doin' work

talan loves to put other peoples shoes and hats on. he does not like getting his picture taken, however.
today talan saw dave's ledco hat and decided he just had to wear it. soon after putting it on, he went and grabbed his laptop and got to work. just like dad.

a trip to three cedars farm

on thursday, october 8th, talan and i took a trip with some of our mops group to three cedars farm in northville.
i had never even heard of it before, but one my the girls from my mops sister table had gone and said that we should plan a trip. unfortunately, not a whole lot of people from our table were able to make it, but we still did have a good size group. about 20 including the kids.
we headed out and got there at around 10am and talan was able to run around their big play area where they had a stationary train, a bike track with bikes and push tractors, slides, chickens and a pretend cow that they could milk.
at around 11am i had to wrestle with talan in order to get him to leave the play area so that we could head out on our hayride to the pumpkin patch. we were each able to pick a pumpkin and then we headed back for a donut and cider. all for only $6 a person!
talan had a great time running through the pumpkin patch and picking up all of the pumpkins. he would pick one up, show it off, throw it down and then run to find another one. he eventually found "the one" and we headed back to the tractor so we could go get our donuts!
talan had a really fun time but didn't like having to leave the play area and then he didn't want to leave the pumpkin patch. so there were a few meltdowns, but in all it was a great day.
he couldn't wait for hayden to come home so that he could show him the pumpkin that he picked (and the one i picked for hayden!). hayden was bummed that he didn't get to go, but we'll try to make another trip there soon.

he kept thinking that this was the pumpkin patch:
feeding the goats some hay:
he tried rolling this one to our car but it just didn't work:

headin' into the tractor shed to pick himself out a good john deere:


pushing his way past the other kids so he could ring the bell:
milkin' the cow:


he loved ringing this bell and then dancing as it rang:


sitting in the coal car:
thank goodness the farmer took his keys with him:


he made it look like he was peddling here, but he wasn't:
running out to pick his pumpkin:
he's not a fan of dirty hands:
this one:
no, this one:
nope. this is the best one:
here is the one he finally decided on and brought home with him:

everyone headed back to the tractor:

30 months

today talan cash turned 30 months old, otherwise known as 2 1/2. i can't believe that in 6 more months he'll be 3!!! he already knows that his next birthday party is going to be a yo gabba gabba party and talks about it all of the time.
he continues to make us laugh every single day and somehow his personality grows quicker than his feet.
yes, i said quicker than his feet. this kid has gigantic feet. hayden always had fat feet and we had to go and buy him wide and extra wide shoes at about $60 a pair. it's the same thing with talan. except, of course, the fact that his feet measure bigger than hayden's did at this age. not only is he a wide, but he was measured and sent home with a size 9.5 shoe. now, i realize this might not mean a lot to most of you, so let me help you out. hayden is almost 7 years old and is wearing between a size 12 and 13. at this rate, talan will be wearing hayden's size 12 next year.
talan continues to love shoes. he can't wait to put them on and go to wherever we have planned for the day. he'll most likely complain while we're out and about but getting him ready to go out is a breeze. he'll bring me his socks, shoes and even my shoes saying "here mom." until i put them on.
he is quite the independent little thing and has to do everything on his own. i know most kids are like this, so he's just trying to keep up. instead of saying "let me do it" talan says "no! i twy (try) it!" and will grab whatever we have and take it for himself. shortly after trying whatever he simply had to try himself we will then hear "mama/dada! i did it!"
he is also very into performing for his audience. we hear "watch this mom/dad!" at least 32 times a day. one day i was downstairs and i heard dave walk in the house from work. i heard talan run to him yelling "watch this dad!" over and over. dave couldn't even make his way out of the living room because talan just had so many things that dave had to watch.
most of the things we are told to watch are "cool tricks" or "cool moves." he loves to breakdance in the living room and most recently he set his foam car track and used that as his floor. in order to show us his skateboard tricks he will skip sideways and jump or he'll move the rug so it has a bump in it and jump over that.
for awhile this month he had decided that he couldn't just simply tell us "no." we might not really understand what he meant. so he would say "uh uh. no" every time he told me no. that seems to have passed, but he is still a HUGE fan of the word no and uses it more than making us "watch this."
even with all of his sauciness, bossiness and "no's!" talan is probably one of the most polite toddlers i've ever come across. dave and i just recently discussed and decided that we can say talan ALMOST ALWAYS says please and thank you when asking or getting things. he certainly says it way more than hayden does...or ever did. if he does forget we just need to give him a simple reminder and he'll sweetly say it. ahhh, a break from the sass for at least a couple of seconds.
it's hard to make a 2 year old understand what it means that their mother is pregnant but talan will occasionally talk about it. mostly when asked "where is mama's baby?" to which he will reply "in her tummy." that is usually followed by a "baby POP!" which is something that has carried on from hayden from when i was pregnant with talan. apparently a baby is in my tummy until suddenly one day that baby pops out.
talan LOVES babies but one day we went to drop off a meal to a friend that had recently had one. talan pretty much hid behind me the whole time we were visiting. he would occasionally pop his head out from behind me and wave at the baby that i was holding. not sure if he was a bit scared and thinking "uh oh, the pop happened so soon?!" or what, but he was a bit freaked out by something so small! maybe he prefers the slightly older babies like i always did!
at the beginning of the month, talan loved to open the pantry, stand there and say "ummmm" and then state what he wants. if i told him no, he would move on to the next thing "ummm..." until i finally would give him something. towards the end of the month things have changed a bit. he apparently thinks he's too old to ask, he'll just go in, grab something and hand it to me to have me open it. that is if he doesn't find a way to open it himself.
his mischief making ways continued this month and it seems as though he has sprouted extra long arms as well. if he sees ANYTHING on the counter that could be of interest to him, he grabs it. one day i had been out and bought both of the boys a pumpkin cookie. i had showed hayden while talan was asleep but never did show talan. they were in a small brown paper bag and you couldn't tell what was in it. i ran downstairs to throw in a load of laundry and when i came back up, talan was standing next to the couch with the brown paper bag that was empty. one cookie was laying on the couch with several bites taken out of it and the cookie was in his hand as he was currently taking bites from it.
on another occasion, i had made tortilla strips to go in our chicken tortilla soup which both of the boys love to eat (the tortilla strips of course, not the soup). one day talan managed to take the big container down from the counter, brought it to the living room, opened it up, ate who knows how many and then dumped the rest on the living room floor and crushed them into millions of pieces.
on yet another day he apparently found some crayons and took them to the living room where he colored all over the rug and a bit on the couch. he didn't stop there, though, he then somehow carried a brand new pack of juice boxes upstairs and then opened it. he opened about 4 of the straws and then put straws into 2 of the juice boxes and then brought them up onto my bed.
for awhile this month talan would sing the abc's all of the time. no matter what he was doing, he was also singing the abc's. it's possible it's because we've never really sung any other kids songs to him so that's about all he knows. cuz to be honest, the other song he often sings would be "ay oh, let's go!" (blitzkrieg bop) by the ramones.
on many evenings before hayden was read to at bed time, talan would pick out a book and hayden would read to him before he went down. it's really one of the sweetest things.
more big news from this month, talan's old man smoker cough is back in action. the last time we were at the dr. she had told us that it was probably time to head to a pulmanologist to have it checked out. there was hope that he would grow out of it, but after 2 years she decided to send him on to a specialist. well, at that point, his cough pretty much went away for the summer. i figured i wouldn't call and bring him in when he wasn't having a problem with it. then one day a few weeks ago he came down with a cold and had a fever and the cough came back. i could hear him in the middle of the nite coughing his lungs up. so after a couple of days i called the dr. and they got us in the next day. the dr. was GREAT and explained that he isn't a fan of giving medications to kids, however, in talan's case we needed to give him several in order to get rid of the symptoms and then we would go from there.
he said he thinks we are dealing with an asthma type of thing and that it's not allergies. he said that over the summer he should have gotten worse if it were allergies and not better. plus, with him getting sick and then the cough coming on with the cooler weather, he said that just seems to be the pattern. so he sent us home with about 4 different prescriptions to try to clear it all up. he no longer coughs in the middle of the nite and doesn't seem to cough like he was after running around a whole lot, but the cough is still there some. he continues to be on an inhaler treatment and we'll go back to see the dr. in a couple of weeks to have him looked at again. if the coughing and wheezing hasn't cleared up enough he may do a chest x-ray to check that all out. as usual, talan never really seems to be too bothered by it, although it certainly is embarrassing taking a kid out in public that sounds like that!
the most annoying thing talan has gotten into the habit of this month is waking up in the middle of the night. he's been doing it for about 2 weeks now...pretty much ever since going to the dr. and being put on medications. for awhile we would go in and recover him or give him some water. but now it seems as though it's just habit so we've refused to go in the past 3 or 4 nites. each nite the screaming has gotten less and less, but it's still annoying. he'll wake up and first start crying for one of us. when he realizes we aren't coming, he'll start screaming at the top of his lungs. lately he's been screaming "WAKE UP MOM!!!" i'm hoping this ends quickly. but in the mean time, we've been closing our door and turning the fan on high to try to drown him out.
talan still loves music, his favorite new song is "so what" by pink which he calls the nana song. he loves to play with trains. he loves to makes messes. he loves to dribble, kick, throw and catch balls. he loves yo gabba gabba, dora, diego and max and ruby. he loves to play his drums. he loves to show off. he loves to walk hayden to the bus stop and run with the big kids. he loves to play outside. he loves picking up 2 leaves before getting into the car. he loves baths. he loves messing with dave's guitar peddals. he loves mcdonald's. he loves french fries. he's recently started really liking lemonade. he loves his binky and sneaks it every single day, no matter where we hide it. he loves his blanket. he loves being covered at nite....it started out with 1 blanket and now it's 3. he loves to rock out. he loves to be funny. he loves playing in hayden's room. he loves getting drinks of water from the bathroom. he loves eating lunch on a tray and watching dora. he loves motorcycles. he loves papa whom he mostly calls "gwandpa" now. he says " oh yeah!" whenever he hears or sees something he loves. when asked "what does phee say?" he says "woah" and then says "phee...cuckoo!"
he hates having water in his face. he hates being changed. he hates sitting still. he hates sitting in his stroller. he hates having to sit in a highchair at a restaurant. he hates bugs. he hates when somebody else dances or sings when he is. he hates eating a regular breakfast. he hates being told no.
talan continues to be a generally happy toddler. he is funnier than any kid i've ever met, and he knows it. he's also cooler than any kid i've ever met and he also knows that. he keeps us on our toes all day long, and things we should be mad about, we usually can't help but laugh at.
we love you so much, baby talan! happy 30 months!!!