++Twenty-one...without the hangover++

I'm on time this month. So many posts about trips and visits and not much about the little guy. As he rapidly approaches two he is changing by the day. The vocabulary continues to grow and be refined (he now adds the "ssss" sound to the end of words like "rice" and bus") and eventually he will be able to be understood without his mom/translator.

He really likes to tell us about what we are looking at. The house across the street is getting a new roof (the excitement the day the flatbed truck was unloaded with a forklift is a whole other story) and today he was watching the workers and telling me that they were going up the ladder with their tools and that they have trucks that they drive. This story came complete with some hammering motions and driving maneuvers.

He's also into telling us all about what we see on the road. It has expanded from vehicles to bridges and "nunnels" (which are more like underpasses). He also points out fire hydrants and tells us that we can spray water from a hose. That's just in case we weren't paying attention to the firetruck books we read over and over and over again.

We are having a lot of fun these days playing with his buddies in the neighborhood. The age gap seems to close every day. His best buddies are Olly and Sydney. Yesterday they came over for play time and indulged in popsicles (I found these fabulous minis at the store).

He continues to love to play with his dad...all things truck-related...animals (lucky for us the next door neighbors just got a puppy!)...playing outside...ice cream...going to the park (slides are big these days)...reading books (especially about trucks)...blueberries...laughing and letting us know it was "yah yah" after an audible bodily function...trains...scooting around on his bikes...and generally making us laugh all day... Some fun Wyatt moments from this month:

Here's Wyatt at his first baseball game (Memphis has the Cardinal's AAA "Redbirds" and they play downtown in a great stadium).

Watching the game from the lawn with Daddy.

Waving to the people from the trolley.

With his buddy Will at Little Gym.

Eating popsicles with Olly...let's just say it was a good thing he was wearing a blue shirt.

++Fun with Uncle Matt and Taylor++

I was a little concerned leading up to this visit since Wyatt said "No no no" whenever I told him that Uncle Matt and Taylor were coming to visit. Well, he followed through on his protests for about the first minute of their visit and then wouldn't let them out of his site. He wanted to be wherever "nunnelmah" was.

The Northerners did their best to weather the heat. It actually made us realize that we have made a little progress acclimating to it as we could stand it just a little longer than they could. Thursday night we did our traditional Memphis induction of a BBQ meal. It was given a thumbs up.

Friday, we headed to the zoo. I'm not sure who enjoyed the train ride more...

It was so hot at the zoo that we needed to cool off in the pool for a while. It's days like these that we are really enjoying having a pool in the neighborhood.

On Saturday we took them to the park and the walk to the river and then headed into the sticks of Tennessee. This place has become a favorite of ours (after all of two visits). It's a little no-frills diner that serves up some fabulous catfish. The picture below reminds me of my Harley days...

The boys. Trouble times three.
Hunting for ants with Taylor.
Wyatt's new favorite game is hide-and-seek. He's really good at hiding. His favorite spot is flat against a wall. He enlisted some allies this time. Again...not sure who is having more fun!

Saturday night the adults went out to play. I took a couple of shots from Beale Street on my small camera...but haven't downloaded those yet.

Sunday Mark dropped them off at the airport...and we ended up picking them up again an hour later. Their flight was delayed 4 hours so we go to spend a little more time with them. We headed downtown, rode the trolley and saw the ducks at the Peabody. Then we dropped them off for real. Back to temperate weather for them. Lucky us...we'll see them again next week!

++The Boys++

It's only a few weeks after the fact but I finally got around to posting the photos of the partners in crime. If I thought it was hard to get one kid to look at me, it's next to impossible to get two of them to do it. The photos speak for themselves. Everything is twice as much fun if you have a buddy to do it with you. The boys played great together. There were surprisingly few squabbles about toys (mostly because far-too-smart-for-his-age Larson was very good at "convincing" Wyatt the he didn't want whatever toy Larson had...and made sure Wyatt was well equipped with something else). I hope these fun experiences are only the beginning of many great times in the years to come.

Cousins don't hold hands...cousins hug!

I just love this picture...no caption necessary. For those of you wondering, its this book. If you don't have it...buy it. We had to get our own copy because Wyatt liked Larson's so much.
Cute runs in the family...

These whales weren't real...in case you were worried (or thinking our children were amazingly talented)2 boys: 1 hole. Does it get any better than this?

So, there you have it. The cutest two boys out there (my apologies to everyone else).

Fast-forward to the present. It's been a little cooler this week. Only high 80s. It's actually tolerable to be outside and not submerged in water. I may finally get around to pulling some weeds in the garden, etc. I just survived an entire week of full-time single parenting. No breaks from Dad...no Mother's Day Out. Whew...it's a lot of work. Mark was back in Minnesota for the first time since we left. He has now renewed his vow to return there FOR GOOD when all this nonsense is over. Thank goodness. I was going to return there anyway so it's a good thing he will be joining us.

My little buddy continues to crack us up. Tonight he helped me make "peeebaaaa" for dinner. He was really good at placing the pepperoni on spots where there wasn't any. I had to breathe deep and just let go and deal with the fact that they wouldn't be evenly spaced and pretty. Not sure if making it helped, but he ate almost two pieces.

Coming up next: the report from our latest Northern visitors. Stay tuned.

++Daddy!!!!+++

See this guy? He's my dad, my favorite playmate, my hero. I love him more than anything...okay, maybe I love Lovey more, but my Daddy is a close second. He's the first person I ask for in the morning and the only one who I want to read to me at night. He's the lap I want to sit on on and the shoulders I want to ride on. I really lucked out when I got this one as a dad. Best of all...he's the very best train driver ever!

Happy Father's Day Daddy! Love, Wyatt

...And Happy Father's Day to my special Daddy-o and Rick too! Love, Kate

++No Vacancy++

The Pacyna hotel will be full again this weekend. Uncle Matt and "Aunt" Taylor are coming to visit today. We're so excited to show them all the sights of the town and to have them get to see all the changes in the little guy. We're also excited to hear all the details of their wedding plans (ok, I am...not so sure about Mark).
Speaking of the little guy. He's now speaking in sentences. Ironically, most of these sentences begin with "I want..." The favorite seems to be "I want ice cream." He repeatedly informed his grandpa of this on the webcam last weekend. I think when we go to visit in July we are going to have to set a once-a-day ground rule. My other favorite is a direct echo of something I realized I say all the time: "here we go-oo". Now that he seems to be really catching on talking we're making even that much more of a concerted effort to ensure he speaks northern. Not sure if it helps or hurts that his two buddies down here have parents that hail from England and Long Island.
A photo recap of the weekend's events to follow (as well as the Wyatt and Larson recap.) Seriously, the heat cuts down on my computer time as I can't stand to have the hot laptop on my lap for too long. I really should just take it to a desk. That would be far too easy...

++Quick trip recap++

A little overdue and this isn't all of it. Here are a few highlights from our trip. For the most part we had a great time. Long plane trips with toddlers are a lot of work. Wyatt adapted well to being away from home...except for the eating part. Poor kid overdosed on chicken nuggets I think.

We actually had warm enough water to do some swimming at our resort (I use the term "resort" loosely here.) Check out what lovely thing Wyatt found at the pool and was captivated with. I just called it a squirter.
The basic goal of the entire trip was to find things to entertain the boys. We found the Children's Museum in Bellingham. Wyatt played short-order cook for the family.

We then went to the cutest little town called Fairhaven and had a fish-and-chips lunch served at this double-decker bus. Note to parents: trying to keep a child focused on eating his lunch while outside next to a huge bus is not easy! The food was quite tasty though!

Wyatt learned the fine art of tossing rocks into the ocean. This would have kept him occupied for hours. Good thing there was ample supply.

Birch Bay is very shallow and when the tide went out we were treated to a beach that went on forever! Here's Wyatt and Dad running out to see how far they can get.

Bompa was the muse of choice for the kids. He was better than Thomas or Elmo. Go figure.

When you travel with children you get to encounter all sorts of fabulous attractions that I would have never known existed in my pre-baby days. We found this amusement center with a Thomas train. The ride took about 15 minutes and wound back into the woods through all these scenes of houses and stuffed animals. It was a huge hit for the boys. Larson said next time he wanted to ride Percy though.

After the Buchholz family went back to Seattle we killed a little time with Nana and Bompa. We found this park with a waterfall. Wyatt decided to sit down to get a better look at things.

So there is just a few highlights from the trip. I'm planning another post with the best of the boys. They had a blast together.

I'm into week two without school. It also coincides with the arrival of the heat. I am of nordic descent. I am not designed to deal with this heat. We basically engage in one water activity each day. Mark gives me a hard time because I am more tan than he has ever seen me. It's not on purpose but a couple of hours of hot sun every day does the trick! I've heard it cools down again in September. Ugh.

++20 Months (and a few days...)++

We're quickly approaching the days when age is no longer counted in months but instead years. Somehow saying "twenty months" to people seems a little silly. I guess I will soon answer "almost two" when people ask how old he is...which seems like daily. I guess it's the question people ask when they don't know what else to say. Either that or they are comparing my child to theirs in their head and want a benchmark--ha!

Here's what he's up to these days:

--DADDY is the parent of choice. I'm totally ok with this. Especially when it is what is demanded on airplanes. It's only tough when he starts asking for Daddy at 8am and I know Mark isn't coming home until after bedtime tomorrow night!

--We play in the water table daily. This was the best toy purchase we have made. He played with it all last summer too. It does require a change of clothes afterward, but I don't mind. He has plenty.

--He's getting more and more into his friends. He knows the houses that his friends in our neighborhood live in and says their names and waves when we drive by. He also likes to play with Alex the almost 3-year-old neighbor. I think Alex just likes Wyatt's toys...

--He is a hit-and-miss eater which seems typical for kids his age. He feeds himself everything, including cereal with milk. When he gets close to the end he hands one of us the spoon to finish the job.

--He loves going to the library for books. Yesterday we took his favorite friend "Manma" (panda) with us to the library and he was really cute about showing panda the sights of the library (pretty much the fish tank).

--Firetrucks are the truck of choice. He knows when we are approaching the fire station and starts saying "tiretraaaahhhh" and then we have to look to see if the fire trucks are out.

--He answers most questions with "yeah" which is so cute but has led me to examine my speech and realize how often I say that. We're trying for "yes please" but are just glad that the answer isn't "no."

--He's getting the colors down and will unprompted tell me that something is "bloooo" "wewwow" "reh" and "purple"

--For the most part he is a funny, happy, agreeable and cooperative kid. As I say every time...we're lucky!

A quick note about the photo above. This was Wyatt helping me unpack. He doesn't usually go around without pants on but he had just awakened from his nap. We call these times "no-pants parties" this probably won't be so humorous when he is a teenager.