The good thing about having a child with a low-grade fever and a cough is that you can teach him how to cover his mouth when coughing. It’s so cute.

The bad thing about having a child with a low-grade fever and a cough is EVERYTHING ELSE!!!

Get well soon, Tyler. You’re driving your parents crazy. I fear that one of us is going to snap soon *cough*Sarah*cough* and injure the other *cough*me*cough*.

Pre-post but post-draft edit: Fever is gone and Tyler’s on his way towards being a happy toddler again. On his way… not quite there.

Click on any of these pictures to view them much larger.

Tyler wanted to help rake the leaves.

PULLLLLLL…. he actually got a pretty decent sized pile for a 16 month old.

Delilah watched, and Tyler grabbed a couple handfuls.

JUMP!

This smile is worth all the gold in the world.

Tyler played with his daddy.

And he played with his mommy.

There are tons of great photos that I haven’t posted here. For more leaf pile madness, click this link to view the rest of the pictures.

“No, Tyler! Don’t play wi- Ooooohhhhh CRAAAAAP!“

That, my friends, is the sound of countless warnings going unheeded. I heard the frustration, defeat, and, possibly, smugness in Sarah’s voice as she uttered those final two words. Unsure of exactly what Tyler had done, I walked into the room, ready to stand by Sarah’s side as she explained to Tyler what he had done and why he shouldn’t have. I was ready to echo some of Sarah’s key words, like “bad,” or “dangerous,” or “why can’t you be more awesome, like your father?” Oh boy, he’s gonna get it, I thought, because Sarah started her reprimand the very moment I entered the room.

“Remember how I told you not to leave your glasses where Tyler can reach them?”

Yeah, Tyler. Remember how mommy told y… Wait. “What?”

“Oh yah, Tyler just broke your glasses.”

No, wait. I thought we were uniting to stand against the little tyrant that gets into everything he shouldn’t be getting into. And shouldn’t we do so anyway? He did just break my glasses, after all. My very expensive glasses. Six weeks before Christmas. That should at least warrant a caning, or ten minutes of waterboarding, or, at the minimum, a stern talking to! Why are they both looking at me like I’m the one that’s in trouble?

Before I could start kicking Mega-Bloks across the room and shouting accusations of mutiny, a door shut in my mind. The deadbolt snapped into place, miraculously locking Extremely-IrrationalDad away before the anger could materialize. I calmly looked at the broken frame, cursing myself for leaving them on the arm of the couch, because I knew better. I KNEW better. That spot had ceased being a safe-zone months ago. All the while, my irrational self was pounding on the imaginary, yet very real door, screaming. But Tyler did this! Not me! Him! He did this! He broke the glasses! HE should have known better! I knew it was entirely my fault. I knew Tyler didn’t do anything wrong. But I tend to be irrational at times.

Rather than rub my nose in my own piss, Sarah didn’t say a word, which is completely out of character. Of course she’s told me countless times to put my glasses somewhere that Tyler can’t reach. Of course all those warnings went unheeded. She later admitted that she really wanted to remind me of all this but decided to bite her tongue. It’s a good thing, too, because the door holding back my anger was splintering. I suspect that Sarah saw the fire dancing in my eyes when she wisely decided to not pour mass quantities of thermite onto the flames.

But wait, the news gets better. I went to the eyeglass place a couple days ago. Those very expensive frames of mine? Well, they are two months out of warranty. Replacement frames to fit my lenses are equally very expensive. Have I mentioned yet that this is all six weeks before Christmas? I have a pretty weak prescription and decided that I would just go without glasses through the holidays (you know, when all the really horrible drivers are out and about). As I walked out, a customer followed me and told me to take my glasses to a jeweler. He said that they can solder quite nicely and extremely cheaply.

Twenty four hours and twenty dollars later, my glasses are back and good as new. Unless you are staring at them from three inches away, you can’t tell they had ever been broken. Twenty dollars! I’m elated.

The scene: I’m in the kitchen, cleaning after dinner. You know, loading the dishwasher, wiping counters, the works. Sarah and Tyler are in the living toom, playing with Tyler’s farm animals and tractors.

Sarah: Can the cows go for a ride?
Tyler: Moooo.
Sarah: Hop in, cows, let’s go to the slaughterhouse.

I paused for a couple moments, pondering whether I really heard what I thought I did. I failed in my attempts to think of another word that she may have said that would make more sense while playing with a sixteen month old.

Sarah: You can hop in too, horse. We’ll swing by the glue factory first.

*blink*

Me: SARAH!!!!!
Sarah: *wild laughter*

I walked into the office, so I could document the conversation I just overheard. For blogging purposes. And for Tyler’s psychiatrist in 25 years.

Sarah: Uh oh, TyTy, I think I’m in trouble.
Tyler: Tub.

No Sarah, dear wife, you’re not in tub. Not yet. But I would like to submit this post as Exhibit A, in the event of any future litigation. I just want to make sure my hands are clean when the bailiff calls forward the parties for “The State of Indiana v. Sarah”.  Don’t worry though, Tyler will still think you’re the most beautiful mommy in the world, even if he does have to talk to you through three inches of polycarbonate thermoplastic, and see you in a bright orange jumpsuit.

We have this cool Leapfrog toy. It has a magnetic base that attaches to the fridge. It comes with ten magnets. Each magnet is either the front or the back of a vehicle. You can make a car, a truck, an airplane, a train, or a boat. When you do so, the base sings a song about them. It also says funny things if you make a plane-train, or a boat-car, etc. Do you think Tyler wants to play with it? No, he’d rather play with the simple, orange, round magnet that is just out of his reach.

“Howwwp,” he says.

“Help? Help with what?”

I gave the magnet to him after he pointed at it, and mumbled under my breath about wasting money on toys he doesn’t play with^[1], and went back to unloading and loading the dishwasher.

“Howwwp.”

I looked back to see Tyler pointing at the space between the fridge and freezer doors. I mumbled something about the fact that the Leapfrog magnets were bigger than that gap, and Tyler wouldn’t need my help if he would just play with those magnets, and not the one that came free with a dry erase board. Instead of explaining this to Tyler, I simply retrieved the magnet and continued my chore.

“Howwwwp.”

Five times. FIVE TIMES he did this. Five times he didn’t learn not to do that. Five times I explained to him that he shouldn’t put the magnet between the doors because then he gets upset and needs daddy’s help and, while I’d love to play with him, I really needed to finish cleaning up the kitchen like a good husband.

I returned to the sink to rinse off some more dishes and load them in the dishwasher. A moment later, I turned my head to spy on Tyler. He had the magnet pinched between his little fingers, inserted halfway between the doors. He looked up at me and froze. With our eyes locked and neither of us saying a word, he, very slowly, pulled his hand and the magnet back and placed it on the front of the fridge. And he did this thinking that I wouldn’t notice what he was just about to do. Like, if he moved slow enough, I would have been none the wiser to his original intent. Sneaky little booger.

Now hold on just a gee dee second here…

This means that Tyler knew that putting the magnet between the doors was something that daddy didn’t want him to do. He knew this but was going to do so anyway. He knew right from wrong and yet still decided to be mischievous. He DECIDED to do this. Sneaky. Little. Booger. Why am I freaking out about this? Well first of all, because I always freak out. It’s a part of my genome. Secondly, this is just a precursor to much more ominous things.

“Tyler, did you try to cram a piece of bread in the DVD player?”
“No, daddy.”

“Tyler, do you know how my car door got that huge dent? And why there appears to be blood all over the cracked windshield?”
“Sorry, pops, I think it’s been like that for a while. Did you ask mom?”

“Son, do you know why my oatmeal tastes like rat poison?”
“Dad, you’re going crazy in your old age. Just eat the oatmeal. Oh, and I need you to sign this power of attorney form, and a couple changes I made to your will. It’s just technical stuff, don’t worry about anything.”

[1] Truth be told, he does play with this toy, but not avidly.

There’s a new sheriff in town… Sheriff Tyler.

He comes in on a horse… and because of the stupid, cold weather, he needs to wear mittens

Cousin Lexi was there too, as Raggedy Ann

There were activities at Trunk-or-Treat, like Bean Bag Toss (or tailgate toss, or corn hole, or whatever you wanna call it).

Tyler got lots of candy (for his parents to steal), and posed for pictures with the townsfolk.

We even had popcorn!

Tyler may or may not have experienced a sugar rush from cotton candy…

In case you weren’t a reader of my blog last year, he may or may not have had cotton candy then too. He wasn’t supposed to, but he decided to GRAB some from his Papa (Grandpa) while nobody was looking.

More pictures from last Halloween here.
And more pictures from THIS Halloween here.

Tyler with his pumpkin

Pulling the guts out

And putting them in the bowl (for us to separate later)

Pulling more out… and eating the guts (sign)

I see you…

Tyler with his Elmo pumpkin

Sarah and I carved pumpkins too. Mine is the orange, Sarah’s is green (Tyler picked it for her)

A happy pumpkin family…

Happy Halloween everyone!!!!

I’ll let the pictures tell the story, and I’ll try to keep my typed words to a minimum… We went to Nottawa Fruit Farm to partake in some hayride and pumpkin picking activities…

Tyler LOVES tractors. He calls them grahgors. He even got to ride one of his very own!

We went through a corn maze… get it??? Corn? Maize? Har har har. Then Tyler sat with Papa during parts of our covered wagon hayride.

Tyler got to pick out his very own pumpkin. He found the one he wanted and sat on it.

Tyler didn’t want to, but his cousins climbed through a dark tunnel system made of hay. They loved it. Afterward, Tyler got to dig for buried dinosaur eggs! He found one with a baby dinosaur toy in it.

Tyler got his very own mini pumpkin to color and decorate.

All in all… we had a great time… Stay tuned for the pumpkin CARVING post coming in the next couple of days.