20 months!

Here we are again.  Now we're at 20 months!  I think I will need to end these monthly updates soon.  Maybe after the second birthday.  But what should I do after that??

Here's my little man today

As I mentioned earlier, we've entered the terrible twos, or as I have been referring to them, the "terrible twenties" due to the timing of their appearance!  Chase is always ready for a meltdown.  He never quite knows if he's happy or sad, and it changes quickly.  He screams preemptively at anything - just in case!  He's mastered the quick flop to the ground.  Tears are ready at the first sound of N in the word "no".  He always has one eye on me when he has these little meltdowns.  I try my best to ignore him, but usually I'm laughing at him.  This I'm sure will require him to have therapy some day.  I can empathize with him during all of this though.  I was doing the same thing during puberty! :)

20 Month Stats:

Unofficial weight: 30 lbs
Clothing size: Same as last month
Shoe size: We've finally moved on from his size 6 tennis shoes.  He had worn them so much the velcro wasn't sticking anymore!  Now we have size 6/7 Crocs, size 7 dressy sandals, and size 8 everyday sandals.  I have NO CLUE what size his actual foot is!
Diaper size: Made the move to size 5.  They are so roomy! (Mommy likes roomy diapers because it masks the fact that she's still not very good at changing diapers!)
Favorite toy: He's getting more into cars and trucks (but just barely).  Making a mess is one of his favorite things.
Favorite foods: Chicken nuggets, mashed potatoes, anything with garlic, crackers, cookies...all the good stuff!
Least favorite foods: Oatmeal...hates it!
Words: He's still not regularly talking.  He'll say something about 3 times and then we'll never hear it again.  Today he tried to say "Auburn".  The list of words you'll hear coming out of his mouth any given day now include: Mama, Dada, Hi, Bye, Yay, Elmo, Dog (rare), Bubbles, Ball, Apple, Shoe, Dish (we don't know what this means - "this" or "yes"?  but he says this when I ask him if he wants something or if he tries to hand me something).  The teacher at school claims he said her name once.  He loves to say words just once just to tease us!
Teeth: No new teeth, but surely these canines are going to come in soon, right??
Daily Routine: About to change a little now that Daddy is home for the summer!  I'm a little sad I won't be dropping him off in the morning everyday!  Everything else is still roughly the same.  He's been taking monster 3 hour naps at school lately.  Growth spurt?

Happenings this month:

We moved the high chair upstairs and bought a booster seat, so you'll no longer see pictures of him in his little owl chair!  We ended up doing this because he was climbing into his high chair all by himself.  We thought we were preventing danger.  Now he has just focused all his attention to climbing the kitchen chairs and trying to lean over the backs (trying to tip them over!).  You can't take your eyes off him for a second!

Chase had some sort of a stomach virus last weekend most of last weekend.  Poor thing threw up in Babies R Us.  Both Drew and I tried to "catch" it when it happened, but we were relatively unsuccessful.  All we did was end up one hand covered in sickness!  Unfortunately at the time we had a basket full of heavy, oversized baby gates.  It was nearly impossible to push the basket with one hand from the very back of the store to the front of the store where the restrooms were.  The entire time we were trying to navigate the basket to the front of the store, we were also trying to not let other people see that Chase was 1) covered in throw up, and 2) still retching.  We were quite a sight.  Also, FYI, Babies R Us does not have paper towels in their bathrooms and wet, cheap toilet paper does NOTHING.  It was a stressful moment, but it's funny now that we are looking back on it.

He took a school picture on Thursday.  We are obviously ordering it and I'll post it.  It's a picture of the entire group of the "Tumbling Turtles".  It's pretty funny and what you would expect trying to get 10 one year olds to take a group picture!  Speaking of school, he's a little helper there and they always only have great things to say about him (which is great considering all the meltdowns he has a home and the meltdown he has every morning when I drop him off!).  They always say that he is always on the go and that we named him right because they are always having to chase him!  His teachers right now are Ms. Bridgett, Ms. Jackie, and Ms. Erica.

Chase walks around with his hands behind his back and it's PRECIOUS!

Here's some other pictures from today.  This first picture makes me wonder what it would be like if Chase were twins! OMG!  It would be precious, but I would be worn out!

This picture is awkward, but hilarious to me!

He's pointing to our neighbor here as she drives past.  I'm terrible.  I can't remember her name and I just met her on Wednesday!

Major Storm Damage

I kid obviously on the term "major".  Drew and I left the house for 15 minutes this afternoon to go pick Chase up from school.  When we came back, we see our tree had fallen!  Our poor little "baby" tree that was only 4 1/2 years old!  We noticed it was windy, but never in a million years would we have thought that was enough to knock our tree over!

As a family we said our goodbyes.  You should have seen the look on Chase's face as Drew picked the entire tree up over his head and and put it out on the curb!

Ok, tornado sirens on going off, so we're about to pile into the bathroom!  Good luck everyone!

**Update** No tornados, but some scary looking clouds.

Conquering the Cup!

Chase has shown a big interest in regular (i.e. not sippy) drinking cups for quite a while.  He is no where near ready to drink from them on his own because he thinks they are toys, but he loves to practice!

After the rain on Sunday, we sent him out to the backyard for some practice.  Most of the time, he ends up dumping the water down his chest and just laughing.  There are a few moments where he looks like he has it down pat!  Because the "terrible twos" have crept up over the past couple of weeks, you should have seen the tantrum that occurred when we tried to bring him back inside!  So dramatic!

I took quite a few pictures, but I really just couldn't decide which ones to post (or how to edit) so I just posted a bunch.  My brain is a little fried to say the least.

A father teaching his son the necessary skills of life.

19 1/2 months!

I wasn't really planning a 1/2 month post, but it's a lazy Sunday and there have been lots of things I've forgotten to write about over the past couple of months, so now is a good time before I totally forget everything.

• Chase loves his riding toys...his firetrucks, his wagon, his police car.  For a while there he could only move backwards in them.  Over the past month or two he figured out he can move forward too!  He's an awesome steerer too!  He also loves his push toys - his popcorn popper thing and his popping lawnmower!
• As of yesterday, he has a new random word.  Apple.  He said it for the first time as we were walking through Target.  Being the sucker I am, I then went and bought him random crap as a reward that he doesn't care about.  Last night he woke up around 1 AM and refused to go back to bed.  He came into bed with us and proceeded to be hyper and crawl around on the bed on top of both Drew and me until sometime around 3.  Sometime in the middle of the night, he just starts screaming out "Apple!".  I don't think he knows what apple means.
• Also last night, he wubbled my arm (what "normal" people call raspberries!).  We had a good laugh about that.  Heck, there's nothing else to laugh about at 3 AM!  I also got a good laugh when he crawled over to Drew and started beating his back like a drum!
• Chase laughs spontaneously in the car and it's just the cutest thing ever.  Also in the car, he will say "ahhh!" when prompted (similar to when you just drink a big glass of water and you are so refreshed you say "ahh!").  It's very sweet, but he only does it in the car!
• He LOVES Chick-fil-a chicken nuggets.  I also let him try their lemonade fully thinking he wouldn't like it because it was sour (and then there would be more for me).  Boy was I wrong!
• Apparently he loves one of his classmate's moms and he hugs her everytime she picks up her own son.  I don't know how I feel about this yet.  He also blows kisses to the daycare teachers when he leaves in the afternoon.  He doesn't do this to me though. :(
• I bought him a game on my iphone that he really likes.  It's called Peekaboo Barn.  It was funny to see him finally realize how the touchscreen worked the first time we played that game.  The problem though is that he LOVES to press the home button on the phone, so when we are playing a game, he can't help himself and he presses the home button and closes out the game...and then he cries.
• Speaking of crying, when he has his now daily little tantrums, he collapses on the floor each and every time.  It starts with a drop to his knees, which is immediately followed by him falling to his stomach, and then placing his forehead on the ground and then lifting his arms up off the ground by his sides!  It's very dramatic!
• Chase likes to go "fishing" in my bedside table drawers!  He can't see into them, but he can open them and reach into them.  My side of the room is a constant mess because of this.  He can also clear countertops now because he's grown so much.  We had it made for a while because we could sit stuff on the countertop about 5 inches from the edge and everything would be safe.  Nope.  Not now!  He will resort to pulling up on the countertop and scaling the cabinets if need be!
• Starting just a few days ago, we are now sleepsack free!  He now just sleeps in regular PJs and a blanket.  Though there is nothing cuter than him walking across the room in a fully zipped sleepsack!  He waddles like ET!

I suppose this list is random enough for one posting!  Good night!

Tiny Dancer

Chase is going through a dancing phase right now.  I hope it never stops.

Re-edit

There are certain pictures in my collection that I just love to play around with when I'm editing.  This is one of them.  I just love this version so much that I had to share.

Elmo

Ok, this video is insanely long and honestly you'll get the gist after about 30 seconds, but this is for Drew and I because it makes us laugh!

Memphis Flood

Since the river crested today at 48 feet just short of a new record, Drew and I just had to finally make the trip downtown to see the big news story!  It was amazing!  Driving over the bridge to Arkansas was unbelievable.  The river was enormous!

Of course we had to turn the event into a tourist attraction.  Once we got downtown, we realized we weren't the only ones!  There were lots of families, lots of cameras, and a lot of oohs and ahhs!

Here are a few pictures of our family with our camera.  As expected, there were lots of oohs and ahhs.

We made it to the corner of Beale and Riverside and took our picture right on the edge of the river.  That's about as close to the river as I'll probably get ever again.

My Little Boy

There pictures are just a hodge-podge of things from this past week.

He gets a very silly look on his face when you blow the hairdryer towards him in the morning!

Messy face from tonight's dinner!  I turned this black and white to hopefully draw a little of your attention away from the mess he has going on under his nose! :)

My child loves to climb...ANYTHING.  His latest major conquest was to climb onto our kitchen chairs which are pub height.  Obviously Drew and I both had our attentions on something else at that moment, or else I would have never let him try that one out on his own!

All this climbing has resulted in bruises all over his legs!