Mommy/Daddy/Whomever is putting Gillian to bed: Okay, Gillian. It's time for bed!
Gillian: Night night later.
Mommy: Night night now. And we need to change your diaper.
Gillian: No stinky in there!
(Yes, this conversations happens literally every night).
Mommy: Gilly, I can smell it, let's go.
(Conversation moves to Gillian's room)
Mommy: Okay, Gilly girl pick two books.
Gillian: Ooooh. Mickey. This Mickey. (Two different Mickey books) ELMO!! Christmas. (Christmas with Corduroy). Nina (Eloise).
Mommy: Gilly, you just gave me seven books.
Gillian: Seven Eight Nine.... Ten Eleven Twelve.
(Five books later).
Mommy: Okay Gilly girl, time for bed.
Gillian: Cuddle in chair!!!
(Cuddle in chair, move to crib).
Mommy: Night night, Gilly, love you!
Gillian: Love you!
Gillian: Cover me!
(Cover Gillian with Blanket)
Gillian: Fix friends!
(All of her stuffed animals are rearranged and put back in the same spot- fix friends makes no sense).
Gillian: Hat on!
Mommy: You do it.
Gillian: mommy do it! Hat on!
(Mommy, like a sap, puts the hat on).
Mommy: Okay Gilly, night night see you in the morning. Love you!
Gillian: Fix friends!
Mommy: Fix your own friends, Gilly.
If you've met my sister, it's easy to imagine that getting a word in edgewise around here is difficult, to say the least. I'm a guy who likes peace and quiet, which is hard to come by. Here's a perfect example of a day in the life of Bryce:
Not a lot of personal space. And a lot of pink.
October was an exciting month around here, or so I'm told. I only get invited on certain outings because I'm just a little peanut angel (according to mom), but the ones that I've been on have been pretty fun.
FARMS. We visited three farms in the span of a month. At the first farm, Gilly wanted to buy a loaf of bread, and ate a donut. At the second farm, Gilly wanted to feed the bunnies, and at a donut. At the third farm, Gilly helped Paula picked out a pumpkin while I had a snack in the car, and then Gilly had a donut.
Mom and Gilly continue to have their adventures, and I get to stay home and snuggle with Paula (which is THE BEST. Paula always gives me a nice warm bath, a warm bottle, snuggles me up and the next thing I know, I'm fast asleep)! Anyway, one of their trips was to the pet store, where Mommy let Gilly pick a fish to take home. Thank God Paula knows how to care for fish, because I don't think Gilly or Mommy are very interested in their new friend.
Another recent highlight was Halloween! As you can see, Gilly's costume was highly original. Mimi pointed out that she was a perfect little Vandy girl mascot!
It was a bright, sunny fall day when Mommy and I made our way down to the dank, grossly painted underbelly of a nearby church where our mommy and me classes are held. As mommy would later recount- it was a real hell hole.
(Sidenote: those of you who have ever stepped foot inside a nursery school are probably asking yourselves: "what was your mommy expecting? The ritz?" And the answer is people, yes. Sort of).
We quickly realized that mommy had not read the twenty page packet of rules as both of our water bottles stood out like sore thumbs in this concrete oasis. No hydration outside of scheduled times. We hid them in Mommy's bag so as not to ostracize ourselves before we had a chance to offend anyone.
I set out to play with the exact same toys that I have at home, except the extremely dirty, 1975 version. The dolls were all nude and several were missing critical body parts, but I was still having a great time rocking them stacked up 5 high in an oversize cradle.
The teacher announced it was craft time, so mommy helped me paint an apple tree and introduced me to homemade play dough. While neither of these activities were fun for us or anyone in the room, it filled some time until nice lady came in with her guitar.
This lady must have been part of some sort of union because she seemed to be under a great deal of pressure to do
Her entire three song act in ten minutes flat. Since she didn't sing top forty music, I was completely uninterested in what she had to offer and went back to rocking my naked, deformed babies. Mommy looked and me, looked at the clock and encouraged me to come back to the circle.
At this point, I announced to everyone in the room BYE BYE CAR CAR GO, and the guitar lady looked at her watch for the tenth time in ten minutes, ripped the frog puppet back from one of my fellow inmates,and hightailed it out of there. Time up!!!
The highlight of the class was the all-you-can eat pretzel buffet. The teacher dished them out 3 at a time, but I managed to have about 20. Then the teacher asked if we should read a story or just end the class and mommy suggested that the story might be better next week.
That was our first and last mommy and me class- we resigned and neither of us have looked back.
Instead, we are creating our own mommy and me!! Today we took the choo choo from hohokus (the stop by our house) to ridgewood (3 minute ride) and walked around town for a bit. It was my first time on a choo choo and it was so fun!!
Happy to report that things have been smooth sailing here at Casa tully over the last few weeks (please knock on wood, thank you).
I went #1 and #2 in the potty!! I am by no means potty trained, but I hang out on there during key times of day and sometimes stuff happens!!!
I've been helping Bryce with tummy time. Here is me threatening to sit on him if he doesn't look left.
As part of my continued efforts to help mommy (who seems to need all the help she can get), I have been lending a hand in the kitchen. Here is me baking cupcakes with mommy and Paula:
Brother Bryce is doing just great. He is a real porker, tipping the scales at a whopping 11.3 lbs at only 5 weeks!
As many of you are probably aware, I don't like a mess. When I'm done eating, I like to "clean clean" the area. The other day I got pen on me when I was coloring and declared that my arm was a "mess". A few weeks ago, when I was on the first night of a two-night screaming bender (from 12am-4am), I actually threw up as part of a grand finale of disaster and misery. The next day, when Daddy asked what the f*ck happened to me the night before, I simply told him:
"MESS"
Needless to say, I am very familiar what a mess looks like, and can report that my family has been one big MESS for the past two weeks.
It all started with the arrival of Bryce, and just a few short days later, the arrival of the plague. Okay, so technically, I didn't have the plague. I had a two week cold/virus of mysterious origin, that I later passed to both Mommy and Brycie, because apparently, I like to share.
Mommy was on oxygen because she has enough anxiety letting anyone who claims to be well near a newborn baby, forget having me with a fever of 103 trying to touch brother's EARS! NOSE! EYES! HAIR! She also got sick herself (sorry mommy) and knew that Bryce didn't stand a chance; it didn't come as a huge shock to her when she heard her little guy sniffling.
I like to focus on the bright side of things, which I'll do here:
I got to hang out with daddy--- alot! We spent all day together, and then we got a lot of quality time between midnight and 6am, when I would wake up screaming and refuse to go back to sleep! Love those times, daddy! Can't wait to keep waking up demanding all sorts of things even though I feel fine.
We got to know our new pediatricians very well! In fact, in the span of two weeks, we made five visits. Yay! I love that place; they have a beautiful aquarium and some plastic cups that I enjoy pretending to drink out of, but instead pour them all over myself and the office--- and then declare that a MESS has been made.
We learned that the Valley Hospital ER is a wonderful place! Amidst the fever and general chaos that was the past few weeks, Bryce's belly button started oozing green sludge, which turned out to be a staph infection. GROSS! But better staph that some other infection that apparently would have required immediate admission to the hospital and IV antibiotics for two days.
Mom got to know her neighborhood pharmacist, Zolton (not fictionalized) VERY well, and now considers him part of her Round Table. She spent ten minutes on the phone with him the other day discussing the merits of hot vs cool humidifiers.
Anyway, we are probably going to make it!
Here are some winners from the past two weeks- enjoy!
Mommy and Brycie in the ER. The doc has just told mom that Bryce doesn't require a two night stay at the hospital, and can instead go visit Zolton to pick up some topical antibiotic.
Bryce getting 'steamed' to get rid of the boogs. Daddy later asked mommy how long she had the shower on for, and then reminded her that 'water isn't free'. She is going to leave him $5 to pay for Brycie's spa appointment.
If you look closely, you can see that I am covered in a rash. Yay!
Here's Bryce with his masculine boppy. Love pink!
Okay guys, that's the scoop of what's been going here! More to come!!
I'm proud to announce that I now have both a baby and a brother, whatever that means!
Bryce Patrick Tully was born on Sunday, August 17, 2014 at 11:09pm, five days late to the game, weighing in at 8lbs, 8oz. Mom said she was going to do a sit in at the hospital until they took the baby out, and it seems like her plan worked.
Here's baby Bryce. You'll notice that his newborn hat is too small for his head- evidence of the (in)famous Tully dome!
Bryce Patrick Tully
I was feeling a little stunned in this pic- can you tell?
Here's me meeting Bryce for the first time:
Bryce is a sweet little angel (according to Mommy) and I'm sure that someday we'll be the best of friends. And/or, we'll beat the crap out of eachother! Either way, I'm so happy that he's here, and so are Mommy and Daddy.
I love rocking Bryce, covering him with blankets, and pointing out his eyes, toes, etc!
We are all catching up on our sleep around here, so I'm going to cut this short, but stay tuned for more updates from me and Bryce!
I must have the best parents in the world. My 17 month birthday came and went like any other day and I was none the wiser until Mimi showed up with some cupcakes the next day to 'celebrate' (gluten free, Trader Joes. I ask you- were those for me as she claimed they were?).
Anyway, here's how I spent my non-existent birthday:
I played with my PEOPLE and some of my favorite books:
And splashed around in the backyard.
Generally speaking, life is good. We went to see mom's friend Mengan (that's what I call her, but she goes by Meaghan) who has TWO babies. The only thing interesting about those babies were their babas and pacifiers, which I picked up from every crevice I could find and chewed on.
Glasses
These days, my favorite thing to do is PLAY. I could spend hours with my little people. They all have names like Bride, Nino, Pilot and Glasses.
I put them to sleep, (in a box, covered in a white rag, mommy says its very creepy but is supportive of anyone sleeping). Sometimes they even sleep with the livestock from my farm. I often pile all 15 of my people and farm animals into my schoolbus and Paula says that this bus must be from her country.
With my people and my blocks
I have some larger FRIENDS like Pete (the half dead dog from Cracker Barrel that Mimi got me), Monkey, Meow-Meow, and Minnie (not mommies for those of you in the know). Tonight, daddy put me in my bed and as soon as he left, I saw that he had made the critical error of leaving Monkey and Meow Meow on the ground. I alerted him immediately by shouting GUYS!!! GUYS!!! Luckily, he thought I was referring to him and Mommy, so he came back in right away and I pointed to my forgotten friends and he put them in bed with my 50 other friends. (Paula says I need a bigger bed to house everyone)!
I've also been loving COOKIN (mommy says thank God- maybe one of us will learn). Here is me whipping up some dinner with my very own pots and pans:
My new pots!
Mommy and I are working on our sad faces- what do you think?
Here's a clip of me spotting a truck out in front of our house:
First, congratulations to my Aunt Shannon and Uncle Mike on their wedding! We had the best time in Newport, celebrating. I was so happy to be included as the flower girl! I think I did a pretty good job; I made it down the aisle by myself with mommy following closely behind. There was no way that I was holding her hand! Here are some pics from the weekend:
Mike and Shannon Walsh!
Me and my Tully aunts and uncles...
There are three babies in this picture; two are hidden (though mommy isn't hiding anything these days)!
Me, my brother and my COUSIN...Who I am so excited to meet in January!
Congrats Aunt Lisa and Uncle Chris!
Needed a snack and a break big time after the ceremony festivities!
Mommy and Daddy
I've had a great month. I can and will repeat most of what I hear, so consider yourself warned! Today I pooped and said, "oh god, stinky". I'm also fond of telling mommy to "carry you" and "come on".
I still love to read! Dada loves this pic because he says I look like a little kid instead of a baby. My favorite books are The Best Dad in the World, Bedtime for Chickies, my Animals book that grandma got me (tonight I pointed out an ostrich, among others).
Swinging remains a staple in my agenda! I love it when Dada swings with me (for some reason, mommy doesn't really get on the second swing; I think she's afraid to take down the whole contraption).
We had a fun day trip to visit the Ramadans over July 4th weekend! They are such great hosts. Here's me and my buddy, Elsie.
I have to show her the ropes with some stuff, as I'm six months older. Here is me showing her how to use her new toy:
I love to dance, and my favorite song is still HAPPY! Mommy and Daddy have heard this song 6000 times in the past month, and are actively seeking to broaden the playlist beyond Happy and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. (Paula had a breakthrough this morning and was able to introduce me to Frozen. I like it!)
Finally, here are some action shots of me dancing and playing with my pals Bucky and Pete. Monkey (not featured here)
Hope you're all doing well! I have been LOVING life with the great weather recently, and want to fill you in on all my escapades. But before I do, I want to dedicate this post to my most dedicated blog reader, my GG (Great Grandma Beach). GG passed away a few weeks ago, and will be missed sorely by her family. I know that she was the one helping me accrue all the pageviews, so I will certainly miss her as a reader and loving great grandma. Rest in peace, GG.
A few weeks ago, my friend Frankie came over. It was so fun to play with another kid. He is the nicest and gives great hugs.... and kisses!! I'm not ready to settle down yet, but he is very chivalrous, as you can see by this picture of him holding my cup for me to drink out of. I could get used to this kind of service!
I have been hitting up any pool that I can get my hands on, including an inflatable one in my backyard. I had more fun putting the empty water jug in there than "swimming". We went to a BBQ at our friends (The Green's) family's club, and I loved swimming there.
I have been working on my Soul Train routine. I do spin moves and bop my head around and overall think I'll be ready for some serious dance competitions pretty soon. I can't share any videos yet for competitive reasons (or because my mom doesn't have any), so stay tuned. I imagine that I'll have some pretty big shoes to fill, so I've been practicing walking around in moms!
I've recently discovered that Ridgewood is a living wildlife preserve. We have bunnies in our back yard- or hop hops as I sometimes call them. I LOVE to look out the back door for them. We also have chipmunks and mosquitos that deliver large, painful, hard welts to my neck and face (if these are the signs of malaria, please contact my mother immediately). She finally got her sh*t together and ordered some bug spray for babies (that cost a small fortune), instead of hoping that the OFF she sprayed on herself would magically protect me, as well! Mimi brings citronella candles, citronella bracelets, Raid yard spray and all sorts of other paraphernalia (netting is next) when she comes, but so far, nothing has proven effective against these monsters.
I have been chatting up a storm. It's the only way I can get people to listen! When i go outSIDE I love to yell WEEEE on the WING (swing). If anyone who watches this video wants to send us WD 40, we would understand and appreciate it.
I also have some friends whose names I know, simply because we hang out together all day. My new best friend is Pete, a barking dog that Mimi bought for me at a Cracker Barrel on I-95. Pete is great company and I give him kisses and occasionally eat his face. He also enjoys drinking babas that I feed to him, and the tea from my tea PARTY (sometimes I tell people PARTY so they know it's time for a tea party). Here is me and Pete living the dream this weekend:
I still love to read, and often bark out demands of REE! BOOK! I want to read first thing in the morning, anytime during the day, and for an hour straight before I go to bed. I like to pick my own books and depending on my mood, I'll let you know when I'm DONE DONE. I've been really into Mommy calls me monkeypants and Daddy Calls me Doodlebug. I've also been into Peter Rabbit (obvious reasons given my backyard friends), though that book gets old fast so I usually cut us off somewhere around the middle. Mama had to read it from the halfway point tonight to see what happened to good old Peter.
The other night, when dada asked me if I wanted to go NIGH NIGH, instead of responding NIGH NIGH in my usual fashion, I told him that the answer was NO. This was the first time my parents had ever heard me tell them NO out loud! Though I've been thinking it about lots of things for quite some time. Then he asked me if he could change my diaper and i said NO once again. They were very confused, my parents, but this is just the beginning!! Get ready for the rest of your life!
Well this has been an exceptionally long blogpost from someone who has been passed out for 2 hours.
Let me just say, I LOVE spring. My favorite part of spring is going outside, which I've been doing a lot lately.
Friday, Mama and I went to the Turtleback Zoo with a lot of my friends: Grey, Sam, Jack and Anna. I ignored everyone and just ran around with my wet wipes and car keys for an hour and a half. After being coated in a layer of pollen, and not knowing the difference between the zoo and the moon, we decided it was time to leave. Here is the only evidence of me at the Zoo:
I also love swinging in my backyard on this rickety swingset that someone probably assembled in 1975. My parents seem to think that a new swing will trump rotting wood. Right now, (and until I put on some serious weight) it's fine!
When I'm stuck inside, I love to dance, and have been working on my moves. What do you think?
I've also been pitching in around the house by cleaning:
I am having a great time these days! I've had a lot of adventures (more on those later), and I am a chatting machine. I say something new almost every day. Here is me stacking some rings and then showing off a little bit with my knowledge of dogs and cats.
Last weekend, mama and I took a girls trip to Florida. I'm think mama was so focused on feeling the sensation of warmth again that she overlooked the idea that flying with a one year old wouldn't be that fun.
And it wasn't that fun! For either of us. I needed a more freedom and a little less laptime. I used my new favorite words, "up!" "down!" "hat!" "baba!" approximately 1 million times throughout the flight --with great urgency-- which left mama sweating with her maternity pants dangling dangerously low (if you haven't recently or ever worn maternity pants than this will be lost on you). I also threw everything i possibly could (including my shoes) down the crack between seats several times, and attempted to take the glasses off the face of the woman next to me, who did not speak english or seem to be particularly fond of children. The woman in the aisle seat (a divorcee from NJ who owns 3 cars, 2 condos, has 2 grown children and "loves her new life"- she was loving her neighbor across the aisle, Don, and I think they really got to know eachother while mama prayed for time to move more quickly), informed mama as we were landing that she would only travel with her children when it was past their bedtime. THANKS!
When we arrived at the gate, I nearly jumped into my stroller/carseat. Do I look a little dazed here?
Luckily for mama, it was 85 and sunny every day. I took LONG naps (the pool pooped me out)! and slept til 6:45am every day (late)!... oh except that last night when i woke up at 3am and never went back to sleep. I did eat Mimi's "La Bamba Casserole" before bed... I'll let you connect the dots there.
Here are some pics of me on my trip to Florida. As you can see, I wore a rashguard and was slathered in 55 the whole time. No tan for me!
My first carousel ride!!
I love bagels. LOVE THEM. Can't travel without them.
Needless to say, mama and I made it home safely and had a great time at Mimi and Papa's house. It was fun to see all my friends at the pool, and they all had great stuff for me to play with. Even TT (Uncle Tim) got involved:
More soon on my trip to Boston, where we celebrated Aunt Shannon's shower!
