Fun Facts

Well, on a more positive motherly note than my last post, here are some fun facts about Tucker:

• Favorite sport: Ping pong. He watches his daddy play. He loves to carry around a ping pong paddle while he is crawling and try to hit things with it. It's pretty darn cute, if I do say so myself.  
• He loves to be outside. If any outside door is open, he will crawl as fast as he can to see if he can escape through it. He loves dirt, rocks, grass, you name it. He loves to help me when we're outside. I was pulling weeds in our garden, and he pulled up one of our pepper plants in an attempt to help. He was just playing with his toys on the side of the garden and then abracadabra, pepper plant demolished. I swear, this kid is as fast as lightning. I must keep my eyes on him at all times!
• He hates, hates, HATES naps. I will take him in his room and lift him over his bed, and he will scream and clutch onto me as tight as he can. He even tries to persuade me to let him skip his nap with many a slobbery kiss. It's like, "Mom, please, I love you, I love you, here is a kiss, no naps, please!" When he's not asleep yet, and he's not crying, he is usually wrestling with his puppy that is in his bed. He usually cries for at least a half hour, most of the time an hour, before he crashes head over feet and is out. Although, I must admit that he has gotten better in the last two days. I put him down yesterday, and he didn't even cry. I was actually worried that something might be wrong...
• He likes his whistle. During our Easter Egg hunt, some of the eggs had little whistle/compasses in them. All the kids were going crazy with their whistles, making the wonderful noise of high pitchedness (yes, I made up that word). Tucker just sat there, whistle in mouth, so confused that it wasn't screaming like all the other kids'. A few days later, he figured out how it worked. He gets all excited when he sees it, and goes to town on it, which isn't so convenient when we have a movie on, but it's still cute.
• When we say "Uh uhuhuh" he knows he is not supposed to be doing what he's doing. If you catch him by surprise, he will immediately throw whatever is in his hand, and shake his head "no" violently back and forth. 
• He loves ice. Whenever we let him drink out of a cup, he will take a sip, pause, then shove his little fist in the cup to grab the ice. If there is no ice in the cup, he gets REAL mad and will throw the cup. 
• If Gary is laying on the floor, and I tell Tucker, "Let's get him!", he will careen into Gary head first screaming excitedly. 
• Favorite kind of animal: Dogs. LOVES them. Loves to let them lick all over his face, imitate them, pant like them, try to bark like them.
• He likes to help me out around the house. If I'm loading the dishwasher, he races straight over, mostly because he wants to play king of the mountain on the open door, which is an "uh uhuhuh!". If I can keep him off the door, he gets to help me close the flap over the soap, and push the start button. He is a good little button pusher when I do laundry too. He is also fascinated when I cook. Most of the time, he insists to be held or on the counter, which is not so convenient. 
  
• Favorite book(s): Skippyjon Jones Series, his Little People flap book, and a new favorite, Five Little Speckled Frogs. He knows that Skippyjon is a dog(well a cat who thinks he is a Chihuahua), and always pants like a dog when he looks at the pictures. He loves to pull up the flaps on his Little People book and see all the animals. He gets to say "bzzz" while he helps daddy squish all the most delicious bugs in his Five Little Speckled Frogs. He also gets to eat the little cutout frogs that came with it. 
  
• Favorite room in the house: The bathroom. He has a fascination with all the many fixtures and functions of the room. He loves watching water come out of the spout, taking a bath, getting into the toilet paper, etc. If we leave the door open and he's not visible, he is making his way to the bathroom. Today he even went to the potty. He was eating his breakfast just grunting. I could tell he was trying to get something out. After breakfast, I went to change his diaper and he had not gone yet, so I just helped him sit on the toilet, and he went. It was a lot better than changing a poopy diaper. Maybe, just maybe, we can start early on some potty training. Not that he can even walk yet...but he's getting close. 
  

I can't list all the things that this little boy does that warms my heart or just makes me laugh. We are so blessed to have this little guy as a part of our family.

Little Mr. Tucker Trouble

Tucker has been such a handful. This is about a recent incident in our home. NOTE: If you don't have kids already, maybe you shouldn't read this. I don't want to be held responsible for anyone deciding not to procreate. 

• Tucker eats breakfast and insists that he feed himself without my help
  
• Barley cereal and applesauce all over his face and hair
• Bath time
• Fill up water
• Set Tucker in bath tub
• Surprise attack! Dark cloud billows from below him
• Yelp
• Save Tucker from the brownness
• Set Tucker on towel on the floor
• Barley  cereal and applesauce STILL all over his face and hair
• Quickly clean out tub and fill AGAIN
• Lift Tucker up to put in tub
• Feel a trickle on my foot
• Look down in time to see yellow fluid attack my foot
• Set Tucker in tub AGAIN
• Clean yellow fluid off foot
• Look back at Tucker
• 2 new little logs in the tub!
• AW COME ON!!!!

As if the story shouldn't end there--I gave up on the whole bath idea, wiped Tucker down, got him dressed and took him downstairs for Gary to watch while I ventured to clean out the tub AGAIN. Not a minute later, I hear Gary yelling, "Tucker got into the ashes!" The little culprit had gotten into the wood burning stove ashes, resulting with a black mouth and ashes all over his fresh clothes. He is such a handful, but he is still so cute!

Easter

The day before Easter, we all went over to the Houghton's for the traditional Easter Egg Hunt. Before the hunt started, Gary decided that he needed a little sadbox time with Tucker. Tucker LOVED it!


Gary and I were not allowed to hunt for eggs this year because we have a kid. Rules are rules. But we did get to help Tucker find some eggs. So in reality, he's not going to eat all that candy, so we still got the goods. (Except now we are on a health challenge, so we can't have candy as of Monday!)
Look at Tucker's little truck bag that April made for him (and all the other kids) to put his eggs in.
He got a Tonka Truck! He loves to just sit in the back of it while he gets wheeled around all over the place!