TJ's 35th Month

When I tell people my kids are just twenty months apart I usually get one of two responses, either:

 "Bless your heart" 

or

 "Just wait till they are older and start playing together, it will be so much easier having them close in age." 

I might still have rights to sympathy, however, we did have a huge breakthrough this month- TJ and Ayla started playing together. At the beginning of the month I would hear TJ say, "Ayla, come find me!" as he tried to teach her the rules of hide-and-go-seek. He didn't have much success with that game, but he has since been calling her name, asking her to come in his room, or outside to play with him. Not only that, but he also has decided to take claim over his "baby sister" this month, and is all of a sudden her little protector (maybe he saw what a shabby job I was doing and decided he needed to step in). When Ayla runs, he runs after her, and he is nonstop explaining to her things like, "Don't touch that. It will hurt you, baby girl." Or taking small objects aways from her and saying, "Oh no, Ayla! You can choke on that!" And when he is playing with Ayla he will periodically yell to me, "Ayla's with me, Mom. She will be okay!"

I'm really behind on blogging, I have some more recent photos to post, but for now here are pictures from TJ's 35th month:

TJ had a grand time at Disney World. He is at a great age to really enjoy almost all of the rides. And he's free.

This picture makes me miss TJ's curly long hair, but most of the time it just made him look like a mess. Which he very much is.

TJ was pretty cautious at first of all the characters at Disney. Cautious but very interested.

When TJ finished riding the Mad Tea Party with Trent, he was able to meet the white rabbit.

TJ loved driving the race cars, he drove once with me and once with Trent.

Trent and TJ rode the Dumbo ride together.

And he was tall enough for the Barnstormer roller coaster, which was his absolute favorite.

TJ rode the coaster at least five times in a row, laughing the entire time.

We really enjoyed our time at the Magic Kingdom. We probably won't be going again for a while but hopefully (with the help of pictures and the blog) the memories will last a lifetime.

Just before his first swimming lesson. He was so excited...

Little did he know it would be nothing but crying and clinging to his swim teacher, Mrs. Lauren, for the first two and a half lessons. 

On day three he stopped crying and started swimming, and has loved it ever since.  This is him right before he puts his face in and swim- he can barely contain his excitement.

He is so proud of his new skill and so are we.

Super-active-one-hundred-miles-per-hour-little-monkey. 

But what a fun monkey to have around. We love our TJ.