Trampoline

We found this trampoline for Kyan on craigslist (where else?) last week. We were excited to get it, and he's been doing great practicing his jumping skills. Thanks grandma and grandpa for Kyan's birthday trampoline!

Poor Ky had to get the scratch test on his back yesterday. He did really good. He didn't even cry until almost halfway through, but his back looked so sad afterwards. Apparently he is allergic to everything...big shocker. Anyone need a basset hound?

Big 0-2!

Happy Birthday to Kyan! Today he turns two and we can't hardly believe how fast the time has gone. He is growing up so quickly...even more so lately.

My cousins got him this big dinosaur tent and tunnel for his birthday and we set them up last night. You can't see from the pictures how huge this tent is. I guess eventually it happens...the adult things get buried under all the kid stuff. Kyan loves it and spent all evening playing in it. It is pretty cool. We took lots of pictures last night.

Father's Day

My dad and Becky came up to visit over the weekend to celebrate Kyan's birthday and Father's Day.

Kyan was excited to get an Aquadoodle...actually Matt really enjoyed drawing on it too.

We had a party for Kyan and Carli at my cousin Michelle's house. Here they are blowing out their candles on their cupcakes.

Carli was very protective of her things. Look at that face. That was the main look that Kyan received from her throughout the entire day. Carli was hilarious.

You see where this is going. Poor Matt. Happy Father's Day to the best dad ever. Kyan is so lucky.

Matt is always the hit of the party with the kids.

And look what he created...

Wow. All the kids together in one picture. They really enjoyed jumping on the beds. And Kyan was really excited about the Elmo room.

East Side Cribs

It was 9pm… milk was given, snacks already devoured. It was time for bed. I took Kyan upstairs to get his night nights on and realized to my dismay that we used the last nighttime diaper earlier that day for his nap. Avoiding a guaranteed leakage problem, I put on my shoes, grabbed my keys and told Andrea I’d be back momentarily.
“We have $20 in the bank so don’t go crazy.” She called out as I headed out the door. All I heard was “Go crazy.”

For a Tuesday night, Wal-mart seemed busier than normal. Workers with their train of carts slowly made their way towards the giant store as some cars waited to leave, while others waited to park. Once inside, I made my way towards the back. Past produce, apparel, office supplies, frozen goods, dvds – whoa…how much is Iron Man? Great, I lost time. Focus! I turned the corner to destiny to find just one box of size 5s left on the shelf. I glanced around a bit to see if maybe there was a smaller package…. I only needed one. Two if it was a bad night. Seeing that this box was going to be the winner, I crouched down to retrieve it only to be bumped by another dad with the same agenda. We rose up, each one holding one half of the last box of diapers. My grip was firm…and so was his. It was a stand off.

I glanced to see that he had on an Overland Park t-shirt. This was clearly a turf battle. I was in the right. This was my house. No OP dad was going to muscle in on my hunting grounds. My grip tightened. We danced around the aisle a bit, each one trying to wrestle the box from the other. It was then I heard the rhythmic clicking. I looked up to see other dads circling their three-good-wheel/ one-lame-wheel carts around us. The clicking of the bad carts was almost tribal. My brothers had arrived.

I don’t know if it was my determined glare or the gathering of my entourage that shook the concentration of the outlander dad, but his hands slipped from the box. To the victor go the spoils and I raised the box high above my head in victory. The other dad frowned and turned away. As he slowly made his way down the aisle dragging along his battle worn pride, I called out to him. “Hey Kid!” He turned. I tossed him a few diapers from my new box and he caught them…dropping only one. “Now beat it.” I said. He grabbed up the dropped diaper and stuffed it into his jacket and headed out the door.

I removed my do-rag and fashioned a new one from my bounty. My new colors… my new armor. My brothers left their carts and joined me where we all donned our new badges of honor. We were eight grown men with diapers on our heads victory dancing in the infant and toddler aisle. We were special and everyone knew it. This was our town. This was our turf. And that night the East Side Cribs was born.

Toilet Monkey

Last week Kyan discovered climbing into kitchen chairs and moving them to reach fun things. It's crazy because he's never been a climber at all, and we actually struggled with just keeping him from falling off the bed or down the stairs. I am finally realizing with all my research that Kyan has had very poor 'spatial awareness,' which is knowing where your body is in space. He would just step off the top stair as if he didn't realize the decline, or he would completely freeze up at the park when we'd try to get him to climb the equipment. He couldn't seem to manuever or situate his body to climb and turn to sit in a chair by himself.

So to say that 2 weeks ago he had never thought of climbing onto a kitchen chair, and 2 weeks ago we were super excited that he had just started climbing the park equipment with our help rather than just freezing up; it is truly a miracle that he has turned into this little monkey that is climbing everything. We are shocked that it has happened so suddenly, as if he has instantly regained his spatial awareness. He is going up and down the stairs, climbing the park equipment, getting into chairs, and even climbing onto tables with no help...all by himself and all for the first time ever. It is insane the amount of progress he's made in such a short period of time. So you can imagine how proud I was to walk into the bathroom and find him sitting on the toilet unrolling the paper. I can guarantee that he had never even thought of sitting on the toilet before. I would like to think that he's practicing for potty training. We are excited to see what comes next every day, and we are learning to appreciate the little things.

If you're curious about the sticker on the toilet tank...Matt's a funny guy. All of our toilet tanks proudly display these stickers now; just in case you wonder if it's safe to put a child into the tank. IT IS NOT! Thank goodness for warning stickers. We wouldn't have known otherwise.

Park Pictures

Kyan has been improving so much on his new GFCF diet. Here is Kyan really looking at the pages of a book with me.
We've been taking him to the park a lot lately with the nice weather. He is doing so much better there. Before the diet he would run back and forth from the mulch to the concrete (over and over again) or he would just take off for the parking lot. He wasn't interested in the equipment so we would just have to make him swing or go down the slides. Now Kyan actually goes to the equipment to play all by himself. He still enjoys the mulch/concrete game on occasion but not near as much. He is like a different kid at the park now.

He even migrates to the bigger kid equipment to go down the really big slides. He looks a little concerned on this one. It is one of the tallest slides.