We just returned from another wonderful vacation with friends of ours and their little girl Emily. We went to the south side of Ocean City, NJ and loved it. The kids really enjoyed the beach and water. It ws pretty cold but Jeff was happy to jump waves. Tyler wasn't thrilled with the waves but he did like splashing his feet in the shallow water and digging in the sand. One afternoon he actually spent almost an hour scooping sand onto my legs and feet and then promptly crawled on my lap and curled up for a nap. We certainly tired out the kids each day. The weather was beautiful and we couldn't have asked for better company. We expected Emily and Tyler to be tired of each other after a week, but they seemed to really enjoy each other's company and liked to hold hands and walk everywhere together. They were also very good at giving hugs and kisses to each other and sharing toys.
Tyler had a word explosion this week. He now repeats the last three words or so of everything we say. And he started stringing sentences together--I asked him if he wanted to go to bed the other day and he responded with a very clear "I don't want to". He's pointing out things he sees as we go by--things I don't remember showing him or telling him about. He uses words constantly and says things like "night night bed" when he's tired, "Tyler's house" when we drive up our driveway (sounds like "lyler"), and "back to the house" when he was done at the beach. Our vacation condo was across from an empty lot with a construction Loader in it, so he loved looking out the sliding glass doors all day and yelling "loader". We also were near the beach comb tractor storage area and the fire house so he got to see (and tell us about) the tractors and fire engines too. He's certainly a healthy eater and doesn't turn his nose up at anything. He asks for his favorite foods by saying "cookies get please" and "more berries"--his new favorite food is strawberries. He loved his first taste of ice cream and ate a big slice of pizza on the boardwalk. His favorite breakfast food is SmartStart cereal and "waffles with srup"(syrup). Everything must be done by himself--I'm not allowed to feed him anything, he must have a fork, he puts on his own jacket and hat (and removes them when he wants--which doesn't work well for me), he gets his own snacks out of the cabinets at home, and has no interest in reading or playing with us unless it's on his terms (i.e. he asks us to play or brings us a book).
