Drinking

I swear I could just watch Tyler all day as he learns and grows. It really is amazing how much babies learn in such a short time! He is so aware of his surroundings and is learning that he can interact with his environment.

I was holding Tyler in my lap the other day, and I picked up my glass of water and took a sip. It was harder than before because Tyler was now trying to reach for it himself, so I had to contort my body a bit and take a drink facing away from Tyler so I wouldn't spill water all over us. After I took a sip, Tyler continued reaching for the glass so I let him touch it and feel the condensation and coolness of the glass. After a minute or two of that, he put both hands on each side of the rim and brought the glass to his mouth to try and drink from it! I tilted the glass up and let some water flow into his mouth (which then dribbled down his chin onto his clothes), but Tyler LOVED it! The next day, I got him the First Sipster. I filled it with water and let Tyler try it out when we went to watch Mike run a 5k race on Monday afternoon. Tyler loved holding the cup himself and chewing on the spout, and most of the water ended up on his onesie, but he may have actually drank some from the sippy cup :)

It's all happening so fast...

Our little guy is growing so fast! It seems like every time I update my weblog with Tyler's newest achievement, he learns how to do something else!

On July 3rd, we took Tyler to the beach for the first time. He always enjoys experiencing new things, but I think the waves at the beach were a bit much for him, although he liked getting wet because it was so hot out.

Just last week, Tyler also started sitting up by himself for an extended time! I think he was so engrossed in his toys that he didn't really realize what he was doing. Mike set him in his Boppy pillow and Tyler just sat there and played with his toy. If he fell back a little, he would catch himself. If he fell back all the way, he would work his little ab muscles and try to right himself again. Sometimes it worked, but he never whined for help when he couldn't get back up. Now, Tyler can sit for a pretty good amount of time without the Boppy!

Also, if you notice in the above picture, Tyler's hair is getting pretty long. Can you guess where this is going? Yes, we did it. As much as I didn't want to do it, it had to be done. Many of you know that Tyler was blessed with a full head of hair at birth, most of which kept growing and growing! His hair was crazy and unruly at first, but as it got longer, it weighed itself down to his head so that only his cowlicks stood up (and eventually those hairs got so long that they sort of fanned down in a mini wave).

Anyway, the longer it got, the more we had to comb Tyler's hair to the side. He had been losing some hair from the back and sides of his head, so it looked like we were attempting a comb-over to hide the balding spots. At first, we were, but now those are sort of growing back in. The hair on top of his head was now reaching past his eyebrows and into Tyler's eyes. So, after much debating over the past few days, Mike and I…...okay, MIKE decided that we had better get it over with and cut Tyler's hair. We ended up cutting his hair while he was asleep (how horrible is that? What if YOU woke up and suddenly your hair was gone??). So, it's cut now, and it looks fine, but Tyler looks older than 5 1/2 months. We saved all the hair in a little ziplock bag. I can't believe we cut his hair before his first birthday!

He Rolled Over!

Today, July 2, 2006, Tyler rolled over from his back to his tummy! Of course, I missed it (we're visiting Mike's family and he and I were out with his brother and his wife running a few errands while the grandparents were watching the kids), but Tyler arched his back turned to the side and kicked his leg over his body! He figured out how to get his arm out from underneath him, too! Now, when we lay him on his back, he inevitably turns over on his tummy. What a great milestone, and how wonderful that we can see him experience the beginnings of it! Since Tyler doesn't really like being on his tummy, it's really funny to watch him flip from his back to his tummy and realize that he doesn't want to be facing the floor! Usually there's something to encourage him to flip over, like a toy or a person near his head, but once he actually flips over he doesn't want to be there :)