22 months old

Yep, that's right. My baby boy is another month closer to being TWO. And boy is he letting the terribles out early on occasion. He absolute favorite word right now is NO. And boy does he mean it. The mommy clinginess has also reached an all time high. He refuses to sit in his booster seat at night when it's time for his cereal. Why? Because he wants mommy to hold him. Why? Because after cereal, Daddy puts him to bed and if Mommy is already holding him it's hard for Daddy to take him away. And bossy! The child is bossy! I just love hearing him yell, "MOM," which is what he calls me when he is demanding something. And you should see him trying to push me or Shawn toward things he wants or places he wants to go. And last night he was very clear when he informed me that he would "WALK" out of the restaurant on his own two feet. Oh boy, I am not all that excited about this TWO thing.

Don't get me wrong, he's still as cute as a button most of the time. He cracks us up about 400 times a day with his silliness. He gives the sweetest kisses-often and in mass quantity. He thinks it's hilarious to "tickle" people. He talks. A LOT. He's becoming quite the little athlete. He loves to be outside and would stay outside all. the. time. if we would let him. He's just loving the warm weather and who can blame him? He counts...sometimes to 5, but usually to 3. He really gets counting too. He associates the words with objects. He even uses his counting works correctly. When you ask him if he's one, he shouts, "TWO!" There is one word he's used a lot lately and not always correctly. "Stuck." He always stuck somewhere...usually in his booster seat or car seat. We keep trying to explain that he's not really stuck because we strap him in intentionally, but he's not really one for logic.

Let's see, what else is endearing about Mr. Brian at the moment? He sings. A LOT. He takes quite a bit of liberty with his songs, changing the melodies and notes kind of like a jazz musician would. He spins, too. He learned this at preschool. The 3 year olds think it's a riot to chase each other round and round in a circle. Since Brian is an only child, he has adapted this game. He runs in a circle on his own. Until he falls down. Then he gets back up and goes in the other direction. Silly boy.

Did I mention that he will be TWO soon? How did THAT happen?

Anyway, here are the 21 month old pictures.

Cheese!

This is what I get now days when I am chasing my baby boy with the camera.

After the pose, he runs as fast as he can to see the "baby" in the picture. It cracks me up how trained kids are now to look at the picture immediately on the digital camera screen.

Visiting Uncle Jon and Aunt Teri (and of course, Itz)

Brian and I spent the last day of spring break (last Friday, I am a little behind on the blogging) making our first solo trip to Louisville. Mama Mia is a GODSEND. He watched it the whole way down and only fussed if I started signing along. Actually, it was more than fussing. He YELLED, "Mama! NO!." I guess the grace period where he mistook my horrible singing voice for something positive is now over.

The whole way to Louisville, Brian chattered away about Itz, which was his main motivation for making the trip. We did manage to have some fun with Aunt Teri and Uncle Jon too. Brian especially enjoyed the nearby park and the new wiffle ball set Jon bought him at Target. Mama especially enjoyed this part of the day because it wore little man out. He slept the whole way home. A successful trip, yay!!

Hi, Mama!


The dizzy bat game.


Confusing his games...most of the time the bat was a golf club.


Uncle Jon is silly!


My favorite picture of the day.

Finger Painting

He dragged out the paints and a piece of paper today. He put them on the table and climbed into his chair.

Just look at that concentration.

The Groomer

We dropped Ruben off to be groomed this morning. While we were waiting for "Aunt" Mary Ann to decide how long she would be keeping Ruben, a lady walked in with her dog and sat down. I didn't pay much attention to the lady, but as soon as she walked in Brian started chanting "baby, baby!" I said, "No Brian, that looks like a doggie to me." As we left I happened to look at the lady. She was about 9 months pregnant. Yep, "baby," was indeed an accurate statement!

No Nap!

We are to that point, I'm afraid. Brian does NOT want to take a nap. The last two days I have put him to sleep by physically restraining him on my lap and shushing him until he gave up and fell asleep. Yesterday it took two tries. Today, I was just done. I tried for about 10 minutes and then gave up the fight.

It's now 4:17 and he just passed out on me. All I had to do was rock him back and forth a few times. 4:17 is not an optimal time for a nap. Obviously. I don't feel that he's ready for no nap, but he's really fighting me. Maybe it's spring break. We are not following our normal schedule at all. Maybe it's the nice weather. He really wants to spend every second outside.

Poor little guy. And poor mama too.

Hearing Test

Brian's hearing test went really well! They decided to change the way he is tested today to a more advanced test. In the past he has been conditioned to respond to a sound by turning his head toward it. When he hears the sound and turns his head an image pops up on a screen or a stuffed animal starts dancing in a lighted box.

Since he's almost 2, they decided to try to teach him to respond to sound by dropping a cube in a bucket, or stacking a ring onto a tube. Usually they would not start this until a child is 2, but Shana, our audiologist wanted to give it a whirl since Brian is typically responsive to new things and is "bright" as she put it.

From my point of view he didn't do a great job. He was kind of shy about it and then once he got more comfortable, he got kind of silly with it. He probably performed accurately about 3/4 of the time. They thought he did great though and were really excited about it.

Anyway, he tested slight to mild in terms of loss for both ears. The results were more like the results we were getting when he was very young and still testing with the ABR. This is GREAT NEWS! This reassures us that PE tubes were absolutely the best decision we could have made. Basically he has has fluid in his ears every other booth test until now and without the fluid, he tested at the same levels as he was testing early on. This means his loss has never really progressed since birth, which is AMAZING!

Shana fully agreed from the little time she observed Brian that his speech and language development is above and beyond on target. She said we will just keep doing what we're doing, which means another test in 6 months to make sure his hearing is still where it was today. This is also great news because I get SUPER stressed out by these tests, so limiting them to twice a year is so much better for me (and Brian in the long run)!! Shana actually said that if he keeps testing this way we will eventually only need to come once a year (probably once he turns 3). YAY!

We will actually retest in November because Shana is pregnant and won't be back from maternity leave until then. Between now and then we will see the ENT (in June) to check the PE tubes (both were still in an open today...right was not as open as left, but he has a runny nose on the right side, which probably accounts for this). That is scheduled for the day after B turns 2, June 25th.

New Clubs and a Funny Daddy!

Nana and Pappy got Brian a new set of golf clubs for Easter!

Tonight, Shawn hit one of the balls so hard it flew into our neighbor's yard. FORE!

Brian thought it was hysterical watching his Daddy jump over the fence. Now we all know where the little monkey will be heading next...

AHHHH!

Why does a looming hearing test always make me feel like this...?



Test scheduled for Monday at 10a.m. (that is IF they don't jack around and change it AGAIN). Results will be posted. Pray for my sanity in the meantime.

My Easter

By: Brian Thomas

My Easter weekend was lots of fun. On Saturday morning, Mommy and I made peep cupcakes. On Saturday afternoon I stole one. I begged for a "cookie" and Mommy and Daddy would not listen, so I got it myself.

I made a mess.

On Sunday we went to Nana and Pappy's house. I was good at hunting Easter eggs.

I got money!!

And golf clubs. FORE!


Later, we went to Aunt Bibber and Uncle Billy's house. Hunting for eggs was a little harder.

There was a goat.


And a nice doggie named Missy.

And bubbles.

When I wasn't distracted, I did find some eggs.


What a fun holiday!

Brian LOVED the Easter Bunny!

APRIL FOOLS!

The poor child was scared out of his mind. Our neighbor dressed up like the Easter Bunny and came up the street for a visit. The child clung to me and wailed the whole time. He would not even look at the bunny. After she left, Brian would not even consider exiting our house through the front door. Although he did spend quite a bit of time looking at the bunny through the window. By that time she was at a safe distance...halfway down the street. Maybe next year?

And to go along with the Easter theme, here is a pic of our mock Easter egg hunt that we had today. I felt the need to prepare him for the expectation that he will actually want to pick up eggs this coming weekend. I feel our families who have been long deprived of having small children to enjoy during holidays will be expecting him to get excited over the eggs they will hide. Therefore, I filled our eggs today with, what else? Money. This excited the child like nothing else would have. We had to take it straight inside to his bank once his finished collecting the eggs.