Don't mess with my kid!

So I've had a few experiences lately where I have gotten a little defensive over Teagan. Some people just say the rudest things! Of course I try to never say something rude back, but I always think in my head or later about what comeback I COULD have said to really show them. I know that it is really immature, but I'm sure you've done it too. I've got the mother hen syndrome.

A couple days ago at the park I meet a mom with a daughter named Teagan. We were both calling our little ones and realized they had the same name so of course we talked about it since it's kind of an unusual name.

Her: I think our little ones have the same name
Me: Oh cool, I've hardly met anyone else with the same name
Her: I've never heard of someone calling a boy that name before, funny
Me: I've noticed that in Idaho, where we used to live there are lots of boy Teagans, and here in California there are lots of girl Teagans, it's one of those names that goes both ways I guess.
Her: I decided to name my daughter instead of my son that because I guess it's more of a girl name (not her EXACT words, but that was the general idea)
Me: oh, interesting.

In my head: Oh yours is a girl, I thought for sure it was a boy, funny.

Today we were at First 5 which is like library story time but they do arts and crafts and games too, it is SO fun and SO free! Well, in walks grandma with her prodigy grandchild. Seriously this kid was incredible. He was 19 months old and knew all of his letters, numbers, colors and shapes. Our conversation:

Me: WOW, he is so smart I can't believe he does so well with recognizing the letters!
Grandma: Well we work with him a lot
...she tells me all about the family situation, he spends four days a week with g-ma and g-pa and fri, sat, sun with his parents and we had a nice little conversation...

Teagan came up and I introduced them.
Grandma: So how old is he
Me: 22 months
Grandma: Does he know his alphabet yet?
Me: Oh no, he's not even really talking much yet, but he does really well with other things.
Grandma: Oh, do you let him watch TV
Me: oh yes, he watches movies while I tutor in the afternoon (not to mention the hour of PBS while I clean and get ready in the morning)
Grandma: mmm, that's why

and she didn't really say much else.

What I wished I would have said:

ARE YOU KIDDING ME he is not even 2 yet, he plays outside with dirt and sticks and rocks and builds forts and crushes them, why in the world would he know his alphabet. And why in the world is that such a horrible thing?!!?!?!?

I'll admit, the TV is bad and I do wish he would let me read to him and I don't work with him on the smarty stuff as much as I should, but I'm sure he is going to turn out normal. I do worry that he isn't talking, but I receive daily pep talks from my sister Julie about how all kids develop differently and he is going to be fine, thank you Julie.

How is it that people can push your buttons so easily. Perhaps it's that I'm insecure about being a mom and I always want to hear that I'm doing a good job because I worry that I'm not. UGH, why are mom's so critical of themselves. Deep down I do know that I am a good mom. I play with him a lot and he is such a sweet boy and gives hugs and kisses and is an athletic little man. Even if he doesn't talk til he's 4 I'll still love him. AND I'm not gonna let some snooty people I meet along the way tell me that he isn't PERFECT the way he is, or let me loose my temper, or make me feel like I'm a bad mom. All there is to do is try your best.

The End

Cute Videos of Little Teagan

I always take a TON of pictures and videos of Teagan because I just can't get enough of him. It seems like I don't really put up many day to day videos so here are a few, consider this a closer look into Teagan:

This video was just tonight. Teagan was "tripping" Zac. This video is a small representation of all the fun they had with this.

I can't believe I took this whole video sideways. In my defense, my camera doesn't show it that way so it's easy to forget. He discovered how to splash me with his paint brush, luckily it was just water so I could laugh it off.

Here he is with one of his favorite toys, his Edward Jones football. He loves to go to the common area and kick and throw it all over. We go play up there at least once a day.
Here is the video of it, Teagan LOVES jumping. He jumps and gallops everywhere. It is pretty cute, I love it. I'd like to think that for every jump he will nap 1 minute longer.

Oh, speaking of naps. Teagan thinks it's really funny to refuse his nap at the regular time and then fall asleep randomly at 4 or 5 at night when I'm not looking. It's terrible because if I let him sleep that late he'll never go to sleep at night, but he usually falls asleep during my tutoring appointments and I feel bad waking him up so I can tell him to play by himself while I tutor.
He is at such a fun age. He jabbers and giggles and teases me all day and I love it. Sometimes he drives me crazy, but most of the time he is a blast! Today he spent almost all of the two hours in nursery and I was one happy mamma. Thanks to the nursery leaders for pushing me out the door and making me let him cry for two minutes. He was fine after that and they said he had a lot of fun. Being a first time mom means that sometimes more experienced moms have to show the way. love it!

Zac is Halfway There and AMAZING!

I find my husband to be amazing and I know he's brilliant, but last night I got to see his profession and future in a new way, it was so awesome. He hits his halfway mark this weekend and will start his internship next in a couple weeks. Because his class is going out into their internships they had a white coat ceremony.

The professors talked about the characteristics of a good physical therapist and then the students swore an oath. I wish I had a copy of the oath, maybe I'll try to get it. It talked about being professional, showing empathy, integrity, and humility. It talked about continually learning and improving the lives of others. It was so neat, I was so insanely proud of Zac. He's not just getting into a profession where our family will benefit. I know that so many others will benefit from his hard work and that he will improve other people's quality of life.

You may think that you see a ray of sunshine in this picture, but it's actually Zac.

Then they gave each student their coat that symbolizes entering into the medical field. The person putting Zac's coat on him in the picture is DR. Steve, he teaches Zac about dead people. PS-I'm a TOTAL goober and turned the camera the wrong way, so just tip your monitor or something!

Here is Zac's whole class. He is in the front row on the left.

Family time, please excuse Teagan's slobbery collar, apparently the fruit snacks he ate were pretty good.

So proud of Zac for making it this far and working so hard, WE LOVE YOU!

BYU game

We had a blast at the BYU vs SDSU game yesterday. We found great tickets on Craigslist. We were SO close and it was only $10. We went with some of our friends down here, but they aren't in any of the pictures...oops.

We were really nervous about how Teagan would do sitting in the same place for 2-3 hours, but he did SO good. Maybe it's all our practice at church. He actually watched the entire first quarter and was really excited about the throwing, catching, kicking, and tackling going on. After that point he ate lots of fruit snacks, colored, played with glow sticks, had a few juice boxes and threw lots of peanut shells on the ground. He only got grumpy a couple times....he was better than he is at home.

Watching the game. :)

We got free ice cream at Baskin Robins. He is eating my ice cream cone in this picture because I dropped his on the ground. It was VERY sad, especially since I didn't get to eat my ice cream!

First Emergency Room Trip....Not the last

I can officially say I've rushed a child to the emergency room now. Of course he is FINE, so don't worry. I will warn you that there is some bloodyness in the pictures so don't look if you get queasy easily!!!



Yesterday afternoon me and the little Mr. were playing around in the commons area with bouncy balls. He was standing up on the ledge he's laying on in the picture trying to go from one side to the other. He was trying to go around the corner while staying on the cement, does that even make sense? He'd done it about 20 times without any problems, but the 21st time was bad luck. I was just far away enough that I couldn't catch him as he fell/rolled off the cement wall and caught himself with his mouth on the cement.

I picked him up and his mouth was quickly filling up with blood...if you know me you know that I do NOT do well with blood. I carried him back to the house and put him in the sink with a wet washcloth to bite on and called Zac. At first it just looked like he'd gotten a nasty cut the inside of his lip which he's done before so I wasn't too worried. After I hung up with Zac I had Teagan look up so I could look under his lip and that is when I started really freaking out....here is the gross picture taken at the hospital:

I called Zac again, this time in tears and much more hysterical saying he needed to meet us at the emergency room. It was still bleeding a LOT at that point, but once we got to the ER and got the bleeding stopped and swelling down with a complimentary Popsicle we realized it wasn't as bad as I had originally thought.

We waited 2 hours for a PA to mess with it and make Teagan scream bloody murder to tell us that putting stitches in would make the scaring worse and that she couldn't really do anything to make it heal better. Go figure, but I guess it's better safe than sorry.

I almost forgot to add this funny part. While Zac was holding Teagan down with the nurse checking out the cut I was trying to distract him by song and dance and running into things and pretending to get hurt. The nurse took a break from torturing him for a second and Zac and I tried to comfort him. He was sobbing and this was our conversation:

Me: Teagan do you want an otter pop when we get home

Teagan: yaaa (he tried to stop crying and was very enthusiastic then he started to cry again)

Me: Do you want mommy to go run into the wall again

Teagan: yaaaaaaaaaaaa! (even more enthusiastic than the first time but still crying)

It was SO funny, the PA even started laughing, even when he's hurt Teagan still thinks it's funny for mom to run into walls.

His swollen lip is so sad, this is him today, what a trooper. He didn't even cry that much, I swear this kid is braver than me, not that that's really saying a lot.

PS- You might think that his adorable rhino shirt would be ruined from the blood, but I am a laundry magician and you can't even tell there was blood on the shirt. I think I might frame it as a representation of my good homemaking skills!

Proud as Punch

I'm so proud for a few different reasons today. First off, I have an incredibly cute and brave little boy.

Teagan is now obsessed with his scooter, he always wants to ride it around and yesterday he discovered that on hills he can go really fast. He LOVES it. Usually I'm there for when he crashes at the end to catch him, but since I was behind the camera he had to fend for himself. I'm just so impressed with how brave he is. It doesn't matter how much he crashes, he just jumps up to go again. If it really hurts he gets a sad look and goes oooohhh while wiping his hands, but he never goes for hugs and kisses, straight back to the scooter to try again. LOVE him!

Reason #2 I'm a proud lady would have to be my lovable, brilliant husband. He continues to do extremely well in school and he studies SO hard. Any time he has a free minute he whips out some notes or his lap top and studies away. With his internship coming up I'm really starting to realize how much he knows. They are having a white coat ceremony in a couple weeks as they all transition from being just students to actually going into the workforce. I'm just so proud of him for working so hard and getting this far!

Here is a video of him using some of his fancy PT massage techniques, just a glimpse of the future. :)

Teagan is Funny

Here are some funnies from the little man:

When he doesn't feel like taking a nap he knocks on the door and tells me he already went to sleep and is "all done"

Teagan finds great comfort in cothing. The other day I went in to check on him during a nap and he'd put a couple shirts and some shorts on his arm and was cuddling ALL of the clothes from his drawers...I wish I had a picture of that one. He does this often.

When the guy came to fix our freezer :
Teagan: went up to fixer, grabbed his hand, pulled him into the living room and pointed to our "Book of Mormon Stories."
Fixer: Oh, do you want me to read to you
Teagan: Ya!
Fixer: Sorry, but I have to fix the freezer
Teagan: oooh

We are in the car on the way to grandma's house at night:
9:00pm
Teagan insists on everyone in the car giving his bubba bear a kiss good night including his matchbox car and the window.

9:15pm
Zac: Teagan you NEED to go to sleep (in a semi-mean voice)
Teagan: turns his head and pretends to snore
Zac & me: trying very hard not to laugh

Eventually
After 100 verses of row row row your boat he finally went to sleep


As Teagan runs at the pool:
Me:Teagan you need to walk
Teagan: Starts to Gallop
Zac: Or you can just Gallop like a horse
Teagan: Simultaneously whinnies like a horse and gallops

There are SO many more funny moments that happen everyday, these are just a few of our favorites.