A Day of Family

One of the nice things about where we live is that we are less than 30 minutes away from Eliot's parents and my dad and Maria, an hour away from my grandparents, and about two hours away from any of our other California family (bay area, Chico, etc.). And while he is not yet aware of how special it is, Ty gets to see four of his six grandparents regularly, as well as his three great grandparents and lots of great aunts and uncles!

Today we went to my grandparents' house in Stockton and visited with them, as well as my aunt Frieda. Then we went to my great grandpa's house with my dad and Maria and visited for a bit. I hadn't seen my great grandpa in at least 10 years so it was a special day for all of us! From there we went to Lodi to see my uncle Pete and aunt Lynette. So today Ty saw his parents, grandparents, great aunts and uncle, great grandparents, and great great grandpa...pretty impressive!!

With Great Grandma Honey

All smiles!

Ty with Grandpa and Great Great Grandpa

Grandpa "Grover"

I grew up very close to my grandparents and aunts, uncles, and cousins, so family is very important to me! It's important to me to call my grandparents each week and enjoy the time we have with them. It's my hope that as he gets older Ty grows to appreciate and enjoy family. I was not ever close to my great grandfather, but I remember visiting him and how I have always called him "Grandpa Grover" (no idea why...his name is Gilbert). I loved our visit with him today and enjoyed hearing him talk about where he is from in the Philippines and his experiences when he came to the US in 1929 at the age of 14. He said he worked for "10 cents an hour, a dollar a day!" leveling the ground. He went into the Army in 1943 and served for two years in the Philippines. He spoke very clearly about his love of the New England Patriots and said he was waiting to watch them at 5pm :) He takes a blood pressure medication and a daily vitamin...my dad said he takes more medicine than that and Grandpa Grover's response was, "No bullsh*tting?" When we asked how you can live to be 97, he said, "Take that!" and pointed to his vitamin :)

5 Month Update

Another month has flown by! Ty is cute, smiley, squawky, squealy, drooly, squishy, roly poly, and just plain perfect! As usual, we can't seem to just get a plain old cute sitting smiley picture of him because the kid NEVER STOPS MOVING, but we got some cute smiles this month. Ty is growing like crazy and doing new things every day! He is thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis close to crawling....he army crawled on Friday (on his elbows and knees) and spends most of his time on the floor on all fours rocking back and forth. He just hasn't quite figured out the next step. When he wants to get to something he gets on all fours, rocks back and forth, and then throws his whole body forward. It's very dramatic! I maintain that the thing that will get him crawling is the cats. He wants them...BAD! They politely sit just out of his reach he goes bonkers trying to get to them. And sometimes he does get to them, but so far they've been pretty tolerant of him. We do a lot of "gentle, Ty....gentle" as we run his hand over their fur. He has pulled a few ears and done some arm flapping on them, but miraculously they haven't reacted! He continues to work hard on his teeth, but nothing has cut yet. You can see the top two through his gums, though. He doesn't seem to be in too much pain from teething, though some days he does seem to be very uncomfortable. He loves his frozen teething rings! He is experimenting with a sippy cup by playing with it and every now again sucking to get some pumped milk. He goes down around 7pm and is up at around 7am with nursing around 1am and 4am....but the 4am feeding usually happens in our bed and continues on and off until he wakes up in the morning. He usually takes three naps each day and continues to be an on-the-go kind of guy. He loves a change of scenery so we usually go to the park every day and supplement that with our play group, the Mommy and Me group through Kaiser, the books and babies program at the library, and the program for 0-6 month old babies at a local gymnastics place. Whew! Re-reading that sounds like we are crazy, but he loves it and if it keeps him from getting bored, than I love it, too! He sits on his own but needs grown up hands close by because after a few minutes he usually wobbles backwards. He's also really close to getting himself into the sit position on his own, but for now he needs help. He continues to do new things with his voice. He has a very sing-songy coo and loves to squeal and make loud noises. He cracks himself up in the car, but I can never tell what he's doing back there! We love watching him grow and can't wait to see what tomorrow brings! Enjoy some cute pictures :)

Gotta love that laugh!

Four Months!

When you're pregnant you encounter moms and grandmas and they say things like, "Enjoy it...it goes by so fast!" and, "It seems like just yesterday that my children were small....it goes by so fast!" Now, I know I've only been doing this whole parenting thing for 4 months, but it really does go by SO FAST! Mr. Ty Kelly hit the 4 month mark and I did our monthly routine of slapping a cute sticker on a white onesie and posing him for pictures. Well....everyone else seems to prop their kiddo in a rocker or in the corner of the crib and get a sweet, smiley shot. Not me! These days Ty is so intrigued by the camera I can hardly get him to smile! He wiggles all over, sucks on his onesie, pulls at the sticker, and generally makes photo ops nearly impossible! Of course, if I held the camera down and started talking to him and making faces he was smiling and giggling all over the place. But the second that camera is out, it's all done! So I've included all the outtakes because that's all we had :)

Ty at 4 months:

--weighs 15 lbs 12 oz.

--is 26.5 inches long (90th percentile!).

--rolls every which way he can.

--is totally peeved that he can't crawl! He gets his knees up under him and pushes, but just ends up on his belly. He lays on his tummy and "swims" by frog kicking his legs and flapping his arms. He is quickly frustrated by tummy time because if a toy is out of reach and he can't quite get it....watch out!

--reaches for everything: cats, cups, computers, iPods, forks taking food into Mommy's or Daddy's mouth...everything!

--enjoys mealtime as a social experience. He nurses, sits up and looks around, goes back to nursing, sits up and talks to me, nurses. He also likes to "talk" with his mouthful, which is pretty funny. 

--went from sleeping very soundly for about 12 hours each night with two feedings to sleeping 12 hours each night with 3-4 feedings and LOTS of thrashing around and maybe even waking up just to hang out and make sure nothing exciting is going on without him.

--is interested in everything going on around him. He almost seems to get bored these days. He likes a change of scenery and will let you know when he's ready for one!

--still loves his favorite position: standing in my lap bouncing himself up and down. He does this for nearly all of our time at the Jiu Jitsu school in the evening. 

--enjoys bathttime more and more each day. He flaps his arms and kicks his legs so that I can generally count on being nice and wet, too!

--loves hearing the sound of his own voice. He does low hums and coos, high pitched squeals and squawks, and just likes chatting in general. It's all still vowels for now (no consonant vowel combos....unless he is crying, when we'll sometimes hear a very clear, "Mmmmmuuuuuuhhhh!").

--is working on teeth! He drools allllllllll over and sucks on his hands and anything else he can get his hands on. Well, anything but a pacifier. He loves his frozen teethers and enjoys sucking on cold washcloths. 

--has found his feet....and discovered how yummy they are!

--is still a sweet, easygoing, happy guy :)

Interesting camera, Mom....

Tried to get his attention by wiggling my hand around....clearly too high!

Tried the crib...no go.

Tried the Boppy, too.

Tried tickling, but that led to hand holding....

....and hand chewing.

Cutie pie :)

Even tried to get Daddy in on it, which made him laugh but also made him more wiggly!

Colorado Photo Dump

I've added some photos from various cell phones and other people's cameras from the day we went to Mission: Wolf, which is about 20 miles away from my parents' house. It's a short distance but it's up in the mountains and you travel down windy dirt roads to get there so it takes about an hour. They rescue wolves who have either come from private owners that have unsuccessfully tried to raise them or zoos that have bred beyond their capacity. They do a lot of education all over the country about wolves, how they benefit the ecosystems they live in, and why they shouldn't be raised by humans. They have a small staff that live on the land and do their own farming, etc. There are 37 wolves and a handful of them are ambassador wolves, which means that they travel to local places for educational outreach, as well as an east coast tour and west coast tour. When my family came to Westcliffe back in 2001 we visited Mission:Wolf so I vaguely remembered the setup. But on this trip we got to do a wolf "encounter" that allowed Eliot, Rachel, and me to go into an enclosure with three of the ambassador wolves. Needless to say, it was pretty cool! Rachel and I confided afterwards that the whole point may have been lost on us because we were so enamored by the wolves that we sort of wanted one at home :) 

Ty didn't do the wolf encounter and slept through the entire tour.

When I was pregnant I said that as soon as Ty was born I was going to look at his ears and see if he got Eliot's signature  "flap." I looked on the day he was born and there was no flap. However, he has grown into having some flap! Luckily he wears them well and the flappy ears are cute on him :)

With Auntie before the tour.

Two sleepy guys

This is while we took turns using the bathroom. The whole setup is highly "sustainable" with little carbon footprint, so when we used the bathroom we were all surprised to see that you weren't allowed to flush toilet paper down the toilet, but instead had to throw it in a trash can! So the bathroom didn't smell so hot, but apparently when you build your own bathroom in a remote part of the mountains, you do what you gotta do. 

Meeting a wolf named Abraham! Before you go in the enclosure they brief you on wolf manners. One of the things you do when the wolf approaches you is let them sniff your teeth, which, the guide informed us, is how they tell "where you've been." Abraham could smell that I had most recently been with almonds and he wasn't too impressed so our relationship was off to a good start!

Not the best picture but shows how close we were!

Ty's First Flight

Our most recent adventure was our trip to Westcliffe, Colorado to see my mom and Steve! Due to a conflicting BJJ tournament, Ty and I flew both ways by ourselves. I wasn't worried but I didn't really sleep the night before we left because I was so concerned about whether or not I had everything I needed, had in the correct spot, etc. All said and done we did really well! On our first flight out we were sitting in between a Grandma and a man who had a 3 month old baby at home, so they were both very understanding. Ty insisted on standing and bouncing in my lap for the duration of most of the 2+ hour flight so he made friends with the people in front of us and across the aisle. Other than a blowout diaper and outfit change in a veeeeeery small airplane bathroom, it was a very smooth trip. Our time in Colorado was spent walking around my family's 35+ acres, traveling to nearby tourist spots, and enjoying our time with family! Westcliffe is a teeny little town and the house is about 20 minutes outside of town (and by "town" I mean "street") and about an hour from any big city (and by "big city" I mean 40,000 people) so it's rural to say the least. We loved relaxing and enjoying our surroundings and, as Eliot would say, Ty got to build lots of new synapses. This is in reference to my explanation to Eliot that when Ty is exposed to new things more and more synapses form in his brain. So when we do cool things (i.e. go to the aquarium, visit a wolf sanctuary outside of Westcliffe, wander around a property and see a rattlesnake, etc.) that we think are cool but Ty won't remember, we are least happy to know that he is building more synapses :)

Wake up Auntie Ray Ray! Poor Rachel was left to sleep in the living room since we got the guest bedroom....sorry Rach!

Watching the cows grazing on the property. There's no fences so you always have to shut the garage door so you don't get any unexpected visitors!

Daddy and Auntie teaching Ty to moo. There was a lot of laughing when a nearby cow started mooing VERY loudly in response to our mooing session.

At the Royal Gorge with my mom and sister. The Arkansas River flows waaaaaaaaay down below this bridge!

On the bridge! I wore Ty all over on this trip and since you're supposed to avoid sunblock until 6 months of age, he was always in a hat. If it wasn't cool enough for footie jammies (a very convenient way to cover up, if you ask me) I used this sun cover. It was awesome! It only weighs 4 ounces and is SPF 45 so it doesn't get hot under there. Since the house is at nearly 8,000 feet elevation and nearly everywhere else we went was at least at 5,000 feet I wanted to be extra careful! OK, end commercial ;) Also, a big shoutout to my husband who makes our diaper bag look quite masculine here....and he even wore it while pushing my mom up some seriously steep hills!

View of the bridge

Loving on Grandma

On our last full day, I drove into town to meet my mom and sister for a haircut. On the way I got stopped by cows in the road, ran over a very long snake, and saw these thee antelope. They were actually very close to the road initially but by the time I stopped and got out the camera they had moved back. 

Looking back on the house from one of our daily walks around the property. There's great views and lots of things to see...particularly multiple cow, calf, and coyote skeletons. 

One of not-so-exciting-but-still-sort-of-interesting things we saw around the property was poop! Deer poo, rabbit poo, cow poo, coyote poo....all kinds! After almost two weeks we were generally pretty confident at identifying the maker of the pile, but this one stumped me. Someone described elk poo as being sort of like mini cow poo, which is what this sort of looks like....but then again it could just be calf poo. Who knows?!

Can't beat that!

HAPPY TRAILS!

From the Mountains to the Sea

Our month of recent travels started the last weekend of July when we went up to the Kelly cabin in Truckee. We enjoyed the cool weather, hung out with Eliot's parents, brother and his girlfriend, and aunt and uncle, and ate some yummy food! The awesome thing about Grandparents is that they just can't keep their hands off a grandbaby...and this lets a Mommy and Daddy do things like read on the couch, go to the bathroom alone...all kinds of crazy things!

No baby bathtub, so Ty and Eliot shared a bathtime!

Grandpa and Ty

Views from the cabin...beautiful!

Eliot speaks to Ty only in Japanese with the hope that Ty will be able to speak back to him in Japanese some day! The cabin is home to many of Eliot's and Vincent's childhood books, so Eliot went through them and found a few to read to Ty. This one was a Japanese alphabet book and Ty was surprisingly quiet and attentive while Eliot read it!

A different sort of tummy time.

 The following weekend we ventured to Monterey (thanks Dad and Maria!!) as an early third anniversary trip. When we told people where we were going, they immediately asked if we were taking Ty. When we said we were, most people offered sympathy. But with our current schedule, we welcomed the opportunity to spend time together....particularly with Ty! Running a martial arts school keeps us hopping so time together is valuable! Traveling with a 3 month old meant we were on baby schedule, but we're always on baby schedule so no worries there. Eliot and I talked ahead of time about how we would enjoy relaxing together after Ty fell asleep, but Eliot fell asleep when Ty did so even though I didn't get to have hubby time, I got to read in bed and sometimes that's a treat, too :)

Ty's first trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium

I wondered how much he would get out of an aquarium trip at 3 months old, but he LOVED looking at everything in the big tanks!

Biiiig fish!

Loving being on Daddy!

Whale Watching

Slept through most of it, including the whale we saw! But woke up to have a blowout diaper, of course. You haven't lived until you've changed a diaper and an outfit on a table in not-so-clean room of a rocking boat!

Happy Anniversary!

Had to slip this cute picture in!