To 2010!

The new year is just about upon us! 2010 sounds so much cooler than 2009 :) I am weird with numbers like that. Like my favorite age was 17...it just sounds good to me. I know...weird.

Anyway, we have lots to look forward to in 2010. Here are some of the things I am excited about...

*Auntie L starts her new job at 5th 3rd!!
*Cousin Mari starts college!!
*My first preschool graduation!!
*Brian will be 2!! (Let the potty training begin!)
*Shawn and I will celebrate our EIGHTH wedding anniversary!!
*Family Trip for Pappy's 60th!!
*Nennie and Patrick are getting married!!

And I'm sure that's just the tip of the ice burg. Can't wait to see what the new year brings! Hope it's safe and happy for all :)

Oh, P.S. my new year's resolution is to try 1 new recipe (main course) every week for the next 52 weeks. So, if you have a recipe send it my way. The only requirement is that it has to be easy enough that I can tackle it and keep my 18 month old from destroying the house!

And P.S. Again...I wanted to post a "last of of 2009" of Brian tonight. However, I left my memory card in my netbook so my camera was useless at Bibber's tonight. Too bad too because Brian was a riot chasing the cats and feeding the goats! And he was asleep by the time we made it home. Shawn said he would kill me if I took a pic of the sleeping child. He also said he will look the same tomorrow. So, no pic :(

Aqarium Trip 2009

Today we visited the Newport Aquarium with Nana and BOTH of Brian's godparents! Daddy stayed home. After the bed time incident last night, he needed a break!

Brian was pretty sleepy, but he loves FISH and apparently turtles too, so he enjoyed himself for the majority of the visit. He pet two sharks, a crabby and a starfish. He also tried to climb INTO one of the tanks. I guess he wanted to pet a duck too.


This is one of the best places in the aquarium...the big bubbles at the end. Brian fell far, far into the bubble and about gave Nana and LaLa heart attacks!

Brian with both godparents. Although Auntie is hard to see since she's wrestling the monkey...

There is a duck in there and Brian is determined that he will pet it!

Cool jellyfish pic!


Petting the starfish and horseshoe crab!


The aquarium was exhausting!

18 Month Checkup

We visited Dr. Price today for Brian's 18 month well checkup. Here are Brian's new stats:
Weight = 26.5 lbs = 60th percentile
Height = 34.5 inches = 95th percentile
Head circumference = 19.5 inches = 90th percentile

Still big!

Everything else checked out as well. Still advanced in all areas, tubes are working well :)

Dr. Price was concerned about Brian's sleep though. He's back to waking up at night A LOT. So, we tried "cry it out" AGAIN tonight. I detest cry it out. It results in puke and lots of it. Every time. So Shawn stripped the bed while I showered with Brian...attempting to remove the puke smell. It didn't work. Since I can't get dirty water (in this case soapy) in his ears (due to the tubes), I couldn't use shampoo. It would have been impossible to hold him and protect his ears from the water. And I couldn't put him down because every time I did the result was more crying, followed by more puke. So we rinsed. And it's after 10 as I write this, Brian is still awake, and he smells like....you guessed it...puke.

So, we'll have to do a morning bath to get rid of the smell before our adventure downtown to eat lunch with Pappy.

I am going to post a picture of how cute Brian is while dancing to make myself feel better now.


Goodnight.

WHO DEY!

The Bengals FINALLY made the playoffs and claimed the AFC North Division title! It's been a long time coming! Brian celebrated with some football playing of his own...

17 Month Pictures and Random Big Boy Things

Brian is such a big boy! Today we ordered his meal from the kids menu at Olive Garden. That's a first! It was pizza and he loved it :) He's also already learned to put his train cars together and move them around on the track. The first couple of days he was just pushing one at a time and carrying a few extras in his free arm!

He leads us around the house to obtain any desires by grabbing a hold one of our fingers and pulling. (Dangerous with Shawn-I know!) Of course this is if he doesn't feel he can get whatever it is himself. He's quite a fan of dragging the kitchen chairs around so that he can climb up to the counter and pull down whatever he is looking for. He also uses the tub faucet frequently to pour himself a drink of water. At least he doesn't use the toilet!

His vocabulary and babbling are increasing daily. Today his new word was "duck." Oddly this came from his new "Itsy Bitsy Spider" book where there is a duck watching the spider go up the water spout. A strange choice by the illustrator, I think, but it works for Brian apparently. Shawn keeps joking that Brian thinks Ruben's name is "Out! Now!" because he yells this phrase at Ruben so often.

He can identify lots of things too. He's pretty good at body parts-hair, eye, ear, nose, mouth, belly button-and today he found Shawn's belly button! He can identify some of his animals as well-usually monkey, lion and elephant. He has a new Noah's Ark toy and can match up most of the animal pairs. He also roars every time I ask him to find the lion. He's pretty cute if I do say so myself!!

Of course his favorite conversation to have goes as follows:
"Mama."
"Yes, baby?"
"Dada?"
"He's at work, babe."
"Oh."
Repeat...about 600 times a day. If Shawn happens to be in the car and answers when Brian says his name, it throws him off for a few seconds, but he usually just starts right back up again.

Anyway, he was 18 months old on Christmas Eve, so here are his 17 month pictures. (SO INCREDIBLY HARD TO BELIEVE THAT'S HE'S A YEAR AND A HALF OLD, RIGHT??) We visit the pediatrician tomorrow, so I will post an update after that.

Everything's a Train Table

Brian got a train table for Christmas. Our house has been taken over by trains and train track. If Brian happens to not be near the table, but happens to have a train in hand, you can bet the closest flat surface will become his makeshift train table. Anything will do really...the pew at church, the car seat, my arm...

Brian's yet to be opened indoor basketball goal, being used as...you guessed it! A train table.

The actual train table!

Brian making the "choo-choo" noise while playing with his new table.

Silent Night

This is how every Christmas Eve drive should be...


and then there was the magical elf, Megan, who successfully wore our little angel out before the return trip home. Yay, for a silent night!

Dinner in Lexington

Today we successfully made it to Lexington and back! I'm not referring to traffic, or weather...I am referring to the hell that riding in the car with Brian Thomas can sometimes be.

Today we were prepared.

We left at 12:30p.m. We weren't meeting friends until 4:30 and it's no more than a 90 minute drive. However, by leaving at 12:30 we ensured that Brian's nap would fall right into our drive time. The plan worked! Too well in fact. Brian was still asleep when we arrived and slept all the way through Shawn's trip into Kroger.

He woke up on the way to Northpoint where we made a quick stop to visit Grammy Donna. Brian had never met Donna, and we wanted to make sure to wish her a Merry Christmas!

After our visit, we headed to campus to visit the library. It's big. We figured Brian could use up some energy in there. We had a blast! There are lots of places to hide and chase. The elevators go really fast. I am certain the other patrons of the library did not appreciate our distraction, but finals are over so BOO on them.

We made it to dinner around 4:45p.m. Here's a cute picture I managed to get of Brian and Maggie.

Dinner was fun, even though Maggie ended up wearing her honey mustard sauce. NOT her fault. The server dumped it on her. Luckily there was a strategically placed yellow stripe in almost the right spot on her new sweater.

After dinner, we walked down to Graeters and enjoyed some ice cream. Very appropriate given the weather, as Kristal pointed out, but who cares? Graeters is yummy!

Our plan for the trip back was to entertain Brian with Christmas videos on my laptop. He really seemed to enjoy "Frosty the Snowman" and "Rudolph" at the preschool over the past couple of weeks, so Shawn downloaded them onto my machine. I sat in the back with the laptop perched on my knees, and except for an occasional struggle over who got to hold the laptop (between me and Brian, not me and Shawn), and the wrong version of Rudolph being downloaded...two viewings of Frosty later, we made it home with a happy baby and our sanity.

We're getting better at this!

Boots

The first snow of the season hit the tri-state last night. I was so excited to hear the plows moving through our neighborhood throughout the night. I just knew Brian would love the snow. He loves to play outside, and has hated being cooped up since it's been so cold.

This morning I woke up to a 17 month old kissing all over my face. After a snuggle session, I jumped out of bed and ran with Brian to the window to show him the snow. He was definitely interested!

After doing a whole lot of nothing all morning, Shawn ran out to get Brian his first pair of snow boots. When he returned, we had lunch and put Brian down for his nap. As soon as Brian woke up we were ready to start our snow adventure!

Brian had other ideas. As soon as Shawn got the boots out, Brian started bawling. We tried everything. We let him hold the boots, put his hands inside, play with the velcro, put his toy reindeer inside. We both put on our boots. Nothing stopped the fit.

So, we decided to put them on him anyway and take him outdoors. We figured he would forget about the awful contraptions we had forced him into. We bundled everyone up, grabbed the new sled (to pull him around on) and headed out back.


Brian cried. We put him on the sled. He cried. I picked him up and soothed him. He cried. We showed him the neighbor's dog bounding down the street for a visit with Ruben. He laughed a little through the tears.

Walking in the boots was just not happening. He acted like his legs had suddenly become robot legs and he could only move them in one solid motion. Every time I put him down he cried. Or at least puckered up like he was going to wail if I didn't pick him up again.

After 10 minutes of absolutely no fun, we headed back inside. Brian is definitely not a winter baby. And he really does not like boots. Period.


In case you can't tell, the lower lipped if definitely protruding in this picture. Although, if you don't notice that, it's actually a pretty sweet picture.

Childproof my As*

There is not a bottle on this planet that is childproof enough for my child. Not a one.

Tonight, my 17 month old managed to do the following in about 2 minutes time:

1. Remove his baby ibuprofen from my nightstand (where I had left it the other night when his fever reached 103).
2. Locate a measuring cup and a measuring spoon.
3. OPEN the "childproof" cap on the ibuprofen.
4. Find a cozy spot in our hallway.
5. Pour himself a measuring cup full of liquid ibuprofen (without spilling a drop, I might add).
6. Use the measuring spoon to give himself a dose.

Lovely. Bad parenting? Probably. False advertising? Absolutely.

Nothing is safe from my little monster! Now, you are probably wondering whether or not this little dose of meds affected Brian Thomas. I assure you he did not ingest enough to harm him. However, childproof? My as*!

A Strange Custom

This whole Santa thing is really a strange custom if you think about it. You teach your kids all year long to avoid strangers. You want them to be a little fearful of strangers or at least be aware that they could represent danger. And then, Christmas comes along and what do you do? You plop your unsuspecting toddler in the lap of a STRANGER. And kind of a weird looking stranger at that. Big man, long white beard, dressed all in red. It's a strange custom.

Last year were were quite pleased with the results of our Santa visit. Santa called Brian, "Santa's Boy," because he smiled for the picture and didn't shed a tear. That was when Brian was 6 months and unaware of the concept of a "stranger."


This year has been a bit different. We are working up to the whole Santa thing. We saw Santa the Saturday after Thanksgiving with Brian's friend Addison. Shawn and I took the kids on a Santa Train Ride, which benefited the free pharmacy my mom runs. Brian was not a fan. In fact, we had to pose in the picture with him. Notice that he even refused to LOOK at the jolly old elf.


Then last week St. Nicholas visited the preschool. Brian knows Gene, the man who was playing Old St. Nick, so I thought maybe the results would be different. Not so much. I had to be in the picture with him. Again.


The second day when St. Nick came back to see the 4 year olds. I outsmarted my 17 month old. I waited until he was asleep to put him on St. Nicholas' lap. That did the trick!


Then yesterday we were at the mall and Brian actually SMILED and waved at Santa Claus. Progress people! By Christmas maybe we will have a smiling picture of Brian on Santa's lap. A girl can dream, right?

Advent

Brian loves the season of Advent. Especially his Advent calendar. He gets a piece of chocolate every day. Yum!