Brianna Rose, 2 yrs old, 6/16/06

Park Fun

Surprise! Bree and I went to the park today. (You never would have guessed it right?) Brianna ran all over, up the stairs and down the slides. At one point she was climbing up a ladder and said “Ranna, go up!” Then when she got to the top it was “Look at me!” We had fun for a while longer and then it was time to go home and start making dinner. As is our custom we said goodbye to the park and this time Bree added “See you soon!”

Games

Lately Bree has shown a lot of interest in playing the word games we used to tell her as a younger baby. Since she’s a toddler she loves the repetitiveness and predictability of rhymes like Patty Cakes (which she’ll ask you to repeat over and over and over). Another oldie she’s revived from her younger days is Peek-A-Boo, only she calls it “Peek-ee-Boo.” Recently she found out I could sing the rubber ducky song from Sesame Street. (You know that one that Ernie sings.. “Rubber ducky, you’re the one, you make bathtime so much fun, rubber ducky I’m awfully fond of you..Bo bo bo bee bo.” Oh come on, it’s catchy, like you’ve never sung it before?) Her favorite game right now though is one that her and Grammy Dee-dee made up when we visited Idaho recently. Grammy would pretend to fall asleep and Brianna would say “Wake-up!” Then Grammy would open her eyes real wide. It made Bree laugh every time. She even turned it around and would fake being asleep herself and then Grammy would say “Wake up Brianna, CockaDoodle Doo!” and she would laugh and open her eyes and look surprised.

Evening Mayhem

Last night turned out to be quite entertaining, here’s how it went down…For dinner I made German Pancakes (for those of you who don’t know these are egg pancakes). As usual we sat down to bless the food and Brianna said it was her turn to pray. So, she clasped her little hands together, bowed her head and said “Bless the pancakes.” Travis and I managed not to laugh but we smirked at each other across the table since it was the first time that she’s actually blessed the dinner herself and by name too! We all dug in and when she was finished eating Bree announced “all done,” as usual. Well, wiping her hands and face and getting her out of her booster chair has traditionally been her daddy’s job since he eats so fast that he’s usually done even before Brianna’s done, (which is really fast). He reached over to help her and she said "No, not Daddy’s turn, Mommy’s turn." (She’s really been into dictating who’s “turn” it is to help her do things, which usually means Mommy right now.) According to her royal decree I helped her down.

After dinner she was looking for the cat. We told her we thought he was hiding under the bed. “Go get him?” she asked. “Sure,” we said. So off she went in search of the kitty. Once she found him she became obsessed with the idea that he needed a “neck-ahce” (necklace). She could not be convinced otherwise no matter what we said. Sure enough when I looked over towards her next she had managed to get one of her necklaces around his neck. He actually wore it for a few minutes, (I think he felt pretty). When the fun of making a cat wear a necklace wore off she next grabbed the phone and made Bogart have a whole pretend conversation with Grammy, holding the phone up to his ear. Finally, the cat slinked off and instead she put “Socket,” her sock puppet, on her hand and made him press buttons on the phone. She looked over at me and said “Mommy, Socket pushed buttons!”

To wrap the evening up she took a bath. When she felt she was done she got out, raced into her room, opened her dress-up drawer and put on her grass skirt, some black glasses, a russion hat and was saying “Look at me, look at me!”

Thankfully, it was bedtime after that, whew! She’s a funny one but it sure makes me tired to keep up with her.

Snack Time

Today when it was time for her snack I called Bree to “Come here.” She was around the corner and said to me “Hold on a second!” (A new phrase for her, which of course, made me smile.) And, sure enough in just a second she came over and settled down to eat her snack, peanut butter on wheat bread and apple slices. After a minute she turned to me and told me she needed “dip” for her apples. She usually means ketchup when she says dip, but, thinking this time she must mean peanut butter I added an extra dollop of that to her plate. But, she still insisted she needed “dip” and this time I understood she wanted ketchup with her apple slices. So, we both headed over to the fridge to get the ketchup out. When I opened the door, there on the second shelf was one of her little rubber duckies where she had sneaked him in unbeknownst (that’s a word right?) to me the last time I had opened the fridge in her presence. Bree said “Rubber Ducky, what are you doing?” She grabbed him up and observed “Rubber Ducky, so cold!” Then she and rubber ducky proceeded to eat their apples in ketchup dip quite happily.

In the Shop-it

We’re in the habit of tucking a sippy cup into bed with Brianna at nap and bedtimes so she can have a drink if she wakes up thirsty. Today as I was putting Bree down for her nap I couldn’t find her new Elmo cup. In a rhetorical question I said, “Where’s your sippy cup…on the floor?” Then Bree said, “No, in shop-it (her term for her little shopping cart).” So, I looked in there and sure enough there it was. It is still so weird to me that we can have these kinds of interactive two-way conversations!

One Wedding and a Birthday (Our Visit to Idaho)

Since I’ve been pretty regular in writing a daily entry, I’m sure there are those of you wondering where I’ve been this past week. Well, we took off to visit all the relatives in Idaho! We had a lot of fun and managed to squeeze in a lot of family events and quality time while we were there, although, I slacked off in doing blog entries. So, here are a few little moments that were noteworthy from the past week:

We arrived in Boise on Wednesday morning and Brianna immediately began observing that things were “new and diffint (different)” as she put it. We went to Grammy Dee-dee’s house and she started talking about the “new and diffint” crib there. Grammy had laid out some toys and stuffed animals there so of course we had to discuss all the “new and diffint” toys. It was no different at Grammy Deb’s house either, everything was “new and diffint.”

Not only were the toys and cribs “new and diffint” but so were all the people we saw. Between Travis and I, we have a lot of family and friends in Idaho so Bree has a large number of people who love her and wanted to see her. After meeting the first few she started asking me “Mommy, who’s that? Who’s that Mommy?” She met so many people that she started to think that she was related to everyone and was asking me “Who’s that?” about random people in the park. (Although, I do find it kind of flattering that she thinks I know just everyone!) I have to say, she did really well warming up to people and actually remembering their names. By the end of our trip she knew and would call by name, “Annie (Auntie) Em,” “Unca (Uncle) Mike,” “Messy (Missy),” “Amy,” “Aunt Katty (Kathy),” “Unca Cody,” “Lisha,” “Unca Mark,” “Unca Jerald,” “James,” “Nessa (Vanessa)” and even some of the dogs, “Jinner” (Ginger), and “Tucka” (Tucker). I told you I had a lot of family, and that’s only the start of them!

Of course, aside from all her other relatives she was talking a lot about “Grammy” and also “Poppa.” But, it got kind of confusing for Bree since she has 5 Grammy’s living in Idaho and we were always going to one of the Grammys’ houses. Since we’ve never really given the Grammy’s any distinctive name to distinguish them from each other (at least, not when we’re talking to Brianna) she solved this problem herself. She ended up seeing my mom, Trav’s mom, and my grandmother (Mom’s mom) the most. So, to tell between them she started calling them “Grammy,” “Uddo (other) Grammy,” and “Diffint Grammy.” Between my mom and Trav’s mom, whoever we were with at the time was “Grammy” and the one not there was “Other Grammy.” And for some reason, my own grandmother she consistently called “Diffint Grammy.” (Oddly enough all 5 or 6 of her Grandpa’s were just “Poppa.”) It was pretty darn amusing but it did get her point across.

One of the big events we attended during our visit was my cousin Jerald’s wedding. At first I thought we might actually get through it without being disruptive. That is until the guy in the pew in front of us sneezed. Well, that was the end of quiet time for Brianna. She started saying “Bless you guy, bless you,” in a loud voice. When he didn’t turn around or respond she just kept on saying it a few more times in her usual exuberant tone of voice. When she finally determined he wasn’t going to reply she decided to take matters into her own hands…she started fake sneezing and then blessing herself! So, while the vows were being said she was at the back of the church going “Achoo! Bless you! Achoo! Bless you!” This went on for quite some time…Oh well, they did invite us knowing we had a two year old, hopefully they won’t hold it against us.

The variety of new people and places Brianna saw in Idaho was reflected in her prayers. Every night she added some new thing to the list, much to the amusement of the 3-4 relatives standing out in the hall, listening and giggling. Some of the new things she included in her prayers this last week were to “Bless my sippy cup, bless tippy toes, bless Unca Cody, bless Unca Cody’s boat, bless the puppies, bless Annie Em, bless Messy…” to name a few.

One of the last big events we had in our week in Boise was Bree’s own birthday party! We’d been talking about it so much beforehand that she was thoroughly prepared for the big question. Now, when you ask her how old she is she’ll say “two!” We celebrated the big number 2 at the park with lots of friends and family in attendance. Of course, par for the course for a toddler birthday, Brianna was in tears several times during her party…once she fell down and once she was mad about sharing the swings with other kids at the park. But, she perked up once she saw her little cake. She was sticking her fingers in and licking the icing off way before it was cake time. (But, seeing it was her birthday and all, nobody said anything.) Then she was saying “Mmm, good pancake!” (I guess since she’s eaten pancakes a lot she thinks all cakes are pancakes?!) She also had a blast opening her presents and wanted to play with each new toy right then and there. (She really made a haul and got lots of great new clothes and playthings.) Then it came time to light the candles on her cake. The wind was blowing and it was hard to get them lighted and once we did they were lit for approximately .2 seconds before Bree promptly blew them out. Then we sang the Happy Birthday song. Bree was beaming her little face off and once the song was over she said “try again!” So, we all sang it a second time.

When we got home Brianna was super excited to see our cat, Bogart. Once she saw him she said “My kitty!” Then I said, “Oh kitty we’ve missed you!” So Bree repeated, “Kitty, miss you!” They spent like a half hour snuggling after that.

Well, there were lots more funny and noteworthy moments during the week, but this is getting long as it is. We had a great time with everyone and want to say thanks for having us!

Sharing a popsicle with one of the bears at Grammy Dee-dee's house.

Bree looking adorable in her new yellow dress at Grammy Deb's house.

Oh, what a face!

Brianna in her "wedding dress," white with a pink bow at the waist and a pink shrug. (She's wearing her Grammy's corsage. ) :)

Bree hanging out with Uncle Mike before the wedding.

The happy couple. Congrats Susan and Jerald!

At Jerald and Susan's reception...Brianna and I (in the middle) with Aunt Missy (on the left) and Auntie Em (on the right).

Brianna's big day, her second birthday party! Here she is opening a Doodle Bear from Uncle Mike and Aunt Tammy.

Opening an Elmo Giggle Ball from Aunt Kathy and Uncle George and family. (Note the T-shirt in the back that says "I love my Mommy and Daddy but Grandma and Grandpa are the best! A gift from Grammy Dee-dee!)

Bree tasting her birthday cake.

Clapping her hands with glee after everyone sang the "Happy Birthday" song.

Boots and Dolly at the Park

OK so no surprise, Brianna and I ended up at the park again this afternoon. However, this time it was a little more interesting than usual because Bree insisted on bringing a few friends along. She refused to leave the house without her little yellow monkey named Boots and her baby doll. At first, I tried to make her choose just one. I told her they both couldn't come and who did she want to take. She said Boots so I said "Ok, can you put Dolly down then please?" So, she threw Dolly on the floor. Trying to help Bree with the seperation anxiety I said "Ok Baby, see you later," to the doll. At that point Brianna rushed back over to Dolly and said, "Dolly, sad, don't cry," then kissed her head. After that, I couldn't tell her no, call me a pushover if you want. So, off we went with both Boots and Dolly in tow. Of course, I wasn't allowed to help carry either one of them, Brianna struggled along valiantly to carry them both. When we got in sight of the park Bree looked at each one in the face, "Boots, park! Dolly, park!" At the park the three of them went down several slides, and they all swang..swung...swinged? Ok whatever, they were all swinging together, each on their own swing at Brianna's insistence. One time after Boots went down the slide, Bree came down after him, picked him up off the ground and said "Good one Boots!" (It was pretty hilarious!) Then later, when she was trying to get Dolly to ride one of those things, you know what are they called, the horses with big springs that go into the ground and they rock back and forth?? Anyways, she was trying to get Dolly to ride one but Dolly kept falling off. When the baby fell off the horse and onto the ground Brianna said "Dolly, what are you doing on my face on the ground?" After all that Boots and Dolly were all tired out so we came home and fed them a snack.

Wake Up! Good Night.

We never quite know how Brianna will wake up in the mornings. Sometimes she'll scream or cry, other times she'll play quietly for awhile, talking to her stuffed animals in bed. Today she woke up and yelled "Mom, where are you?" (Yeah, we don't use alarm clocks at our house.) So started our day.

Then around noon I was getting ready to make lunch when Bree marched into her room and declared "bed!" "Are you sure?" I asked her, "I'm making lunch right now, don't you want some lunch?" But she pointed to her crib and said again firmly, "bed!" I was shocked, she never just puts herself to bed! But, who was I to argue? I laid her down but as I was closing the door she couldn't find her little sippy cup of water. "Where's water?" she yelled. So, I came back into the room and showed her it was right there. She rolled over, gripping her cup and said "Thank you Mom. Night night," and promptly fell asleep. I left the room shaking my head.

We put Bree to bed early tonight since we are waking her up super early for a flight tomorrow. Of course, we still had to go through the same bedtime routine to get her to go down. Bath, PJ's, reading books, then prayer. Tonight when we prayed we made a special request for a safe trip and Brianna's additions included "Thank you for bubbles, bless the potty, bless Grammy, bless other Grammy..." After prayers we tucked her in and gave her kisses and started to leave the room. Usually at this point we have to just ignore the requests she's yelling out for one more kiss or another prayer or we'd be there all night. Tonight as we were backing towards the door she was saying "Daddy, kiss toes!" "Kiss your own toes," he told her "Go to sleep." But, he didn't get away with that one. Bree yelled "Daddy, get back here!" So, he went in and kissed the royal toes and after that the princess fell asleep without protestation.

Pictures

Okay, there's really no story here, just realized it's been awhile since I posted pictures of our baby. These are from the other day when we spent a quiet afternoon playing on the balcony. Bree helped us blow bubbles and smelled the flowers among other things...

Blowing bubbles on the balcony.

What a sweet little face!

Smelling the flowers.

Our little cutie pie!

Shoe Conversation and The Big Slide

The other day Brianna and I had our first whole conversation in complete sentences. She wanted to go to the park and said, "Mom, where are my brown shoes?" "I don't know, I think they're in your room," I told her. So, she ran in there and I heard her yell "I found them! There they are. Too high Mom!" (They were up at the top of her dresser.) (Ok, all right that last sentence wasn't really a whole sentence but give the kid a break, she's only 2!)

Well, once we got the shoes on we headed off to the park. We went to a new park this time and it had a really tall slide. Of course, Brianna wanted to go down that one first. She has no fear, but I do. It was really, really tall and I didn't want her to go down alone so I climbed up there with her..much to the dismay of the 6 year old in line behind me. Well, we got up there and went down, Bree with a big smile on her face. Once we were at the bottom Brianna immediately got back in line. I managed to convince her we should try the smaller slides though and we played for a while longer. When it was time to go Bree started waving and saying goodbye to the park and everything in sight. (A little ritual that helps her leave without throwing a fit.) So, one by one she named each park plaything "Goodbye park, bye swings, bye red slide, bye blue slide, bye kids, bye bikes..."

ABC's Say

I would like to think it's because of my diligent time and effort spent emphasizing education, but actually, largely due to TV shows like Sesame Street, Brianna has become aware of the alphabet and letters. Whenever she sees writing she points and says "ABC's, ABC's Mom!" Then we say "Yep, sure enough," or something of that nature. Well, today Bree noticed that there were "ABC's" on her tube of diaper cream. She pointed this out to her daddy and he told her that those ABC's said "diaper cream." (Although, actually they said more like A&D Diaper Ointment.) Then Bree noticed more ABC's on the shampoo bottle. Daddy told her they said "shampoo" (All right, it was actually conditioner and it didn't even say that on the front of the bottle either.) After the shampoo Brianna found ABC's on the toothpaste. Daddy said those ABC's say "toothpaste" (translation: Colgate). After that Bree handed me the tube of toothpaste, then pointed at it solemnly and told me, "ABC's say 'Brush your teeth!'"

Me Too!

Today Brianna's Daddy got her dressed, he put her into jeans and one of the new shirts I recently bought her. After her clothes were on she ran into the room to show me. I hadn't seen her wear that particular shirt before so I said, "Wow. That's a nice shirt, I sure like your outfit today!" Then she looked at me and said "Me too!" She's never said that before! So, of course, I was left there laughing while she ran off to do other things.

Socket To Me

Like most kids her age, Bree hates to have her hair washed. She loves the part where we add soap to her hair and get all foamy, right up until we have to wash it off that is. Then she fusses and cries and insists that her eyes hurt, even though we use a "no more tears" shampoo. So, the other day I tried something new. I rediscovered a bathtime hand puppet made of terry cloth. (Actually, I think someone gave it to us at the baby shower before she was born but it's been lost in the closet all this time.) At bath time I wore the hand puppet, (who's supposed to be a pink hippo I think), and had it soap up her hair and then pour water over her head. She thought it was pretty fun but she still fussed about washing the soap off. As usual, to help her recover from the trauma of having water on her head and running on her face, I used a wash cloth to wipe her eyes. Only, this time I used the hand puppet since it was made of wash cloth material. Brianna stopped her fussing, looked at the puppet and said "Thank you socket!" (Short for sock puppet, like on Blues Clues.)

Positive Vibes

Inevitably since she's a toddler, we end up telling Brianna "No," or some other version of it, quite often each day. So, in order to counter balance the negativity of saying "No," we also try to catch her being good and compliment her. To do this we often say "Good Job, Very Nice," or "Very good!" In her usual manner she's managed to turn the tables and use our own words on us. Now, when she sees Mommy or Daddy doing something she thinks is nice she'll tell us so. Take today when we were blowing bubbles on the patio. After I tried to blow a bubble and had it break right away she instructed me "too hard," implying I was blowing too hard. (I actually had just told her this when she had tried to blow bubbles a few minutes earlier..) I dipped the stick in the bubble solution and tried again and got a nice row of bubbles going. Bree smiled and said "Very good Mom!"

Pop A Back Please??

Brianna is small for her age. But even so, I get tired hauling her all around when she feels like being carried, it makes my back hurt some days if I end up holding her a lot. On these kinds of days if her daddy is with us, I'll say, "Can Daddy hold you?" to her and then to Travis, "Can you hold her, my back hurts!" Well, when we went for a walk today while Daddy was at work she wanted to be held. So, I picked her up and kept going. She was saying something to me that I couldn't quite make out but then on the third time she said it I realized she was saying "Mom, back hurt?" It actally made me feel kind of bad that I had said it enough she thinks I don't ever want to carry her...

When our backs hurt, Travis and I are in the habit of popping each other's backs. To do this, one of us lays face down on the floor while the other one uses the heels of their hands to push along either side of the spine. This activity, like everything else we do in front of her, did not go unnoticed by Brianna. Today after her daddy got home she was laying face down on the floor going "Pop a back please?" So, we each took turns "popping" her back. (We really just massaged it a little, but it made her happy anyways.)

Blue Grammy

Ok, this actually happened a little while ago but I forgot about it until today, when we saw an older woman in the apartment hallway...

Brianna has gotten to the stage where she calls anyone obviously not an adult a kid, then women she thinks are roughly my age are all called Mommy (unless she knows their name specifically), and any woman she thinks is older than that are all Grammy's to her. Well, the other day as we were leaving our apartment complex we saw an elderly lady out on her patio. As Trav was loading Bree into the car she pointed and said "Ud-doh (other) grammy." (As in, it's not my Grammy, but look, there's a grammy.) But, Travis misheard her and thought she said "eddo (yellow) grammy." (An easy mistake to make in baby babble.) So, trying to tease her he said, "No, that's not a yellow Grammy silly that's a blue grammy." So Brianna pointed again and said "blue grammy," and we laughed a little at her expense. (So terrible of us, I know.) We'd forgotten all about it by the time we came back from playing at the park. However, as we pulled back into our parking spot there was the same woman, still out on her patio. Bree pointed her out again and said "blue grammy," so proud of herself for remembering to say it "right," like Daddy had told her.

Tiny Texan

Brianna was born in Dallas, TX. But, as the saying goes I guess you can take the girl out of Texas but you can't take the Texas out of the girl. Or, something like that...Anyways, over the long holiday weekend Travis made a brisket. (We picked up a taste for that, and for barbecue quisine in general during the years we lived in Dallas.) Travis and I enjoyed it on Memorial Day, but Bree was feeling pretty sick that day and wouldn't eat any. Tonight for a quick dinner, we pulled out the leftovers. Brianna was feeling well enough to have a better appetite and had a few bites. We had to encourage her a little bit though. Her daddy was saying "Here, try this brisket, it's good, you'll like it!" After she tried it though, she must have decided she likes it because she started eating it as fast as her daddy could put in on her plate. She was saying "More bris-it, More bris-it, please!" That's our little Texan baby!

Side Salad

A good salad is one of my favorite foods. So no surprise, I made myself one today for lunch. For some reason, Brianna took an interest in trying it, something she's never been interested in before. I expected her to take one bite and declare it "gross," as she has in the past. But, she was actually crunching down on lettuce leaves for some time. I thought, hmmm, weird, and we went on with our day. I didn't really think any more about it until Bree decided she was in the mood for a snack this afternoon and was asking for "sat," which is of course, salad. Once again, she happily chowed down on a light salad with lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers, drizzled with Italian dressing. I've never even heard of a kid wanting to eat salad for a snack! It must not have filled her up very much though because it was only about an hour later that she stated "Mom, food time...food time Mom!" Then she managed to climb up into her booster seat, (which was sitting in a dining chair), buckle herself into it and even fasten her tray on all by herself. Well, I went ahead and fed her a little something even though dinner wasn't going to be ready for about a half hour.

Nice Shirt

Well, unfortunately, Bree was running a fever and feeling sick again today so not a lot of nice moments, mostly a lot of resting and/or screaming tantrums. But there was one funny little incident this morning...

As I mentioned before, on Mother's Day this year our whole family participated in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. And, each registered participant received a T-shirt as a kind of thank you. Although, I can't say that Travis was more than ecstatic to be the new owner of a mostly pink shirt featuring a pink woman walking across it. This morning though, as I was going through my usual half-awake stumbling routine I noticed that he was wearing it as a pajama top. Not one to let a good teasing moment go I smirked at him and said, "Nice shirt!" That's when Brianna, little miss big ears, piped in from the other room, (where we thought she was watching her morning cartoons), and said "Thank you!" Although to be fair, her pajama top was very nice too.

A Weekend Sickie

Brianna hasn't been feeling good today, running a little fever. That, combined with the fact that it was 95 degrees outside today meant we spent a lazy day inside. To keep cool Brianna spent most of the day running around in only her diaper and eating a lot of popsicles. Since she was feeling extra lethargic and achy when her fever was high, she also watched a lot of TV. Bree felt particulary fond of "Tale-Bob" (Veggie Tales)today and requested it frequently. In one episode about bullies, a small asparagus was being threatened by a big squash. He jumps into the scene growling and being mean. Although she's seen this episode before, Bree seemed to be feeling especially vulnerable today and when that particular part came on she ran over to me scared and screaming "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy," and vaulted herself into my arms. To comfort her, Daddy settled in to watch the rest with her, laying down beside her on the couch. It only took a few minutes and both of them were completely passed out together. So, instead of in her crib, today Brianna took her nap wearing only her diaper, snuggled up to her daddy.

Prayer P.S.'s

Part of our bedtime routine has been to say a quick prayer before tucking Brianna in. This is so much a part of her routine now that sometimes she insists we say a prayer before naps too. She has caught on to the concept pretty thoroughly and has even started adding in her own thoughts to the prayer. We usually start by saying "Thank you for today," at which point Bree quite often has something to add. Today before naptime she piped in with "Thank you..puppy, play park." Which means "Thank you for when I got to pet the puppy at the park." (We went to the park this morning.) After we say our thanks then we ask for blessings for our friends and family. We sometimes try to get away with saying "Bless our friends and our family." But then Brianna will make sure to list whoever or whatever she is particularly thinking about that day including, "Bless Grammy, Bless Poppa, Bless Bee-ranna, Bless Stacy's house, Bless toes...." and so on. :)

Drive-Thru Diva

Although I'd like to believe otherwise, apparently we eat "drive-through" food quite frequently. At least, often enough that Brianna has figured out what kind of food they serve at these places and how to order. As we pulled up to the Arby's drive through lane today, while her daddy was leaning out the window to place our order, Bree starts ordering from the backseat, "hot sammich, fries, um hot sammich."

The Toddler of Babble

Never one to stop talking, here are a few of Brianna's new conversational nuggets...

Bree has heard me call for Travis when I need help in situations like, being in the middle of a diaper change and realizing I don't have wipes on hand. Even though our apartment is pretty small, he manages to "not hear" me a lot. So, I usually end up yelling "Trav!" Well, the other day Brianna was trying to get her Daddy's attention. She was standing right in front of him saying "Daddy, Dad, Dad..." But he was staring at his computer and didn't respond so finally she yelled "TRAV!"

Whether it's her food or her bath water Brianna doesn't want things to be "too hot," understandably. While this is very good that she can recognize when things are too hot she's taken it to a level where she's been insisting things are too hot even when they are practically ice cold. When this happens I've been telling her, "No, it's not too hot it's just nice and warm." So,the last time we ran her a bath I set her down in the water and she said "too hot," (which it wasn't), then she immediately corrected herself and said, "No, nice and warm."

Lately it seems like either Travis or myself are needing to run a lot of errands. Whenever we can, one of stays home with Bree and the other goes off by themselves since we can go much faster without a dawdling toddler along. Well, usually Bree feels a little upset to see one of us leaving and we tell her not to be worried, we'll be back soon. This morning the tables were turned on me when Travis decided he wanted to run down to the convenience store and buy us some "hot sammiches" for breakfast. Brianna decided she was going to go along with Daddy so he put her shoes on and they were ready to go. Just before they got out the door, Brianna ran back over to where I was sitting on the couch and told me "Mommy, back soon."

Park Picnic

This afternoon Travis came home a little early from work and took Bree and me out for a picnic in the park. While we were driving there, Brianna suddenly says from the backseat "too bad." (I don't even know why she was saying it or where she picked that up since I don't really remember telling her "too bad" anytime.) Once we got to the park we ate our little dinner and then played in the grass awhile. Brianna found some dandelions that had gone to seed and was blowing on them. (A big improvement over this time last year when she was puckering up and inhaling or licking them.) After she'd blown all the seeds off of one dandelion, she would say "nuther fluffy" and go pick a new one. This went on for a little while until her daddy lifted her up and was spinning her through the air. He'd set her down and they'd both be staggering around a few minutes until Bree would say "try again!" Then they would be off and spinning again. Eventually they tired of spinning (luckily before anyone threw up!) and Travis was laying in the grass, snapping some up-close pictures of a dandelion...that is until Brianna marched up and picked it, blew the seeds in his face and then proceeded to climb all over him like he was her personal jungle gym, all the time saying "climb Daddy," and grinning her big cheese grin. (Yep, I'm pretty sure that was a run-on sentence but as an artiste I refuse to change it.) By that time Travis was out of film and we headed home since it was getting close to bedtime for Bree. We went through our bedtime routine: bath, PJ's, reading, prayers, kissing 29 stuffed animals,and then as I was headed out the door I heard a small voice, "Mommy, come to bed!" I gave her another kiss and told her that Mommy has her own bed. She seemed to accept that explanation and was quickly off to dreamland. It was one of those days when I close her bedroom door with a smile on my face, looking forward to tomorrow. (All right, stop rolling your eyes, it's a little sappy I know but allow me a sentimental Mommy moment!)

Cat Scratch Fever

By and large, Brianna and Bogart, our cat, have come to a mutual agreement not to aggravate each other. Most the time she no longer does crazy things to him like, I dunno, bounce on him or "cat ski" by holding onto his tail with a death grip while he runs away. In fact, these days she's more his protector, always trying to make sure he's well fed, (although he's already a super-fat cat). If she sees he has an empty food bowl she'll point it out and then scoop more in for him, even refraining from making cat soup (by mixing his food and water) as she used to. But, today the inevitable happened and she backslid. This morning, in a moment of weakness, she could be observed lying on the floor, watching TV and using Bogart as a pillow. Then, when one of her cartoon's themes was jumping she leaped up, turned around, grabbed both the cat's front paws and helped him "jump" to the music. He didn't really seem to enjoy it, (I think he was worried about maintaining his fatty cat figure). But, as always, he weathered it with much patience and when the "jumping" was over he slinked away to hide under the bed with what was left of his dignity.

A Few Good Friends

We've spent a couple days this week hanging out with our friends. Brianna has two little friends in particular she loves to spend time with, Nyan and Kadyn. Yesterday we went with Kadyn and Hannah, (Kadyn's mommy), to the park. The girls had a blast sliding and swinging together and so forth. And, as usual Kadyn wanted to give Brianna lots of hugs. At one point Kadyn was chasing Bree around trying to hug her. This went on for a few minutes, with Bree always managing to be a few steps in front of Kadyn (Bree's not really the touchy-feely type) until finally Bree ran by and snatched the baggie of Kix out of my hand and passed it over to Hannah. This was actually a brilliant tactical manuever since Kadyn saw her mom had a snack in her hands and immediately stopped to chow down. :)

Then today we hung out for a while with Nyan, who is 2 and 1/2, and being a boy, really into cars. When I told Bree we were going over to visit Nyan she immediately started saying "cars, cars" and insisted on bringing one of her own little cars to show him. They had fun playing cars together. When we got home Brianna was still talking about him and she said "Nyan, kiss!" I'm not quite sure if she actually kissed him or was saying she wanted to, either way, oy!

Climbing the rope ladder at the park. (What a monkey!)

Bree playing "peek-a-boo" with Hannah, (Kadyn's Mommy).

Kadyn and Brianna sitting together at the park.

Peek-A-Nude

It's become our habit in the mornings that Brianna splashes around in the bathtub while I stand there next to her and do my hair and makeup. Today she ended up being "all done" before I had finished getting ready. So, she was racing around the bedroom in the nude while I continued curling my hair. After a while she came back over to me and started playing one of her new favorite games, "Who is it?" This is a game where she opens and closes the door. She'll close the door to all but a small crack then knock on it. This is my cue to say "Who is it?" in a sing-songy type voice. Giggling in anticipation she'll throw the door open, smiling like a maniac. Then I say "Oh, it's you!" or "Well, hi there!" or "Peek-a-Boo!" Whereupon she slams the door shut and we start the cycle again. (She's really big into repetition these days, I can't tell you how many times I've watched the same Blues Clues video!) This morning though, it was a new twist for Bree to play the "Who is it?" game naked. (Let's clarify, she was in the buff, I wasn't!) So, I played along and changed my responses to "Oh, it's a nudy!" and so on. Meanwhile, I finished getting ready for the day and Bree got to have some quality time in just her skin, something she loves to do.

Life is Not a Bowl of Cherries

Let's face it, life is not a bowl of cherries. But, I do think that in the fruit bowl of life there's probably at least one cherry somewhere in there if you only look hard emough. Or, to put it another way, if, as Forrest Gump said, "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get," then I prefer to keep tasting them until I find the one with the cherry center. Point being that where Brianna is concerned especially, I like to try to find that one gem of a moment in the bedrock of our day and focus on that. (Ok, it's possible that I've gone too far with the metaphors at this point...) Seriously though, I do try to approach parenthood with a certain sense of humor, otherwise, being a stay-at-home mom, I'd go nuts. However, with the aptly named "Terrible Two's" rapidly approaching I sometimes find it hard to keep that in mind with my patience tried by ever increasing tantrums. Although, even in her more difficult times, by the end of the day I can usually find something to smile about. (The fact that I usually write these right before I go to bed, when I'm more than a little tired and getting goofy probably has something to do with that.)

Being a first-time mom though, I've found myself frequently reading the "Parenting for Idiots" type books. And, I've been looking into them even more often with the increase in tantrums lately. According to all the experts the best response to a tantrum is to simply ignore it. Then, once your tiny tot realizes that no one is paying attention to their display and that it's not moving anyone to do what they want, they'll get tired of it and stop. If this is the way it's supposed to work then someone needs to explain that to Bree. Being the drama queen that she is even when everyone has left the room she continues on, sure that someone, if only God himself, is watching and feeling sorry about the horrible injustices inflicted upon her. (Like not getting to watch TV all day or not getting to scribble in pen wherever she wishes!) Pretty much at this point, you name it and she's mad about it, brushing her teeth, combing her hair, etc. Since the ignoring thing hasn't really been working out too well one of our strategies has been trying to take turns. When she gets upset that we need to brush our teeth sometimes we can say, "Oh, come on, let's do it. First it will be Dad's turn and then Brianna's turn." Of course, this has led her to be saying "Banna's turn," an awful lot when she wants something.

One of her biggest tantrum triggers this week has been our unreasonable insistence that she put clothes on after taking a bath. She loves to takes baths and has a great time splashing and playing with her bath toys. When she feels she's ready to get out she says "all done...nudy" then delights in running around in the buff. This is all fine and dandy until we tell her she needs to put her diaper and clothes back on. Then she is immediately sobbing and running until we have to chase her down and try to get her clothes on while she struggles. (Which is like trying to put a cat into a bathtub full of water.) We've tried compromising and letting her be a nudy for a while before mentioning clothes at all. We even tried telling her she could put her clothes on by herself since she values her independence so much but, alas, no success. At this point we are supposed to be receiving several brochures on nudist colonies in the mail!

Here We Go Again

Just another day around here. Actually pretty non-descipt other than Brianna seemed to be feeling just a smidge more contrary than usual. (By smidge, of course, I mean a lot.) It started off first thing this morning...she woke up and was yelling "Mom, out!" So, I dragged myself out of bed, helped her out of her crib, paused to feed the cat who was also yelling at me, and started the coffee. By that time Bree had managed to turn on her cartoons and was staring at them in a TV coma. Her dad, who was still laying in bed, (as usual!), called her from the other room, hoping she would run in and spend a few minutes "waking him up" as he calls it. This means she jumps all around in the bed, yanks at his covers, tells him he's "all done" and then runs off. It's his favorite way to wake up. (Although, if I tried it I'd get my head bitten off, ungrateful is what he is really! The way he sleeps too, it's either have Brianna jump around on him or invest in a very large foghorn that can just blast him straight out of bed and into the shower by pure decibal vibrations. Anyways, I digress.) Well, when he called her the first time she said "No." Then the second time she heard him calling she yelled "TV!" as an explanation why she wouldn't come. Finally, after he called several more times she stalked over to the room, stood in the open doorway and said "Yes?" in an exasperated tone. (That I'm quite sure she didn't get from me.) Well, that sort of set the tone for the rest of the day. She and I spent quite a lot of time having differences of opinion on how we should spend the day, mainly a power struggle over how much TV to watch, with her voting for all the time, all day. Finally after much "discussion" and tears I convinced her I wasn't going to be turning on the TV for now and we got on with our day. We went into her room and started playing and she just suddenly said, "Here we go again." Couldn't have said it better myself!

Our Sunday Morning

We had a pretty nice Sunday morning. We got up early and went off to church, Brianna wore a cute little dress and Travis was in his new dress shirt and slacks. (And before I hear from those of you who might mention to me that I posted pictures of Pancake the turtle but not of Brianna Rose I will say yes, we'll take pictures and try to post them on the Kodak Gallery soon!) Well, as her daddy was carrying her to the car on our way to church, Bree poked at his shirt and told him "Nice shirt." :) Then after church we decided to take ourselves out to lunch at Panera Bread. Brianna has recently decided that she prefers to sit in big chairs and shuns the high chairs. So, as we were waiting for our food she was saying "hop, hop" and bouncing up and down on the cushion of our booth. Since she was seated on the inside next to Daddy, and was being pretty quiet, we decided, oh well, it keeps her happy and she's not screaming. But, not to stop there, it wasn't two minutes later that she discovered the advertisement they had placed on the table. You know the ones where they have them folded into a square that stands on the table? She put that on top of her head like a hat, (it fit perfectly around her head), and continued hopping quietly saying "hop, hop, hop." After that, I noticed more than one pair of eyes watching her but since they were all accompanied by indulgent and knowing smiles, I didn't mind and neither did Bree.

Stop It!

Anyone who knows us, knows that Travis and I have pretty different senses of humor. In his opinion, the more you repeat something, the funnier it gets, where as my philosophy is the more you repeat it, the less funny and more annoying it gets. We have been interested to see which way Brianna might lean but I think we found out today. Here's what happened...

Since Bree is understanding what we're saying more and more, if she hears us mention a kind of food she likes or a destination she likes, she'll immediately insist on eating the food or leaving for the destination. So, we have started using that old parenting trick, spelling things out to each other. Well, Trav was talking to me today about going out to do a certain activity and spelled it out. Then he thought it would be funny to spell everything he said and was talking completely i-n s-t-r-i-n-g-s o-f l-e-t-t-e-r-s. This continued for a little while until I couldn't stand it anymore and I said "Would you please knock it off?" Quick as a lightning flash and before he could say anything Brianna turned around to face him and said "Stop it! Stop it Daddy!" and bonked him on the head with the book that was in her hand. We couldn't help it, it was so unexpected, we laughed, even Trav..... Then we had to have a serious talk about not hitting Daddy.

Pancake Sighting

The apartment pond is not that big, but it's big enough and murky enough, that when we released Pancake into it I wasn't sure if we'd actually see him again. Truthfully, Bree was really mad at me for letting him go, she wanted to keep him. At the time I kept saying "Look, we're gonna get to see Pancake swim! Isn't that neat?" But she was just screaming "Tuhtle, tuhtle, no swim!" and crying. It was kind of sad. But, we were happy to see him out and about and doing well today. We actually spotted him from off our balcony on the second floor. He was swimming around and looked good. Not only that but we noticed he had a friend, a much larger and older turtle whom I have creatively dubbed "Not-Pancake." While Pancake swam around Not-Pancake was resting in the sun on the rocks. We wish them both well...

Pancake on a rock.

Pancake swimming. Doesn't he look happy?

"Not-Pancake" sunning on the edge of the pond.

Morning Regiment with Sergeant Brianna

At our house, when Brianna decides it's time to get up, (usually around 6:30 in the morning), we all get up. She makes sure of it! If either Mommy or Daddy has decided to try and catch 10 more minutes of shut-eye she shuts us down pretty quickly. She'll run into our bedroom, look at the offending parent and say "All done, Daddy, all done, out bed!" Then she yanks at the covers. If it's me in bed at this point she demands "Mommy, gasses (glasses) on, gasses too!" At this point Bogart usually starts in meowing and whining for his breakfast. He seems to always be whining for food and Bree has heard us tell him to be quiet often enough that this morning, when he started in, she included him in her morning ordering around. "Kitty, stop it!...Shhhh" and then after he quieted down she said, "Thank you Kitty!" Finally, when she's gotten both of us, bleary-eyed, out of bed and onto the couch with our cups of coffee she likes to comment on our beverages. "Mommy, coffee? Daddy, coffee? Coffee too hot!" (This last part is because we've had to tell her coffee is too hot for babies, and occasionally she's managed to touch the ceramic mugs and hurt her little fingers.) Ultimately we end up turning on her morning cartoons for defensive pursposes and nursing our coffees with our eyes half open...

A Sophisticated Palette

As she gets older, Brianna is getting more interested in trying new foods. And, in truly toddler fashion, she is exploring trying some of the kinds of food she's been eating all along in new combinations and at new times of day. Her latest culinary exploration was insisting on having macaroni and cheese for breakfast and her newest gourmet invention was having carrots sticks dipped into a side of peanut butter which she enjoyed quite thoroughly. My philosophy is, who am I to to suppress such obvious culinary genius as long as the food is good for her?

'Hampoo Obsession

Bree has a problem. She is addicted to "hampoo." She likes the way it foams all up I guess. Every time she gets into the bathtub she has to make sure that her baby "hampoo" is right there. (It's actually a hair and body baby soap.) It's in a bottle with a pump on top. She'll settle herself into the tub and then proceeds to pump the soap into her hands. One pump at a time, she'll get some soap and then smear it on her hair, belly, legs, buns, back (well she tries), and anything or anyone else in the tub with her. By the end she's probably used 25 pumps of soap but that's okay because after she gets out of the tub she uses at least that many pumps of lotion as well. I think she just likes the pump action bottles! :)

A Manner of Speaking

I know I've said it several times before, but Brianna continues to baffle me with her vocabulary. She seems to be learning a new word or phrase every day and when she actually uses them correctly, in the right context, I am startled by it every time, even though I should know better by now. Her newest word is "mazing" (amazing) which she uses when she feels Mommy or Daddy has had a particulary impressive accomplishment. For example, I forgot to include it, but when her Daddy had finished hanging up her wall pegs she stood back and declared "mazing!" I have no idea where she even picked that one up, I don't think we say it very often ourselves?! She's also starting to pick up a lot of adjectives. Besides her colors, she has added a few other desciptors, her newest being "heavy." Yesterday she tried to help her daddy by bringing him his backpack. She leaned over, strained a minute, then looked at him and told him "too heavy."

Besides adding to her vocabulary Bree is also starting to show her growing sophistication in her choice of words. The prime example of this being that instead of calling everyone under 12 "babies" she now calls them "kids." At the grocery store the other day she spotted a little boy of about 6 so she pointed and said "kid!" I said "Yep, that's a kid all right." Then she waved to him and said "Hi kid!" He thought is was a little weird but he said "Hi....kid" back to her. One of her other recent changes to her conversations is using "beep." She's actually been able to say that one for a while but now she also uses it when she wants someone to move. If Daddy's in her way she'll say "Beep, beep, Daddy!" Then she'll shove on his leg and go around him.

All these have surprised me and made me smile but perhaps the most "mazing" thing is hearing her speak in complete sentences every so often. Take the other day, she was watching one of her favorite shows, Little Einsteins. The plot was that a baby reindeer had wandered away from his mommy and the little einsteins were going to help find him. She turned to me and raised her hands, palm up, "Where did baby reindeer go? I dunno!" she said. While I kept staring at her with my mouth hanging open she turned back to the T.V. screen. But, I didn't join her because watching her learn and say these things is better than T.V.

Hang it on the Wall

Today at Target I bought a four-pack of colorful wall pegs in the dollar section. I thought it might be fun to hang them up on the walls in Bree's room so she could hang up her coats or necklaces, etc. Well, when we got them home I opened them up and Brianna thought they were neat and played with them for a while but we didn't really talk about what they were for at that time. When Travis got home we were hanging out in her room before her bedtime and talking about the day. I pointed to the pegs and said "Hey I bought these today. I thought it might be fun to hang them up on the wall there so she can, you know, hang her stuff on them." Before Trav could even respond, little big ears, otherwise known as Brianna, had scooped them up and was running to the half wall there by the front door. She held a peg up against the wall and said "hang, wall, me," (I'm hanging this on the wall!) So, right then and there, the last thing we did before starting the bedtime routine was hang up her pegs. Her daddy let her choose where she wanted each one and she pointed to the each spot very seriously. She was delighted with the results except when I tried to show her how she could hang her coat on one. She pulled it off and seemed insulted that I would hang a mere coat on her designer wall art!

Feeling Sentimental

As I log onto this site every day I can't help but notice recently how close the little girl is to the two on our birthday ticker up there. We were at the park again this afternoon and I was sitting on a park bench, watching Brianna run, jump, climb the stairs and go down all the slides by herself. I couldn't help but think of this time last year when she was barely learning to walk! I can't believe how far she's come and how fast it's gone already...(sigh). :)

More Song Stories

Well, if I seem to have a lot of little anecdotes about Brianna singing songs lately it's for two reasons, one being that Bree just really loves music and the second is because I've really tried to turn off the TV more often and turn on music and play instead. Well, having said that I think it's made Brianna more likely to "sing" her little songs and it just strikes me as funny every time. It's really hard to describe how she does it, sort of a slurry, under her breath thing most the time, except for key words at the end of phrases. Like, the other day we were driving somewhere and we had her tunes on in the car. She was in the backseat "singing" along to "There were 10 in the bed and the little one said, 'roll over, roll over,''' except when she sing it it's more like "ten..bed...roe ova, roe ova." Today she was singing the song that goes "Head and shoulders, head and shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes, eyes, ears, mouth and nose." (Okay, it's not going to win any awards for creativity in lyrics but we all know it don't we, don't we??) Well, anyways, that one she can sing almost every word pretty clearly and points to each part as she goes. Only, when she gets to that last part she says "eyes, ears, muffin nose!" Her favorite song this afternoon was the Teddy Bear song. You know the one, "Teddy bear, teddy bear turn around, teddy bear, teddy bear touch the ground..." and so on. Well, when this song comes on she will grab her teddy bear and make him act out the lyrics in the song. And, it just so happens that this song came on a lot this afternoon. Mostly because, every time it ended she was demanding, "More teddy bear song!" I think we listened to it 20 or more times today, in a row!

If You're Happy And You Know It

Brianna has a CD with the song "If You're Happy and You Know It" that she listens to quite frequently and has started "singing" along with. Well, tonight she was singing it as best she could and clapping my hands for me. Her daddy heard her and thought he'd have a little fun with her so he started singing it too, only he added some improvised lyrics. He sang, "If you're happy and you know it, touch your nose," which she did. So, to see if she'd keep following directions the next time around he said "If you're happy and you know it, pull your ear." She did that one to. Warming up to his game for the next round Travis tried "kiss your Mom," for the action portion and sure enough Bree leaned over and kissed me every time. She was starting to laugh by this time. The next go Trav sang "If you're happy and you know it stick your tongue out." But, at that time she was only about 2 centimeters from my face, having just finished the "kiss your mom" verse so instead she ended up licking my face. That struck her as super hysterical so the next several minutes she spent licking my face whenever Daddy sang "stick out your tongue." Finally, Trav wrapped up his song with the verse "If you're happy and you know it tickle your Mom." Brianna didn't miss a beat and "tickled" me. But on the final pass Trav tried to trick her singing "If you're happy and you know it and you really want to show it, if you're happy and you know it tickle your DAD!" Smartie pants that she is that didn't fool her, she just leaned over and tickled him instead. It actually turned into quite a little excercise in listening and following directions.

Oh Savannah

We have a little neighbor girl, Savannah, who lives right next door and just turned 13 I think. Brianna adores her because she's a big girl for one thing, but also because Savannah is really nice to her and lets Bree use her "leadership skills" on her. (Ok, she let's Bree boss her around!) Yesterday afternoon Savannah showed up at our door and asked if she could take Brianna down to the apartment play area to go down the slides. I was busy making dinner so I told them to go ahead without me. Brianna hesitated for only 1 second and then happily waved goodbye to me and let Savannah lead her off down the hall. They came back about a half hour later, happy as clams and then Bree showed Savannah Pancake the turtle and they played together some more. It's kind of a funny little friendship. Well, today at around 3 pm Brianna started asking for Savannah. She was standing at the front door crying and saying "Bee-ranna," (which is what she calls Savannah even though it sounds more like her own name). We went next door and knocked but they weren't home. This made Bree very upset and started a crying tantrum that lasted some time. Finally, I took her outside to distract her. She insisted on bringing Teddy Bear (her white bear) down with us. When we got down there she wanted to be in charge and was pointing, saying "That way Mommy, that way." She was getting quite upset with me if I tried to walk a different direction than she wanted. So, I let her be in charge for a while to sooth her nerves. Soon she calmed down and was giving a narrative of our walk to Teddy Bear. "Teddy Bear, water, see water? Teddy, geese, see geese?" And so on. We reached a picnic table and stopped for a while. Brianna entertained herself by making a pile of pine cones on the bench and then we came back inside. I can only say, I hope Savannah has time to play with Bree tomorrow after school...I dread to think otherwise.

A Turtle Named Pancake

Since the weather was nice today Brianna and I, once again, took off for the park. And, we had a nice time playing. But our adventure didn't really start until the drive home. As we were making one of the last turns to get to our apartment complex I noticed a little turtle in the middle of the road, bound to get run over any time. So, I pulled over and grabbed him before he could get smooshed. We brought him home and put him in one of Bree's toy crates and I decided to call him Pancake (since he almost was one in the road there). Then we fed him a little snack of carrots and cucumbers and gave him some water. Bree was totally freaking out, laughing at him and saying "tuhtle, tuhtle!" I warned her not to touch him, since he might bite and she was careful not to, but she managed to still interact with him by "sharing" her snack and dropping some of her apple and graham crackers in there (despite me repeatedly telling her that turtles don't like graham crackers). He seemed to adapt pretty quickly and stopped hiding in his shell after a while. He even kept his head out when Brianna went and got one of her plastic baby doll bottles, dipped it in his water, and then held the bottle up to his "lips." By the time Daddy came home she had kind of forgotten about little Pancake though, until I asked her if she wanted to show Daddy the turtle. Then her eyes bugged out of her head and her mouth gaped open. She looked at him and said "Daddy! Tuhtle, side (outside)!" So, we had a little more fun with Pancake the turtle and Travis took some pictures. Then we all took Pancake down to the apartment pond and set him free in the "wild" downstairs. Good Luck Pancake!

"Pancake" exploring his temporary house in one of Brianna's toy crates. (The graham cracker and apple slice are Bree's contribution in an effort to "share" her snack.)

Brianna and Bogart checking out the turtle.

Know Your Colors

This morning, Brianna and I went to Cardio Kids, a kids indoor gym, with our play group. Bree had such a blast running around and doing all the activities. At one point the teachers were talking about colors. They had big stars that were different colors and they were teaching the kids the names for the colors in both English and Hawaiian. But before that they were asking, "What is this color?" for each one. Having a colors book at home and with me talking to her about colors a lot lately, Brianna is getting pretty good at naming colors. She uses them fairly frequently in her speech and more often than not these days, the color she's saying is actually the color of the item she's talking about. But, I was still surprised (but pleasantly so!) when today she got every color right except purple, which she thought was blue. But she correctly named, red, blue, yellow, orange, and green, which made me feel pretty good! The funny part was when they were telling the kids that the Hawaiian name for purple is poonee (ok that's a totally phonetic spelling, I have no idea what the correct spelling is) at which point Brianna blew through her lips and made her pony noise!

Here You Go, I Got It

Brianna's catch phrases of the past week or so have been "Here you go," and "I got it!" For example, today when we went out to feed the geese she was judiciously breaking up her slice of bread and throwing the pieces saying "Here you go geese, here you go." Later, as she was playing with her big bouncy ball every time she caught it she said "I got it, Mom!" Or sometimes, when her daddy or I pick her up or tickle her she'll say "got me (you got me)!" Then tonight, as I was making dinner I set her up next to me, standing on top of a dining table chair, using her little plastic knife and cutting board to "chop" her plastic veggies apart while I chopped the real ones. She finished in five minutes, not quite the distraction I had hoped, and said "Here you go Mom!" Then she jumped down and asked to watch TV.

Mother's Day

First off, Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there. Hope you had a good one, mine was! We started off this morning by waking up early to go participate in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure 5k walk with my Stay at Home Moms group (which is about 3 miles for those of you who are metric system deficient). It turned out to be a nice time. Bree rode in the backpack on her Daddy's back the whole time. She got a little antsy at times but made it through without a major fuss. Yay Brianna! While we were walking she managed to get several comments on her beautiful blue eyes. (In fact, later in the day she was actually talking to her daddy and saying "Banna, blue eyes. Daddy, bown eyes.") Well, after finishing our walk we took ourselves to breakfast at Perkins where Brianna walked in and immediately started saying "pancakes! pancakes!" really loudly. She does love to go to Perkins for panckakes! And, I got a free slice of strawberry pie for being a mom. :) Once again though, Brianna managed to steal the spotlight by getting several comments from the party at the next table about how very well-behaved and polite she was. (And, it was true, at the time, she was being a very good girl. They were quite amused with her saying "Daddy, more pancakes," and then after he gave her some "Thank you Daddy!") We had our fill of pancakes and fruit and then headed home. Brianna took a nap and I got a few presents. (Two fiction books, some fancy coffee, some new cookie sheets, a mini-muffin tin, and 2 new casserole dishes which I am thrilled about since I was still trying to use all the really old crusty ones we got years ago!) The rest the day we just took it easy, I started my new book, made dinner in one of my new dishes, and played with Bree until, here I sit, blogging about it after the fact. (And also thinking, have you ever noticed how often I use parenthesis in these things??) :)

Finding Nemo--A Horror Flick?!

Today was just a normal Saturday for us. It was raining, again, so we got the laundry done, cleaned up the house, stuff like that. Well, to liven up Bree's day we let her choose a movie to watch and she picked Nemo. It's been a little while since she's watched that movie. Last time she was young enough that the kind of "scary" parts didn't seem to bother her that much. This time was a different story though! After we got her started watching it Trav jumped on his computer to get some work done and I thought I'd sit down and try to finish some photo albums at the kitchen table. Brianna was watching away happily until Nemo's dad and Dory ran into the shark for the first time. It scared her so badly that she started saying "Oh NO!" Then she burst into tears and ran towards me going "Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy..." So I scooped her up and reassured her that it was a friendly shark. We watched a few more minutes together, with her on my lap so she'd feel secure, then we turned it off. After that I decided, even though some of the other Disney movies are rated G, I think we'll stick to Mickey Mouse for a while!

Bless Grammy

Every night before bed we say a little prayer with Brianna and bless, well, everyone. Tonight was no different and we listed names but tried to abbreviate a little bit by saying "Bless all the aunts and uncles, and bless the Grammies and Poppa's, and especially bless Brianna. Amen." Well, Bree said "amen" and kept on clasping her little hands, kept her eyes closed and added "Bless Grammy" again. So, for all her beloved Grammies out there (and there are 6 that I can think of offhand!) an extra blessing goes out for you on this upcoming Mother's Day Weekend from your granddaughter, Brianna Rose.

Little Miss Independent

Toddlers are famous for testing their boundaries and expressing their likes and dislikes very clearly and loudly. Well, Brianna is most definitely a toddler. She has a sense of herself and wants her indepedence, as she is starting to make apparent in a number of ways. The most obvious being insisting she do things on her own, even if she can't really do it without some help. She'll wave a helping hand away impatiently and say "Baby do it!" Lately, she struggles when being carried and says "own walk." (I want to walk on my own!) (Although, not 2 minutes later she'll be asking to get carried, as per a toddler's prerogative I guess.)

A little more subtle means of achieving some personal freedom has been happening with more frequent demands, er I mean statements of her preferences. For example, getting out of the tub she will decline the white towel in Mom's hand and point to a green one, saying "fave-it (favorite) towl" , or when being handed a sippy cup of water she'll hand it back and ask "Chot-at milt?" (chocolate milk). Getting dressed she wants to wear her "jeens," like Daddy's, instead of any other pants. And tonight while getting tucked into bed she wanted a "diffint (different) bear" in bed with her (which apparently is now the name for the bear her Uncle Mark gave her). Then we forgot to do "bainty toes" (put the blanky over her toes) but were reminded rather quickly. What can I say, the girl knows who she is and exactly what she does and doesn't like!

Library Time

Today was our last library time for this session. We'll have a break for a few weeks until a new class starts up. But, since this was our last one for a while I guess Brianna decided to go out with a bang. She always enjoys story time but you can never tell if she's going to sit quietly or go crazy. Today she went crazy! When our librarian starts the class she lists off the "rules" such as everyone participating and no snacks, etc. After she's done that she usually says, "Okay, let's get started." Well, Bree listened to her repeat the rules then she said in a loud voice "OK, all right!" Besides reading at story time, we also sing a number of songs that have motions to go along. Bree was very active today doing all the motions and even singing along quite a bit. At the end of each song the librarian usually leads the class in clapping and saying "Yay!" Well, today Brianna was clapping and jumping up and down and yelling "YAY! ALL RIGHT!" after each song, much to everyone's amusement. Then, when one of our books had seahorses in it she was yelling "NEMO, NEMO!" (Even though Nemo is a fish!?) But the best part was when we did the baby shark chant. In the chant we make hand motions and start with baby shark, then mommy shark, daddy shark, grampa shark, then people swimming, sharks coming, and shark attack! (Where we tickle the kids' bellies). Brianna is very familiar with this routine. She made all the hand motions and was trying to say all the words as well. She knew what was coming and just could not contain herself. So, about 2 seconds before the rest of the class she yells "SHARK ATTACK!" and laughs hysterically. Needless to say I got a lot of comments afterwords about how outgoing and energetic my child is. :) To top it all off we came home and had lunch of grilled cheese sandwiches (also known as "hot sammiches"), and soup (which Bree ate with great gusto). Then I herded her into her room and into her crib where she laid down and said "Night Mom," then went directly to sleep. It was a really good morning.

Anecdotal Anarchy

Well, it's one of those times when I can't choose just one story to tell so instead you get a collection of some of the smaller moments that I didn't post from throughout the past week or so. Here we go: Brianna getting frustrated with me that I won't come play in her room (I was folding laundry in the living room) and dragging her crayons, paper, and both her tiny chairs up to the coffee table, then insisting I sit in one (they're perfect coffee table height by the way). Me with the stereo on in the car, singing along, (as usual), and hearing a small voice from the backseat, "Mommy, sing? Ok baby sing too!" Bree in her room singing along to The More We Get Together, "happy...be...my fend (friend) and you fend..." and also Old MacDonald "EIEIOOO, Cow, MOOO!" Brianna getting out of the bathtub and saying "very cold Banna (Brianna) Mom, dess (get dressed)." The two of us leaving the apartment, Bree not being sure if we're going left or right, choosing one, pointing and stating "This way Mom," pointing the other way, "not that way." And finally, tonight right before bed, her and Daddy inventing a new game where Daddy throws lamby, her stuffed lamb, out of her room into the hallway and then Bree holding up her hands, "Where'd he go? Hiding?" Then her running out to get him, picking him up and saying "I got him! Daddy, throw again?" Yup, she's a busy body, never a dull moment around here with that one. As Brianna frequently says of herself "silly baby!"

Going To The Park With a Few Friends

We needed to get out of the house this afternoon so I told Brianna we were going to go for a walk and then play on the apartment playground. Once we got to the play area Bree proceeded to get a few stuffed animals out of her diaper bag and boss them around the playground. (She feels the urge to be the boss of someone whether it's the cat, her little toddler friends, or her stuffed animals. However, we prefer to refer to this as her "leadership skills.") The stuffed kitty went down the slide repeatedly, apparently, he loves sliding. Then the purple bear, Tigger, and the kitty all shared some swinging time together. They're really quite close friends you see. Although she does like to boss, I mean lead, her stuffed friends, she also tried to take their personal feelings into consideration. After she pushed them in the swing once she let it stop and looked at purple bear. "Bear, citing? (exciting?) she asked him, "Again? Okay!" (Exciting is her newest adjective. She likes to throw it around as fancy vocabulary.) While all this was going on, I had been standing a short distance away, watching with some amusement, the diaper bag over my shoulder. This must have made Brianna think I seemed ready to leave and she felt I was rushing her. She "lead" me over to the side, pointed and said "Sit down Mommy," she patted the ground, "Sit down Mom, wait."

Ow! Neck Massage

With Brianna getting more and more observant her daddy and I have been careful to try and be good examples for her. But sometimes we can't predict how the most harmless things can appear to a toddler, take this incident for example.....After getting home from a long day at work Trav asked me to rub his neck for him. As I was rubbing the back of his neck he was saying "Ow, ow." Bree looked at us and said "Mommy, hurt neck Daddy!" We tried to explain to her that Mommy was trying to make Daddy's neck feel better and not hurt him. But, a few minutes later she was pinching her own neck going "Ow, ow. Hurt neck Mommy, ow!"

Geese Have No Manners

Yep, spring is here. The grass is green and the geese have babies, ok goslings I guess they're called officially. Brianna has been enthralled with the little yellow fluffs since they first showed up. We now have four families with babies, about sixteen little goslings in all. Every day, Bree likes to peek over the side of our balcony and watch them for a while. "Daddy goose, Mommy goose, baby geese," she'll say. Then after watching them for a while she usually finds their antics funny and tells me "silly goose!" (Which makes me laugh since it's the first time I've ever heard anyone use that particular phrase and mean it quite literally!) Then on those occasions when we've gone down to feed the geese they inevitably hiss at us in their goosey way. Bree takes that in stride and hisses right back at them. Although, I have had to caution her that geese will bite little girls who get too close to them. So now she also usually adds "geese bite" to her daily discourse on geese. Lately we've also seen some of the geese getting annoyed and biting their offspring. After watching such an episode today Brianna looked over at me and said "Goose bite baby. Goose bite fam-ly!" "Yes," I said and ever in Mommy, (I mean MOM) mode I added, "Isn't that rude, we shouldn't bite our families!"

Mama, Mommy, Mom

Well, it's official. I'm not aMommy anymore I'm a Mom. At first I was Mama, then for the last 10 months or so I've been Mommy. Now, here I am, my baby is not even two years old yet and she calls me Mom more often than she does Mommy. She's such an active, outgoing, smart, vivacious little girl, I can't begrudge her the drive to learn so quickly, to do new things and to be a big girl...but does she have to grow up so quickly?? (No, on second thought please don't answer that!) And here I had thought she might not outgrow calling me Mommy until like 5 or even 7....oh well at least I'm not the only one. Travis is Dad now and not Daddy.

Rescue Me

This morning Travis was in the shower, I was curling my hair, preparing for church, and Brianna was playing in our bedroom while she waited for us to be ready. She, of course, was all ready to go in a jean skort, white tights and white blouse. Well, while we were both still in the bathroom we suddenly hear Aretha Franklin from the other room. "Come on Baby, and Rescue ME!" she was belting. Travis peeked around the shower curtain and I leaned through the open doorframe and what should we see but Bree standing in her Sunday best, a pair of her daddy's underwear around her neck like a cape, moving and grooving to the oldies station she had managed to turn on from the alarm clock!

Here Deer

We spent our Saturday afternoon walking through the trails at Clifton French Park. It's a huge park preserve area with trails so wooded you woudn't think you were still in the city if you didn't know it. In the past we've seen deer through there and were hoping we'd come across one this time also. Well, Trav pretty much ruined any chance of that though. He told Bree we were looking for deer in the woods and that she needed to say "Here deer, here deer" to make them come. So, Brianna walked through the woods yelling "HERE DEER!" Surprisingly, the deer seemed unresponsive...we didn't see any deer on our walk. But, Brianna had a great time finding and picking wild "fowders." She would find one and say "nudder fowder Mommy, nudder one" (Another flower Mommy, another one). She climbed up and sat on an old tree stump and several large rocks as well, and spent quite a while walking with a giant walking stick her daddy had given her. We left with Bree clutching the treasures she had found on the trail: a pine cone, a huge dandelion, and a small dried up snail shell.

Bree with her gigantic walking stick.

Posing for Daddy, sitting on a tree stump.

"Walking" with Mommy.

Finding a "big" rock in the woods.

Taking a rest break with Daddy.

Nightime Routine

Brianna has for some time now employed bedtime stalling techniques. Everything usually goes smoothly getting ready for bedtime. We give her a bath then put her in her PJ's. She gets to choose which PJ's she would like to wear. Her preference is for those pajamas that leave her toes sticking out, she has somewhat of a love affair with her toes. And lately she always wants to wear her Pooh jammies that Grammy Dee-Dee made. Anyways, after she chooses her jammies we brush her teeth and then read a few books. Right now Bree loves to read her cars book, her sparkly shapes book, and her hippo book the best. Reading is followed by a quick bedtime prayer where we bless everyone we can think of, individually no less. Well, as I said all this usually goes pretty well until her body hits the crib mattress. Then she tries to think of as many requests as she can. Her newest one is asking for "bainty toes," meaning of course that she wants to be tucked in and wants her blanky to cover her toes. From there the list does go on..."Mommy, kiss Bear? Mommy, kiss Green! Dadddy, kiss dolly? Daddy, kiss Momo? Mommy, mommy, kiss Banna (Brianna)? Kiss toes! Mommy, kiss hands.." At this point we have kissed all of the 4-5 friends she insists on taking to bed with her, and Brianna herself repeatedly, the book she took to bed, not to mention usually several specified body parts on herself as well as her stuffed animals. (If we don't follow this routine she starts to have a meltdown. We've decided kissing a few teddy bear "toes" is worth a peaceful night!) Finally, we ease towards the door, reassuring her that we've throroughly kissed everyone and everything in her crib and encouraging her to kiss her friends herself if she feels the need. Nevertheless, we usually have to return to the side of her crib for one last insistent "Mommy, Daddy!" Then she will make one last demand, usually "kiss water!" And by this time we are so ready to go sit down that we both file back in and kiss her sippy cup dutifully, then her once more. Reassured her sippy cup is well loved she lays down. At last we shut the door and roll our eyes at each other and collapse on the couch.

A Hot Sammich

It's true that kids decide a certain food is their favorite and request to eat it morning, noon, and night. Well, Brianna is no different in that regard, but her food of choice is... As I've mentioned before we are in the habit of walking down to the convenience store on the corner when we need to get out of the house. Usually we buy ourselves a little something to eat while we're there. Well, the other day we bought ourselves some sausage and egg breakfast sandwiches...we ended up having one left and threw it in the fridge. This morning, Trav nuked it in the microwave and gave it to Bree for breakfast. It must have hit the spot big time 'cause at around 10:30 am she turned to me and said "Mommy, hot sammich...egg...um sausage too?" It was so cute I couldn't resist. So, for lunch we went back over to the store and bought a few sandwiches, only this time I bought ham and swiss on croissants. Brianna liked that just as much as egg and sausage and ate the whole thing! Once again, we had one left over and into the fridge it went. Wouldn't you know it when 5 o'clock came around and hunger struck Bree ran into the room and asked "Mommy, hot sammich?" So, she had another warmed up ham and swiss...a hot sandwich for breakfast, lunch, and dinner too. The whole thing made me really smile, what a funny little kid she is!

This One's For You, Uncle Jerald :)

Well, I've already posted about Brianna's obsession with going "fast" and it hasn't let up either. She still loves to just declare "Fast Baby!" and take off like the wind. Lately though she's added the word "dive" (drive) to her vocabulary. She likes to "dive" her toy cars and say "vroom, vroom." She also says "dive" every time we get into the car as well. And, these days one of her favorite books is her "cars" book, and yep, her favorite car is the hot rod...she even says hot rod clear as day. In fact, we usually let Bree choose one book or toy to take to bed with her and tonight she went off to bed happily reading her cars book to herself....

Brianna going fast! Running towards Daddy on one of our walks.

Sing, Sing a Song

Just when I'd thought I was over being caught off guard by Bree's expanding vocabulary and skills she's surprised me again. Her newest thing is singing, not just trying to sing but actual singing of like actual songs! She can sing almost all of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and has been singing "If You're Happy And You Know It" a lot lately. Except she makes it her own with a few changes. We have that song on CD and when it gets to the part, "If you're happy and you know it say 'hooray!'" Instead she says "happy-ray" for some reason. Today she was sitting in my lap and holding my hands and singing "happy..know it..clap hands" and clapping my hands. (Okay, okay, so she leaves out some of the words but it's still singing!)

The Babies Are Here!

We've had a pair of geese nesting in the apartment pond for a few weeks now. Brianna has been excited to look out every day and see the "Daddy Goose simming (swimming)" and the "Mommy Goose, ness (nest)." Well, today, the babies arrived! We looked over the side of the balcony and there they were, four little bundles of yellow marching along behind their Mommy. Brianna was so excited..we went down to get a closer look. She really wanted to hold one but I convinced her that would make the daddy goose mad so she contented herself with looking. As we were leaving to go back up to the apartment she pointed and said, "Mommy, coot (cute) babies!"

Our new babies.

Peeking out from the safety of Mom's wing.

Finally! A Break From the Rain!

It was actually not raining for the first time in about 5 days in a row today. Sure, five days may not sound like a whole lot, but you try it with a cranky toddler who always wants to go "bye bye!" Anyways...today since it wasn't raining (although it threatened to) we met Hannah and Kadyn at Medicine Lake Park for some fun. The girls had a good time and were so cute together. Hannah and I reminisced about the girls playing at the same park this time last year and how different they are now, sliding down the slides all by themselves, climbing the stairs...what big girls they are! They are the best of little buds and at one point today they were hugging...then Brianna ran over to Hannah and said "Kadyn hugga me!" :) Once again, I forgot my camera but Hannah saved the day by bringing hers...

Bree saying "cheese" through the rope obstacle at the park.

Watching Kadyn swing through the ropes.

Kadyn swinging and waving hi.

Hugging at the park.

Best Buds :)

Mall Rat

The weather continues to be wet and yucky today. This has been frustrating for Brianna, she loves to go "side" (outside) and gets cabin fever very easily. So, we've found ourselved heading to the nearbye mall play area quite a bit in the past week or so. But, you never know how crowded or crazy the play area will be. Still, Bree seems to enjoy it most the time and usually has fun interacting with the other kids. Although sometimes she gets frustrated that she has to share the slide or other play equipment. She used to start screaming "NO!" to any kids trying to come up the stairs to the slide. We had to have a lot of discussions about sharing. Lately I can see her start to get frustrated, and maybe even say no to someone but then she'll immediately look at me and say "share" and calm down. At our latest trip to the play area she met a little boy. As his mom and I tried to introduce them to each other and talk about playing nicely Brianna said "Hi fend (friend)." Then she turned to me and said "fend nice!" Everything was going well until the little guy reached out and pinched Bree's cheek. She looked at me in shock and told me "fend hurta me!" Then she burst into tears. I'm not sure what hurt more, her cheek or her feelings... But, she was soon back on her feet and feeling comforted by the arrival of her friend Kadyn (and her mommy Hannah). The gals walked hand in hand for a while and were soon enjoying a "petzel and juice" (pretzel and Jamba Juice) together.