Other March

Yes, Tyler pretty much dominates our time and attention, but there were a few other things that happened this month...

We're finding puzzles to be a fun quarantine activity:

Mmmmm, homemade doughnuts!

He's starting to become aware that there's a whole big world out there:

(even if we pretty much never go anywhere!)

Snuggle time!

WAIT!  This was supposed to be everything else that we're doing...

(sorry, too cute not to post)

Dad and Bryson cleaning their golf clubs... golf season is right around the corner!

Every time I cut Dallin's hair, I tell him that he has the exact same hair pattern along his neckline as his Grandma Cotton... and every time he tells me that I tell him that same thing every time I cut his hair.  I guess I will be telling Tyler the same thing in a few years:

So a funny thing about Tyler (and then we'll get back to the 'everything else'), he is very particular about his pacifier!  Bryson would have sucked on anything.  Seriously.  I had a bunch of styles of paci's when he was a newborn and he didn't care what I stuck in his mouth!  Eventually we settled on the soothie... I liked that they were one piece because they were easy to clean, plus they didn't make a squishy sound when they got water inside of them.  So I just gave all my kids soothies after that (or the gum drop variation).  But Tyler was not interested.  At ALL!  He would gag on it or just kinda play with it, but rarely would he actually suck as intended.  I had several other types of  paci's that  I'd gotten with new baby promo's, so I tried the Nuk, which also has a once piece version, but nope... well, he tolerated the nuk slightly better than the soothie, but not by much.  And then, I gave him a 'Mam' and *hallejulah* apparently he is a Mam paci boy!

Ya, I know someday I'll have to take it away from him, but he sleeps so good between feeds with it...

In other news...

All five of my kids on their school chrome books:

They were for sure NOT using them for educational purposes *rolls*eyes*

Yup, more snow!  But no worries, we don't have anywhere to go anyway...

Tyler has been in his carseat a total of 4 times in the 2 ½ weeks since he left the hospital (three times for doctors appointments and once to go to the kids school to get chrome books and play on the fields)... He would have been pretty much living in his carseat most days after school if Covid hadn't happened!  I'm a little concerned that the collateral damage of Covid might be that he doesn't tolerate his carseat 'cuz he's never in it! 😕

The Many Faces of Tyler

We could all just sit and stare at this little boy, especially when he's so expressive!

(I had to get a pic of his tongue-tie for the doctor... he has to get it clipped 😕)

I love this next sequence... He was a hungry baby:

And then with a full belly:

The Wrestling Season that Wasn't

With Covid-19 shutting everything down, wrestling got cancelled too.  So sad!  We were hoping the end of the season could be salvaged, but alas, no.  The boys had been working so hard... at least we got one tournament in!

Jace won his first match on points (it was fierce!), won his second on points, and then lost his third on points, ending up with a silver (and a bloody nose).  Eli pinned his first guy, was pinned by the second and then lost 0-4 to the third, it was a pretty big change for him because he usually dominates- he just had some tough competition this tourney!

2 Weeks

Gosh time flies when you have a newborn!  It's not so bad being up every three hours around the clock when you have this smile waiting for you though:

At the doctors office, waiting to be poked for his 2 week newborn screening:

it's like he knew his impending doom or something...

His weight at 2 weeks was 7lbs, 3oz- that's 1lb, 1oz over his birth weight, but 1lb, 3 oz over his weight when we were discharged from the hospital, keep growing Tyler!

Workouts

The kids are already getting him on a rigorous exercise program: tummy time, neck strengthening and grip conditioning, they're hard core...

When he's in his little gym, playtime is over:

Needless to say, he gets plenty of stimulation!

Homeschooling

Before Tyler was born (and the world was put in quarantine), I bought a bunch of St. Patty's Day accessories for the kids to wear to school... Since they didn't physically go to school, Jace was the only one feeling it:

With only 1 {old} desktop}, 2 {even older} laptops, a tablet and fairly slow internet, I wasn't sure how we'd make the whole distance learning/homeschool thing work...

Fortunately, the school is letting us borrow chromebooks and so far, our internet has held up pretty well, even with multiple kids on zoom at the same time!

We've done a little PE at the school track:

And a more often PE is taking walks down our road:

And sometimes playing in what's left of the snow:

Our chemistry science experiment making elephant toothpaste:

Reading time:

My schooling has been learning how to cloth diaper!  

It's really not too labor intensive, and amazing how stains bleach out like magic in the sun!

Time on My Hands

Whelp, my life got a lot less complicated when Tyler was born!  How many mothers of newborns can say that?!?  

I honestly had been struggling with overwhelm when I considered my calendar the first 3 months after this baby was born, especially until Bryson turned 16 and got his license.  I kinda think that there should be some special exception made for kids to get their license early when they're *almost* 16 AND their mom is about to have a baby 😉.  Between school, wrestling, soccer, golf, basketball, piano, scouts and church activities, we were scheduled to be maxed out after the baby was born- and that was just March!  So when Tyler was born and shortly thereafter everything under the sun got cancelled, I was kinda okay with it!  My calendar went from this:

To this:

Waaaaaaaaaaay more do-able.

Is it any wonder I don't feel too overwhelmed about having to homeschool my kids?  Wait, what?!? 

I know that this whole Covid-19 pandemic has really negatively impacted a lot of people deeply, but for my family, there is a sweet silver lining of getting to bond with their baby brother in a way they never could have if we would have all been going in all the different directions like what was scheduled.

Bathtime (feat. Eli the photographer)

Everyone literally gathered around as I gave Tyler his first bath at home:

Naturally, he peed AND pooped all over during his bath, which the kids thought was both disgusting and hilarious at the same time.

Eli did the honors of taking the pictures and video did a great job!