Out in the Country!

Yesterday we spent some time in Pendelton county with Aunt Bibber, Uncle Billy, Aunt Candi, Uncle Neil and Nanny! Brian refused to to swim, much to Shawn's dismay. He was fine with kicking his feet from the edge, but after Shawn did a cannon ball into the pool, he decided he was scared and refused to go any further. He did enjoy the goats, golfing (of course) and spending time with everyone, especially Nanny!

Brian on Billy's target deer, posing with Nanny :)

Showing Nanny his golf swing.


Feeding Sweet Thing.

Walking with Dad :)

This city boy, makes a good country boy too! I couldn't walk on that gravel barefoot for anything. He came back the other way crying though :(

22 Months

I realize that Brian turned 23 months on Monday. However, this was the last week of preschool for the year, so it was a bit of a hectic week.

Monday was conferences. It was a LOOOOONG day. Luckily, there were absolutely no complaints at conferences :) My teachers have done an excellent job this year, and got to spend the day being praised and complimented by the parents.

Tuesday and Wednesday were park field trip days. Mommy left her laptop at home and we spent 3 glorious hours with the kids, teachers and parents at the park. Brian had a ball and was super exhausted at the end of each day.

First time on the big boy swing! Pretty scary for Mommy, but B loved it!

Thursday and Friday were promotion ceremonies. These were fun and sad at the same time. And a lot of work! Strange to think that these kids, who are 3 and 4, probably won't even remember me or the teachers. Both days were special though and Brian behaved pretty well. There was one incident where Father Jeff had to remove Brian from the fountain on the altar, but other than that we did okay :)

Anyway, HERE are his 22 month pictures. No captions this time. There are 209 pictures, and I would rather spend my time taking 209 more, than captioning these! In less than ONE MONTH my baby will be TWO!

A Day With No Nap

Brian did not nap today. Well, not for very long. 30 minutes at most. The following unfolded this evening. IMHO everything below is the result of his lack of napping.

Earlier, we were at the town centre tonight for dinner and decided to walk a bit. This is what Brian did every time he encountered a lamppost.



Every. Single. Post.

So, we are thinking he has picked up a bad habit from Ruben. We' ve been taking a lot of walks lately. Maybe he was marking his territory?

Or, maybe he is destined to be a pole dancer. Who knows?

Then at bath time, as soon as I put him in the water, he stood up, aimed, and peed straight ahead into the stream of water coming from the faucet. Great. So, we had to empty the tub, rinse him off, and start again.

Do you think he's ready for potty training?

Finally, I looked away for 20 seconds to wash my face (still bath time). When I looked back, my lovely child had the dog shampoo and was emptying it into the water. (Note: the dog shampoo will hereafter be stored in the linen closet.) SO, once again we emptied the tub and rinsed off. And bath time was declared over.

The end.

Cupcakes

If there is one thing that Brian has learned from being with me at the preschool this past year, it is this.

You NEVER say no to a cupcake.Even a child answers "NO!" to almost anything, couldn't resist the Opera Creme cupcake Nana brought him tonight.

Observe...

Going on a Monkey Hunt

To say that Brian likes monkeys is a huge understatement at the moment. He's kind of obsessed. He insists on watching video from the zoo of monkeys whenever he sees us get out a laptop or Shawn's I-Pad Touch. "Curious George" is the show of choice, too. The little man does not understand at all why George is not in every single scene. He howls in protest when George is not present on screen.

So, we decided today to go where the monkeys are. The zoo. We found a few... "Big monkeys," "water monkeys," and even some "baby monkeys." Brian calls the macaque's "water monkeys" because their particular habitat is surrounded by water at our zoo. Also, in case you were wondering, in his world lemurs and gorillas also qualify as monkeys. (YES, Auntie Lauren, I know the difference and will teach my child the real names when he is old enough to understand. Unlike some others who call the tigers LIONS!!)

Here are some pictures from our visit.

Brian seemed a bit confused by the idea that the monkeys were not on a computer screen. And, it took quite a bit of convincing each time we left one exhibit to look for "new monkeys." He was pretty excited about the monkeys overall though!

Mayriachi Dinner Night

Tonight was a rare occasion. Our entire dinner night crew made it out for Mayriachi Dinner Night! And Whitney was here to join in on the fun as well! Brian and Addison had a blast playing together. Here are some shots from the evening. I don't know about you, Melissa, but I am still dizzy from all of the rounds of "Rosy"!

First of all, let me say for the record that my child did NOT put the planter on Addison's head. However, he did enjoy a good laugh about it BEING on her head :)

Everyone enjoys a good game of peek-a-boo!

Isn't this a cool ring around the rosy picture that Jennie captured? I love how you can see the expressions on both of the kids' faces!


We all fall down!


Good night my love...until next time!

Rough Time

So we went to the park yesterday with the four year old preschool class. Brian was playing happily, when suddenly I heard him screeching for me at the top of his lungs. My kids were surrounding him and leading him to me. One of them kept saying, "Miss Maria, a boy hurt Brian. He was being really mean, I saw him hurt Brian." When I finally got Brian to calm down a little bit and had ruled out serious injuries, I asked my student, which boy had hurt Brian. He pointed out a little boy, maybe 3 years old, who was clearly the perpetrator, as he took off running as soon as he saw me looking his way.

I followed him, thinking I would talk to him and see if we could work out the problem and when I caught up to him I noticed a large chunk of my baby's hair in his hand. I was LIVID. I am super sensitive about Brian's head. We paid a lot of money to get it to turn correctly and be rounder. We have sat through countless appointments about his ears. We even had to sit through a surgery for tubes. I cannot stand the idea of anyone (literally) hurting a hair on his head.

Brian doesn't even "get" mean yet. The kids at the preschool are super sweet to him and he has not experienced bullying or anyone intentionally hurting him. In fact, the preschool kids were as angry as me. I was afraid they were going to chase the little boy down and pound him into the ground.

As it was, I was so mad that I didn't do much of anything. The mother of the child clearly saw what was going on and did nothing. I tried to say something to her and she out right ignored me. I don't want to be the mom that runs to the other parent to tattle. I don't want to have to parent other people's kids when they choose not to. But I also don't want Brian to think it's okay for someone to hurt him and get away with it.

After I was still fuming and I called Shawn's aunt to see what her take was. She said I handled it fine and just comforting Brian was the best thing to do. She said next time she would consider talking to the offending child. One of my teachers said to talk to the mom. What would you do in this situation? What's the right way to handle this kind of thing?

It's hard! And believe me, I know that Brian won't always be the victim. There will come a time where he does something similar to another child. But I will PARENT him when that happens. Why can't everyone else just do that too?

Our Son

A couple of things happened today that proved with absolute certainty that Brian Thomas is our son.

This morning he took his dirty pajamas to the hamper like he does every morning (training him early!). He took a bit longer than usual, so Shawn and I peeked into our room (where the hamper is located) to see what was going on. Apparently Shawn had missed the hamper when depositing one of his socks. It had landed behind the hamper. Brian (child of Maria) had moved the hamper and was retrieving the offending sock. He placed the sock in the hamper and then moved the hamper back into it's proper place. MY CHILD.

Some of you may not know that Shawn has monkey toes. I will often find him sitting with his legs out stretched, toes crossed (much like one's fingers are crossed when praying). He picks things up with his toes for kicks. He grabs MY feet with his toes just to tick me off. It's weird, I'm not going to lie, but also really annoying because I do not have the toe skills he has! (And we all know how ridiculously competitive I am.)

Anyway, today in the car I handed Brian a water bottle while driving. I just could not take the screams for "WA-TER" any long. (I know, handing a bottle of water to a toddler is not safe driving.) As I handed him the water I heard it drop and thought to myself, "crap, now there will be water all over him." Not Shawn's monkey child though. We reached a stop light shortly after this mishap and I looked back to see him holding the bottle with his feet. He had caught the damn thing with his feet and was in the process of reaching forward to retrieve it so he could take a drink. SHAWN'S CHILD. (As if proof of this was needed...he could not look more like his Daddy!)

Mother's Day at Great American Ballpark

We went to brunch this afternoon at the Reds' Stadium. It was Brian's first trip to a baseball game! Now we would never actually take him to a professional sports game at this age, for lots of reasons (too LOUD, too young, short attention span...to name a few!!), however, we went to the restaurant at the stadium for brunch, which is glass enclosed, and we did not stay for the entire game.
Our brunch time was 12:15, well before game time, so we did not have to fight the crowds (figure of speech, I realize that there are not really crowds at most Red's games). Brian was great during brunch. He watched batting practice and was pretty intrigued! We made it through two innings of the game before he lost his patience. In his defense it was almost 2p.m. Well past nap time!


After the game, B and I took a 2 hour nap! HEAVEN!! Then we went to Home Depot to pick out my Mother's Day flowers :) We now have hanging baskets on all of the shepherd's hooks and wave petunias to plant. Thanks boys!!

My Baby Bro...

got his MASTERS degree!

Yesterday we traveled to Louisville for Jon's graduation from grad school. Fortunately the ceremony did not take place on U of L's campus, as I would have been nauseous for the whole two hours. ;)

CONGRATS JON!!!

Brian stayed back at Jon and Teri's apartment and was entertained by Teri's cousins, Megan and Jacob. He had a blast! Before we left we gave B a bath so that he could just go to sleep on the way home. He enjoyed playing around in Teri an Jon's bed after bath time. He's so silly!

Danger, HA! I laugh at danger!

We attended the Cinco de Mayo party for mom's pharmacy tonight at the Ascent. Would it surprise you to learn that Brian was not at all afraid of the balcony on the 14th floor? Didn't phase him a bit. He walked right up to the glass surrounding the balcony and started jabbering away about all of the things below.


Hard to believe that last year at this party he wasn't even walking yet and I was still nursing him! My what a difference a year makes. This year he was running around the party like he owned the place. He ate more "Ms" (M & Ms) than I could count and had a ball charming everyone. Shy is not something he comprehends. Not one bit.

A New Bedtime Routine

Brian has decided to change the bedtime routine a bit. Recently around bedtime he has been climbing into our bed and snuggling up between the pillows. (This is pre-bath, cereal, lights off etc.) He has no intention of actually going to sleep, he just wants to play "tickle monster." Tonight, Shawn obliged. And I think I have a new favorite picture.

Butterfly Show!

Today we visited the Butterfly Show at Krohn's Conservatory. Brian is sporting his fifth disease rash, and was kind of cranky, but it was still a fun day. His favorite part was the waterfall and the fish!

Brian and Daddy found some bananas way up high!

The orange butterflies loved Brian's shirt!