I Guess This is His New Look

 Apparently he's been making this face a lot lately.

But I can understand because he's usually making this face while he's saying NO! 

21 Months: Look at Him, He's Talking

Tommy is 1.75 years old. Actually a little older but I'm just now getting this posted.  It is crazy how much he has changed in 3 months.  It feels like he learns 10 new words every day.  He is definitely in the repeating stage.  ANYthing we say, he is going to repeat it.  We have to be very careful what we say around him, that's for sure.  

He has become pretty particular about his clothes and shoes.  If we want him to wear something that he has previously thrown a fit about wearing in the past, we have to, as my mom says, "Distract and Attack."  :-)

He's starting to be a little pickier about what he eats.  That is not allowed, Mr. Tommy T.  Your food list cannot get any shorter!

He is obsessed with all kinds of vehicles right now.  Trucks and Cars! He LOVES Mater and McQueen from the Cars movies.  Mater is by far his favorite.

He's starting to look really old.  He's losing his baby look little by little.  It's crazy how fast it's happening! He's going to be 2 soon!! AAHHH!

We've added pretty much every soy product back into his diet (which includes the ever-awesome OREOS).  He's handling it like a champ! One food allergy down, only three more to go (milk, eggs, peanuts)!

He is LOVING daycare right now.  He doesn't even care when we drop him off anymore.  He's like "Smell ya later, Fools!" after he gives his goodbye hug.

They do all kinds of fun activities every day (for example painting with a Q-tip in the picture above).  They're learning colors right now but Tommy is such a genius (Watch out, here comes the Brag about my child moment), he already knows all his colors! I just found out yesterday that he also knows all his shapes (He even knows oval, are you kidding me?).  He has trouble saying square but it doesn't matter because whatever he does, I'm still going to think he's a genius. :-)

He loves his classmates.  This is a super cute class picture that Tommy's teacher sent us.  In order from L-R, Layla, Owen, Tommy and Landon.  Or in Tommy's words, "Waywa, Owen, and Nannan."  Poor Layla, she's the only girl in a class full of boys (and she is the only one enjoying the class pic).   I think they're getting another girl classmate in October.

We also got this picture from Tommy's teacher (who I just found out graduated a year before me in high school.  I thought she looked familiar!) and she included this message in her email... 

I asked them to go get a book and sit on rug. When I turned around from putting papers away they all were sitting like this! So cute! Thank you so much for letting me teach your child...I love them all!

How sweet is that! 

Tommy's new fave thing is singing.  He is constantly asking us to sing or singing himself.  This video is from when we were shopping at Lowes today.  He was singing Old MacDonald. 


I love how by the end he kinda was like, "Yeah I'm pretty much done singing for your little video, Ma."
His other favorite songs are Baby Beluga, Baby Bumble Bee, the Hot Dog song from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and his ABC's.  He will sing his ABC's before falling asleep.  Now they're not perfect.  He needs a lot of help/encouragement. We supply a letter every few letters.  But it sounds a lot like....
"A, B, C,D, Effzhee, Achay, J, K, Enenenno, P, Koo, Arresss, Teeyou, Teeyou, Double... Ess, Y, Zshee" and then he kind of says a bunch of random sounds that he thinks is the "Now I Know My" part and then he yells "YAY!"  He is hilarious.

Happy 1.75 years old to my amazing little dude.

The First Boo Boo

Tommy falls down all the time.  But this time, it was pretty major.  He fell down on his FACE in the driveway.  

 He has a sizable goose egg on his forehead along with scrapes from his forehead to his nose.

 I got home from work right after it happened.  He was NOT PLEASED and it looked pretty bad.  In fact, Andrew said he was so mad he did a little hyperventilating.  But within minutes, he was just fine.  Totally forgot about what happened. (Gotta love that slicked back Vaseline/Neosporin hair look!)

 He even sat like a gentlemen with his legs crossed to tell us about it.

It was better by that evening.  I know most mothers will tell me to prepare because this is the first of many ouchies he will endure. But let's just not think about that now, huh? :-) First one was bad enough.

First Purdue Football Game

We took Tommy to his first Purdue football game today.  

(What? Same day blogpost? You're blowing my mind!) 

He patiently waited while we drove over to the West side.  

 On our way over, we drove by the house I lived in senior year, good ol' 118 Fowler. So many memories dancing on that porch.  Wow.  Still going strong! Ha!

 I have never been to a football game that early (usually too busy tailgating).  As it turns out, they do all kinds of stuff on the field before the game starts.  Who woulda thought?  Ha!

 I got a super quick family pic.  That sun was mega bright! Poor Tommy.  Why didn't his parents bring him a hat or sunglasses??

 I haven't been to an actual Purdue game in years I think (again, too busy tailgating).

 As you can tell, the stands were PACKED to see Purdue play Eastern Michigan.

 Oh there we go.  They finally filled up after a while.

 At one point, the Purdue Dance team came up for pictures with the crowd.  They took a pic with this cute little boy in his wheelchair.  He was loving it! Big smile!

They sat in the stands for pictures with all the kids that came down.  Now I know it looks like we are sitting randomly behind them without their knowledge.  But I swear there was another mom and kid in the same row we were.  But this picture kinda looks like we're photobombing them.  Oh well, Tommy's first photobomb. He looks stoked. :)

 It got pretty hot sitting in the stands so we decided to explore the concourse. They gave out free poms at the entrance and Tommy ran around flailing those things all over the place.

 Case in point, there goes one pom flying through the air.

 The best part of the day in Tommy's eyes by far was the puddle we found.

Stomp, splash, stomp, splash.  Kept him somewhat cool and it was fun to play with!

 Tommy ran up to the gate next to the entrance and started pushing that giant 8+ foot tall gate open.  Yikes! I thought they locked those things.  Apparently not.

This picture cracks me up.  His poor little red face.  It's not sunburned.  It just turns red like his mom's when he gets hot.  He looks pleased to be sitting in the hot sun.

 Tommy's play Purdue phone was in the diaper bag so he made a few calls during the game.  I thought we had lost it actually.  We couldn't find it after we went out to the concourse and came back.  I kept saying, "I think we lost the Purdue phone." Tommy climbed to the seat behind me and goes, "I found it!"  It was under the seat behind us.  Good eye, Tommy T!

 At half time, we decided to go while the getting was good so we headed out.  There are probably 75 stairs and he climbed down all of them.  What a trooper.

He's just like Rocky except he's going down and not up... and he's under age 2 and he's not a boxer, etc.  You know what I mean.

 After all those stairs, he still wanted to RUN to the car.

This is what drives me crazy about my iPhone camera.  I can't always tell what it's focusing on.  In this case, it's the building behind them.  Dang it.  It would have been a cute picture!  Oh well, I guess I better just get the new one.  ;-) (Hint, hint Apple. This blog could use an advertiser.)

 On our long walk back to the car, we followed some Breakfast Clubbers.  Cut off super short jean shorts and cut off flannel shirts.  We laughed out loud.

We finally arrived at the parking garage and took the elevator up to our floor.  Tommy was ready to go home and take a nap.  He had a great first football game at Ross Ade.  Go Boilers!

A Friday Night at Steak 'n Shake

You ready to hear about one of the most exciting Friday nights EVER?? Well then you should probably go read someone else's blog because it really wasn't THAT exciting.  But it was fun. The T-burgs went to the grocery and then stopped at Steak n Shake for dinner. Why was this exciting? Because Steak n Shake has an allergy menu!! Whee! 

 They also have cool kids stuff.  They set down this little cardboard car, a Steak n Shake hat, a kid's menu and crayons.  Nice work, Steak n Shake!

Tommy Hawk was not a big fan of the hat.  As soon as I put it on, he would rip it off.  

 This was actually the best picture I got of him with that dang hat on.  Hilarious.

We made the mistake of choosing the booster seat over the high chair.  Bad move, dudes.  Once you have the freedom and movement of the booster seat, you never go back. We tried to put him in a high chair later and he screamed like we were trying to stuff him in a cat carrier.  Everyone in the restaurant was looking so we conceded and put him back in that terrible wobbly booster seat (after he got some QT with dada).

 Tommy is actually yelling "WINNING" Charlie Sheen style here.  :-) He is a boy that knows how to get what he wants!

 So what do we order for the boy with the food allergies? Steakburger Minis and Fries! (No cheese of course)  With lots o' ketchup!! (Isn't that the coolest little cardboard car?)

 He liked it.  He's not used to fast food so he didn't eat much of it.  (I'm surprised he didn't ask for broccoli and prunes.)

 Annddd that's what his plate looked like when we left.  Darn.  It's still cool to be able to take him out to eat and not have to bring his food.  But I checked Steak n Shake's website today (to link the allergy menu) and guess who eats free on Saturdays and Sundays?? Crap! One day too early.  Oh well.  Now we know. Better go back today. HA!

Say "Without CHEESE!"  Get it?  Instead of Say 'Cheese'? What?  No?  Ok whatever, I tried.  Shut it. :)

Saturday in the Park/That's Apptastic

Last Saturday we went to the park with Tommy who was wearing his Batman shirt with the attached cape. He ran around fighting crime all morning! 

I took a boatload of pictures and I didn't want to bore you with park picture after park picture after paaarrrkkk piiiiiiccccctttuuuurrreeee.  So I pulled up a couple of trusty ol' apps and had a little fun. The first app I used was Instacollage with a nice app for throwing pics together easily. 

 He Capital L Loved the swing! Whee!!

For my next APP, I chose Halftone so I could make a quick comic book for all y'all.

 I love that cape blowing in the wind as he climbs up the slide.

 Yes you are supposed to read that in a Schwartzenegger voice.

Batman/Aquaman?

 Yep I wrote "geen gas".  That's exactly how he says it too.  Geen gas, geen gas, geen gas!

You're supposed to use your imagination here, folks.  Pretend that's not a swing but a Repelling Device for a Superhero.

I looked of the spelling of little boys' ray guns and that's what the internet gave me.  Pyew pyew pyew! 

That cartoon cloud just appeared in my picture after I took it, no effects needed.  He was running that fast.  

I was trying to create the whole explosion-happening-while-he-walks-away-in-slow-motion thing.

Once again, Superhero Tommy saves the day!