Trip to the Zoo

Had my second trip to the zoo this weekend, but first trip to the Milwaukee Zoo. Neato.

Saw all kinds of animals with Nana, Papa, Mom and Dad. It was a part of Papa’s work annual convention. I only slept through part of it, honest.

In other news, I’ve decided that I don’t want to sleep for more than an hour at a time at night. For the last month or two I’ve had a pretty steady rhythm of getting up about once a night to nurse and then go back to sleep. Now, I’m up every hour or so… wailing.

Mom and Dad have tried this new torture devise of letting me, “cry it out,” they call it. They vastly underestimated my endurance. I proved I can cry longer than they can tolerate listening to me cry. I win.

Everybody’s hoping this anti-sleep thing is just a brief phase or growth spurt. We’ll see about that.

Reached my 14th week too by the way, but who's counting.

These are a few of my favorite things

Speaking of things I like, here are a few of my favorite things as I reach the three-month pole…

- I like to suck on the knuckle on my index finger, not the thumb, just the index knuckle… I’m working on the whole fist
- Also sucking on blankets and pacifiers too… sooooo basically I just like to put things in my mouth
- Ceiling fans. No explanation needed right? They’re just awesome
- Talking to people, especially ladies (va-va-voom)
- Diaper changes… all eyes on me
- My new Bumbo seat
- My Brewers mobile… could stare at that for like minutes (my attention span is short, what do you want from me?)
- Being swaddled at night – haven’t quite mastered the arm control yet, so the flailing wakes me
- Being outside
- A magazine ad for Honda cars – can’t really explain why, but boy do I love looking at that page
- The white noise maker in my crib… huuussshhhhhhhhh

Home again, home again

Whew… time to catch our breath and get back into a rhythm. After traveling all over the place and seemingly living more days out of a suitcase than at home… we’re home.

I loved seeing all of the new places and spending time with family, but it’s good to be back in Madison for a little quiet time with Mom and Dad.

In other news today… guess who rolled over again? You got it… this guy.

After rolling over four times in one day about a month and a half ago and then roll-hibernating, I have finally broken the drought. I was laying on my activity mat playing with my dangling animal friends and wanted to look at something to my left.

I turned over onto my side and even swung my legs over, but I pretty much stalled there for quite sometime. Then after much struggle, my arm kind of tucked under me and, boom, there I was on my stomach.

I gotta tell you, it wasn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. I actually didn’t want to be there and couldn’t flip back over.

Papa Rico said it was like a microcosm for life. Sometimes you work so hard to get someplace only to find it’s not as sweet as you had imagined. I have no idea what that means, but he’s a smart guy so it probably makes me sound smart to have it in my blog.

Another big event today, Mom and Dad got me a Bumbo seat.

Whoa. That thing opened a whole new world. I can sit up. No really, with the help of that spongy, cheesehead-like seat I can almost pass for a big kid.

I sat my butt off, too. We even did webcam with Nana and Papa Herb just so they could see me sit. That was hard work because I’m still a little wobbly. I gave it a solid 10 minutes or so, but I was spent after that.

First trip to the North Palace

Quick update about my week at the Stach cottage, aka “the North Palace.” Fun week doing all sorts of new things. Went on a pontoon boat, swam in a lake, watched the adults play fan ball (they’re odd) and horseshoes, did some puzzling, went on walks with Mom, Aunt Pam and Gigi and lots of cuddle time with Papa Rico, Whitney, Brett and the whole gang.

Beautiful country up there. Can’t wait until I’m older and can start fishing with Rico.

I suffered from some pretty serious stuffiness at night and in the morning though. Not sure if it’s early allergies developing, or if I have a cold or what, but it wasn’t fun. Made for a few tough nights for me and my parents.

Plus, Mom and Dad only brought some cheesy little travel-sized “booger hunter” that didn’t work at all. They left the nice one at home… silly folks.

When we got back to Madison on Friday I got to meet my favorite musician (other than the white noise maker in my crib) Cory Chisel and the Wandering Sons. They were playing at the Terrace and Mom and Dad let me hang out with the band before the concert for a bit. Then I had to go home to bed with Gigi and Rico.

Gotta work on getting one of those Wandering Sons onesies. I hear chicks dig 'em.

Rocky Mountain Cry

A trip to Colorado was next up on “Tyler’s Summer Tour”. The entire Herb family descended on Louisville, Colorado – just outside Boulder – to visit and stay with the Steffls.

Once again I handled the plane ride without any trouble. A little milk on the way up and a little nap on the way down. We had Nana and Papa Herb in the row in front of us, so I got to bounce back and forth between them and Mom and Dad.

Among other things, this marked my first chance to meet Aunt Carrie, Uncle Andrew and my cousins Emma and Ryan. The Dixons flew in from Harrisburg as well, giving us 13 people total. It was a lot of fun, but a bit loud too. More on that in a bit.

Among the things we did in Colorado… hiking in the foothills of the Rockies (I rode the Bjorn), celebrated Emma’s July 4th birthday (man, I wanted that ice cream cake), watched an Independence Day parade (again, from the Bjorn), swam in two different pools (starting to like this water thing), a BBQ and lots of playing with the cousins.

There was a cold bug running through the family while we were out there and Daddy caught it bad. He was down for the count for over a day. I managed to stay healthy thanks to teacher Mom and her robo-immune system. She’s pumping me full of germ-fighting goodness.

A few of the others got the bug to and it made for some cranky and tired times for everyone. I think anytime you have that many people in one spot, including five kids four and under, you’re bound to have noise, chaos and tears (lots of lessons in sharing being learned).

Everybody else was crying so much, that it just seemed like the thing to do and I joined in. I’m usually pretty mild-mannered, but I wasn’t going to be the only one not wailing. I look up to those older kids. They’re so cool. Thus, crying is cool.

Mom and Dad disagree.

It seemed for a moment that I might have made a breakthrough while in Colorado because I slept through the night TWICE! For me that meant only like seven hours (11 p.m. until 6 a.m.), but that was a first.

It was a fleeting achievement, however. After two days of sleeping well I had a rough night on the third. C’est la vie.

Great trip though and great to spend so much quality time with the family.