growing up boys

tayloe took little t on his first ever fishing trip today. i thought the child was going to jump out of his skin he was so excited. he couldn't even sleep during his nap time. he helped his dad pack up the cooler with snacks and get his rod ready. he went and got his shoes, his hat and put on sunscreen so quickly and with so much joy i almost wondered if he was my child. off they went. tayloe didn't even take his rod so intent he was on showing little tayloe the ropes. it made me so happy and proud. even more so when he came home and told me he'd caught 2 bluegill. i asked t2 how big his was and he held his arms out as wide as he could. 'THIS BIG, MAMA!' for a kid that's been imaginary fishing for the last 8 months with anything that could remotely pass for a fishing pole, it was a total triumph.
thomas and i stayed home and had a rare afternoon just the two of us. we hung some things up in his room (9 months old and the only thing i ever got around to hanging was his mobile) then we read and sang and took pictures. since thomas didn't make regular practice of rolling over and hasn't even begun to show interest in crawling, there hasn't been much documentation of his major milestones. he's been sitting up now for about 2 months and while forward movement still seems a ways off, the kid can reach and stretch with the best of them. if he wants something beyond his grasp, he hurls himself toward it. if he misses, he takes a breath and bends, bends, bends as far as he can on the exhale. he gets lots of A+'s for effort.
looking at these pictures of tayloe makes me realize it's time to kiss the diapers goodbye. potty training hasn't really been on my radar since i bought one of those kiddie toilets last summer. it's probably because my pediatrician put it this way : you can potty train a boy at 2 1/2 and he'll be potty trained by 3. or you can just wait until he's 3. so i just put it out of my mind, knowing it'd get around to it eventually.
eventually starts on monday. everyone's home. we don't have any major plans to go anywhere.it gives me enough time to get to the bookstore and get some instructions on this type of thing. it's warm outside so a few pantsless days in the yard won't do any harm. plus he starts summer camp at his preschool in two weeks and they said they'd be more than happy to help.
perked ears. help did you say? was there ever a better motivational word?

for comparison sake

i just realized every picture i have to tayloe at this age (around 9 months) he's smiling huge. and every picture i've taken of thomas lately he has this 'whatchoo lookin at lady' look on his face. i'm wondering if that's because i took no less than 2 million pictures of tayloe a month and just saved all the smiley ones. my photos of thomas are mostly on my iphone.
the thing about telling the older brother that his job is to protect the younger brother is that the older brother takes the task pretty seriously. today thomas was on the floor and the puppies came tromping inside. before i could even think about it, tayloe ran screaming past me yelling 'NO NO NO PUPPIES' arms straight out in front of him, heading straight for thomas. 'I SAVE YOU' he yells as he plows into thomas, - lays him out flat. he's full-on smothering his brother yelling 'I SAVE YOU THOMAS. I SAVE YOU! SHOO PUPPIES, SHOO'
of course how could he have known he was hurting him? thomas's screams were so muffled he didn't even hear him. when i scolded him for being too rough he looked at me like i had 1,000 heads.
i know, kiddo. it's confusing.

kids and dogs

there isn't much difference really. both cute. both curious. both poop a lot.
so far so good with the puppies. they sleep outside, play outside, nap outside and mostly entertain each other. i'm a little afraid of how big johnny, the male, is going to be. he's such a lug right now he's nearly double the size of june. let's just hope he stays gentle and dumb.

tayloe cal ripkin emery

mad skills. this is the same kid who was blocking soccer balls at 5 months. at the time that didn't seem weird, but now that i have thomas - our child who never rolled over and is perfectly content to sit and watch the world go by without moving a single limb (thus his nickname, 'love lump') - it seems prodigal.