leadership qualities, Tyler was able to assess and delegate while under pressure. As Tyler was barely making a dent in his pile of unopened presents (due to the diligence of removing all wrapping paper), he handed one to me saying "Here go, Mama," and handed another one to Aunt Kristin.

He is athletic. Uncle Mike and Aunt Kristin got him a basketball hoop which he is really good at. He is artistic. Grandma and Grandpa gave him an easel table. He picked up the magnetic shapes and placed them exactly where they needed to go to make perfectly formed triangles, circles and squares. He didn't need any direction from us on how to use his gifts, even the ones he had never seen before. As we watched Tyler keep himself entertained with these new toys, Shawn commented to me "It's like he has a secret life we don't know about where he's already played with every toy that exists." I mean, if someone handed you a chair, a magnetic shape, and a blank slate, would you know to sit in the chair and place the magnet on the blank slate to make pictures?

What an awesome time of year this is. Tyler is so into Santa Claus, and coincidentally Santa is everywhere this time of year! It makes me sad to think come January we will take the tree down, the lights off the house (ok, we didn't actually get those up this year, but Tyler loves looking at everyone else's house), and stash all the Santa and snowmen decorations away for next year. I wonder if Tyler will ask about Santa in the summertime. Or will he just forget all about him until next year?

Driving home from daycare every night, we go through our old neighborhood which has some awesome decorated houses. Tyler loves to comment on the "Pretty Lights" he says at every light we pass...including the signal lights! He certainly has learned a lot of new words with this season: Lap, candy, snowman, wreath, present and tape, to name a few. Lucky for us, we get to do it all over again, witnessing Gavin's second Christmas next year.

My one regret is not getting a picture of Baby with Santa Claus. It's not for lack of trying. But every time we were around Santa, Baby was sound asleep. Next year's picture will be Tyler smiling (hopefully) and Baby with the stoic expression Tyler had this year.

To answer my question below, no, Tyler is not exactly able to leave the wrapped presents alone. But, luckily for us, he is fairly easily distracted. So a few half-opened presents sit under the tree. In all, he's been surprisingly good about leaving the tree, ornaments, presents, etc. alone. Even though our tree looks silly because the bottom 36 inches of it are not decorated (no, it's not a coincidence that is Tyler's exact height), I am really enjoying this holiday season. Every now and then Tyler surprises me, bringing an ornament to me. "Here go, Mama" he'll say, as if I dropped it and he's doing me a favor.

Attributed to the festivities of the season, Tyler has a new obsession: Scotch tape! I can't wrap a single present without giving Tyler his own pieces of tape to stick wherever he deems appropriate. At first I thought I could make this useful by asking him to put a piece of tape exactly where I needed it to go to hold the wrapping paper on. Patient as I may be, I gave up on that idea after it took him 15 minutes and 5 pieces of tape to put it where I needed it. So we sit together, on the floor. A piece of tape for the present, a piece of tape for Tyler. I should have bought stock in 3M because we are on our third roll of tape just on the Christmas presents under the tree. He doesn't quite get it that one side is sticky and the other side is not. I suppose he just thinks sometimes the tape sticks, sometimes it doesn't. He is quite deliberate and hasn't yet given up on getting the tape to stick to something. Anything. The dog. My hand. The carpet. Lots and lots of it stuck to the nicely wrapped packages under the tree, on parts of the package that don't require tape.

Last night we did our gift exchange with Grandpa Curt. Watching Tyler catch on to the idea of ripping the wrapping paper off the presents so quickly, it dawned on me that this might have been a bad idea. There are still four days left before we open the rest of the presents under the tree. Will he be able to leave them alone?

Tyler is all about Santa Claus or "Ga Claus" as he calls him. He's had three face-to-face encounters with the jolly happy soul: Once at the mall, last weekend at the Stonelake Clubhouse, and Tuesday night at daycare. Parents say they have no pictures of their kids with Santa when the kids are 2-3 years old. I can see why. Tyler went way out of his way to avoid any possible eye contact with Santa last weekend at the club. He would talk about him, but couldn't look in his direction. This was an open forum where you could eat lunch in the same room as Santa. Tyler had no appetite. Eventually, Daddy got Tyler convinced it was ok to sit on Santa's lap but much to our chagrin, the Polariod camera ran out of film so we have no proof of this event. It would have likely been a picture similar to the mall-Santa picture, stone-cold serious Tyler sitting stiff as a board. The things we do to this poor kid.

He appeared pretty loosened up at daycare Tuesday night. This was his element, surrounded by his friends, teachers and with his parents. Tyler kept telling everyone Santa Claus was there. He established eye contact and didn't get scared. We asked him if he wanted to say hi to Santa and he said yes. So we stood in line. This ended up being a long line which we somehow ended up at the very end of, as Tyler kept procrastinating his turn. It came down to Tyler and Santa, alone, no other kids were left to let go in front of us. Tyler said no to sitting on Santa's lap. He said no to giving Santa a high-five. But he had no problem taking a candy cane. Ever since then, whenever he sees a picture or symbol of Santa (we dressed Baby in red and white fluffy slippers today and Tyler made the connection), we hear "Ga Claus. School. Lap." Maybe next time.

All of a sudden Tyler has begun saying a new word. It sounds like "pie" and I'm now wondering how long it took me to figure out what he was saying. The other night he said it, I repeated it, he said it again, I asked if he was saying "pie" and he said it a third time, this time grabbing his crotch. "OH! Are you saying POTTY?" Yes, he enthusiastically responded, probably very relieved I finally understood him.

While his affirmative response was enthusiastic, that was nothing compared to how enthusiastically I ran him to the toilet, ripped off his diaper and plopped him down. No time to get the decorative and encouraging Elmo training seat I bought him. But I had read somewhere to try putting boys on the seat backwards so they can see what happens to the potty when it goes in the toilet, so I put him down anxious to see what would happen. I could see his stomach flexing, working to push the pee out and when it came out, Tyler exclaimed "Bubbles" and tried putting his hand in the toilet. Lord this is going to be a long process I stood there thinking to myself. As much reading as I have been doing on the subject, I wasn't quite prepared to begin this process. I had yet to buy his rewards and was scrambling to come up with what today's reward would be for the first self-induced potty. The only thing I could think of was a Christmas present I had yet to wrap, a big Guess What Elmo talking doll! After the potty and the celebratory party in the bathroom (Dr. Phil recommended this), I presented Tyler with this big Elmo doll and Shawn, in true fashion, was right behind me telling Tyler not to expect such a big reward every time he goes.

Since then, Tyler has gone on the potty once a day for the past four days, usually in the evening. He still has to tell us a couple times before I realize what he's saying. Pie does not sound anything like Potty to me. So I'm wondering how long he had been saying this before we finally understood him. Just like he gave up the binky and the bottle on his own, by his own doing, looks like he's giving up diapers on his own too. This boy is going to be a leader.

Dada is in Florida for 10 days of sales training. Tyler definitely understood when we told him Dada was leaving and the morning he left, Tyler couldn't stop talking about it. We told him Dada was going on an airplane and will be working for a while. "Dada. Fly. Airplane," was all Tyler said over and over the first couple of days. Tyler talks to Dada on the phone and is learning to carry on a pretty good conversation. "Hello Dada," he says, listening intently to whatever Dada is telling him. Last night they were making animal sounds for each other. It makes Tyler's day when Dada does the elephant and as much as he wants to hog the phone when Dada calls, he is willing to pass it back to me after he's heard the elephant sound. Fulfilled! So this morning while getting ready for school, Tyler and I talked about Dada and instead of "Dada, fly, airplane" Tyler said "Dada. Elmet."

Grandma Wan & Grandpa Neb came up to help poor Mama out. Tyler quickly became his grandpa's shadow. He's always shy with his Grandmas and aunts, but not his Grandpas and uncles. I wonder if that's normal. Maybe normal for Mama's boys. With Dada gone, Tyler has definitely become more clingy than usual. He prefers to sleep with his head on top of my face, his arms wrapped tightly around my neck. He wouldn't care if he suffocated me, as long as he is holding onto me.

I'm sitting here eating a banana, Tyler's current favorite food, and thinking about him. He loves to eat these, but perhaps even more, he loves to peel them. He pulls a strand of peel all the way off, declares it trash and walks it to the trash can. Then comes back for another strand to do the same. After the peeling process, he prefers it split into two halves--one for each hand. Then he places the end of the banana in his mouth and leaves it there until it has disappeared. Almost like he sucks the banana down. It disappears pretty quickly too. Usually by the time I turn around to see how he's doing on it, it's gone and he's asking for another one. At home on weekends he usually eats at least two a day. I try not to let him overdose on the fruit but he can reach the fruit bowl so he often helps himself. If he can't get the peel started by himself and can't convince me to help him, he'll just take a bite right into the peel and all. The good news is he's stopped referring to himself as NaNa and now can say "Ty" when asked his name. It is so sweet the way he sings Ty. Nobody calls him that, we all call him by his full name. But he calls himself Ty. Maybe he's telling us something.

We got our Christmas tree today. We had great intentions and loaded everyone up in two cars, drove to a tree farm and chopped down our own tree. Tyler and baby slept while this was going on and woke up to see our tree on the ground. While Grandma and Mike were scoping out the farm for their tree to chop down, Daddy, Grandpa and and the boys got in the truck to drive our big tree up the hill. The truck got stuck. Majorly stuck. We rolled backwards almost hitting a tree. Grandpa and Daddy had to saw down three trees and break the laws of physics to get us unstuck enough to manuever our way back onto a paved road. This was a very stressful, intense time and on top of being stuck, having trees sticking through the windows, and sitting in the backseat of the truck with two kids and no carseats (they were in my *4-wheel drive* car), it started raining. Tyler definitely picked up on the intensity and began crying and looking around. He and I talked about being stuck and counting on Daddy and Grandpa to get us out of the mess. I think he understood because after that, Tyler just watched every little thing with no expression on his face. Just soaking it all in. Now he will know what to do if he ever gets stuck 16 years from now.

We got the massive tree home, hung lights and decorated it. Tyler was far more interested in climbing the ladder than he was in the tree. Now the challenge of keeping him away from the tree begins.