Brandon must have been tired tonight. Well, he did get up super early (6am) and cried for 30 minutes until I agreed to feed him. He cried at my side of the bed, unrelentlessly, refusing to go back to bed. He went to sleep 30 minutes earlier last night, so instead of getting extra sleep, he made himself more tired. So we started getting him ready for bed, around 8pm, and by 830pm, he was walking over to our room. It’s getting colder now, so he is in a full sleeper with the feet attached. He hasn’t been in one of these since probably last year, before he was walking. When Dave first put him in it, Brandon said it was too tight. He was trying to figure out this thing, walking around slowly, picking at the zipper. Then he said, “uh-oh” as he had pulled the zipper half open to reveal
his tummy. Dave met him in the room, and both were on Brandon’s bed. I went back there to tuck him in, too. What I saw was stunning. Brandon was lying down on Dave, who was brushing his teeth. Not an unusual practice, but Brandon was still and NOT crying!! So I started jumping up and down, clapping and cheering him on for such a good job. I figure I have to make a big deal about it so he likes it and will continue. While I was jumping around, it made him smile, making Dave’s job even easier. He knew he had done a good job – he was so proud of himself, as were we of him. Let’s hope he can keep this up! I hate when screams and cries as we are brushing his teeth. We finally convinced him that it doesn’t hurt, especially if he is still.Words, words, words
Yesterday, as we were putting Brandon to bed, we were reading a pop-up book, learning about colors. When Brandon doesn’t know a word or object, he will grunt and point to it and wait for a response. Last night, he was pointing to colors and half asking me what it was and it seemed half testing me. He was pointing, grunting and then looking at me out of the corner of his eye to see if I knew the color. He did it will all the colors of the rainbow, but not in order; he’d skip around just to make sure I knew them out of order, too. This morning, when I dropped him off at school, he pointed to the trashcan outside of the school. He was saying something, but I wasn’t sure what it was. I realized it was “garbagecan”. He will continue to say whatever it is until he gets confirmation or correction. Finally getting it, I repeated, “Garbage can. Yes, you’re right.” Moving on, he went to “newspaper”. That one was clear, and I repeated it quickly. Then he moved on to
the “plant.” He was saying objects from left to right, so once I caught on that he was at the garbage can, I just followed the objects along. Whew…passed that test. Once we got in to the classroom, he asked his teacher, Koko (Tomoko), for Cheerios (I told him when we got to school, he could have them). He was so excited it wasn’t coming out clearly, so he got frustrated and whiny. He was below the food cabinet, pointing up and on his tippy toes. She told him he needed to use his words and tell her what he wanted. He calmed down a bit and then said, “Koko, Cheerios.” She asked if he wanted milk, and he answered, “Cheerios, milk.” He sat himself down at the little chair and table and waited for the bowl. The teachers told him to say, “I love you, Mom.” As I bent down to give him a kiss in between bites, he said an emphatic, “bye-bye.” Awww…the teachers tried to make it better, saying, “It really is the same as ‘I love you, Mom’.” Oh well…at least he wasn’t crying.Brandon Bobblehead
We were driving home today from school, listening to the soundtrack from “Jersey Boys”. The song was “You’re Just Too Good to be True”, and while stopped at the red light, I turned around and saw Brandon dancing to the music.
Only he was just using his head, bobbing around. The rest of his body was still. He looked like a little bobblehead. He knew I was laughing at him and started smiling, bobbing and laughing. Then the light turned green.Red Markers should be banned
My mom recently got Brandon some washable markers. They are called pip squeaks – short little markers that fit great in his small hands. However, in the process of coloring, he got some on his face. He turned around and seeing him made my heart skip a beat. He had gotten red marker on his temple, but for a second, it looked like blood! It was fresh marker, so it was slightly wet looking and smudged.
He’s also gotten it near his nose. Of all the colors that he could get all over his face, it was the red one. I know that he is playing with markers, I can see him. But still, for a split second, I had to double check and make sure it wasn’t blood. Too scary. I will secretly remove his red markers at some point, just to be sure it doesn’t cause any more mini heart attacks.ABC’s and 123’s
Each night as we put Brandon to bed, we review our ABC’s and 123’s. We usually associate each letter with something he knows – animals, friends at school, food, etc. Sometimes he surprises us though. Like E for elephant. One time, he put up his arm to his cheek (like the trunk of an elephant) and started trumpeting while flailing the arm around. And tonight, while he did that again, I said F for frog and he said, “Obit, obit”. So he missed the mark on that one, but he was close. With a bit of guidance, he was off to say, “Ribbit, ribbit” while tossing and turning on the pillows. He even jumps the gun – ideally, we saw the letter, the object and then Brandon repeats the letter. Tonight, I said, J and before I had a chance to think of an object, he said, “K”. Other notables are
W (Brandon’s version is “double-do”) and Y when he says “Y-o-Y-o,” I think because he likes the way it sounds. With numbers, he likes to also jump the gun. He will say seven before repeating my six. Tonight we went from 1, 2, 3, 4 and then “double-do”. Maybe we should only do numbers one night and then letters the next to keep things separate. When I stopped saying the ABC’s because I thought he was getting bored, he called out, “A” but it sounded more like, “aaayyyyy?” prompting me to start all over again. Since Dave was at softball tonight, I was trying to get Brandon to go to sleep when it became dark, around 8pm, which is about an hour before he normallys goes to sleep. He just went down around now, which is about 845pm, so hopefully he doesn’t wake up too much earlier tomorrow.French Family night
Yum…last night was French lite. There were crepes, which started out as an experiment and which then became perfected, quiche, and even real baguettes, made from scratch. Apparently, Brandon even had his fill of crackers (from the hors d’oeuvres). After dinner, we changed his diaper and as we were pulling up his shorts, he said, “Too tight.” We un-did
the snap and unzipped it a bit. Then he was good, no more complaints. (They were size 2T shorts, so they weren’t that tight, he had just eaten too much.) We left before the board games began. Next week when we host, we’ll stick around for the games. At least that way, we can put Brandon to bed!Sandy Feet
We went to the park just before sunset tonight. It’s the first time Brandon’s been able to use his sand tools (the rake, shifter and shovel) along with his personalized sandpail. Funny story about the rake from the other night…we were putting Brandon to bed around 930pm. All of a sudden, he starts crying and saying, “Walk” and whining for a “wok”. What? We looked at each other and could not figure out what he wanted. “Walk, walk, wok.” Then he became squirmy as we tried to get him to lay down on the pillows. He inched down, got off the bed, left us both there looking after him and he went into the bathroom, crying, staggering, and saying, “Wok, rok”. Dave went after him, as he was now leaning into the tub, and proclaimed, “Oh, Brandon, it’s your RAKE.” Brandon, now with the tired, mixed laugh/cry, said, “Yea, rake” and brought it back to bed. We were stunned. He had not seen it since his bath at 730pm. He had sinced played with other toys, eaten some fruit, and been changed and readied for bed. He was then calm, rolled around with the rake, then rolled on the rake and became whiny again, and then went to sleep.
Ah…but today, he got to use the rake for it’s intended purpose, the sand, not just some random water and bath toy. Brandon sat down on the sand, with both of us ther watching. Dave showed him how it could be used to rake the sand. Brandon used his other tools to fill the bucket full of sand. However, along the way, he had to stop and pull off his Mickey crocs and attempt to dust his feet off from the sand that had seeped through the Mickey heads. He would stick his foot in the sand for a bit, to feel it in his toes, then immediately request that his shoe be put back on (Brandon can take the shoes off, but is not as good about putting them back on). Pointing to his foot, he would grunt to Dave and hand over his shoe. He did this every 3-4 scoops of his shovel. He was fine sitting in the sand, but just didn’t like the way it felt in between his shoes and foot. Dave told him to suck it up, get over it, and just play. But I felt Brandon’s discomfort – I was in flip-flops and didn’t like the way the sand felt in between the thong part and my feet. I was ok with being in the sand, but as long as it didn’t come between my feet and footwear. Easy for Dave to say since he had running shoes and didn’t get sand in them. Brandon had enough of the sand and went back to the slides in the park. He is getting so much better at sliding – before he would come down crooked, hitting the back of his head on the slide. Now he’s sitting up, knows that he can brake with his feet, and can even get off of the slide to go “again!” I can’t believe how many times he said, “again!” Dave was getting a work out too; I was catcher since I only had on flip flops. We did see one lady who came into the same area with a kid probably 3 or so. She just left him in the sand and started walking around, talking on a cell phone. The kid just did his thing, with some sand toys that they had brought. Meanwhile, the lady just walked off, chatting away, not engaging the kid, not even looking at him! We were appalled! I wanted Dave to ask the kid in Chinese if it was his mom or a nanny. But then that would be bad, if on an off chance that lady turned around to see Dave interacting with the kid. Then Dave could be seen as that “creepy guy that talks to young boys in the park.” Not good. But still we speculated. It was so sad – the kid took off his shoes, walked with socks on in the sand area, picked up questionable material in the sand, talked to himself, all while we watched him and then watched the lady circling. Finally, there was another couple with a small son there. They were both attentive, talking with the kid, amazed that he knew “binoculars”, and that they were used to see “people far away”. The dad didn’t know how his son knew that. He looked about 2.5 years old, maybe. I tried to make it known that the random kid in the sand was not ours. We even moved to the slide area and left the kid there, not looking back, so that they would not think he belonged to us and that WE had abandoned him. The lady was doing laps, walking around the enclosed kiddie area. Finally, the couple saw the lady and started talking to her in Chinese. Dave is not one to eavesdrop. Shucks. But as the three adults were talking, the kid took off on his big wheel, outside the gated area. The dad of the couple was a white guy, so he pointed to the kid and gestured something like, “um, is he going to be ok?” The mom said the older brother was over there, but still, they were both out of sight. Maybe Dave and I are just ultra-paranoid thinking this person was a bad mother/nanny.
But when we went over to the structure, we saw three boys-the young one and two older ones, but they were not that much older. Not old enough to be responsible for taking care of the little guy. The older two ones were playing on the structure, not even paying attention to the littlest one. And what if one of the older ones fell off. Or if someone took them! It was getting dark, and she was 1/2 a football field’s length or more away and couldn’t see them directly! It’s like this lady just took the kids to the park for some “me time” and was happy to talk on the phone and giggle like a little girl instead of taking care of these kids. It’s just so sad, either the lady was a mom who wasn’t into watching her kids, or a nanny who wasn’t into doing her job. Either way, it made me sad and then mad to see.
Poor Mickey
Brandon has this antenna ball that has been his backseat companion to and from school. He has been so good about leaving him in the car now while he is at school and remembers to pick him up right when he gets back at the end of the day. Today, I took him in to school so that I could go do some errands and on the way, I hear, “Uh-oh.” Immediately, I knew it was something with Mickey, since he was back there with him. He tore off his ear with his teeth! He held up this one-eared antenna ball for me to inspect at the red light. Then I took the ear so he wouldn’t continue to gnaw on it. I told him he broke Mickey. “Broken” – yeah, that’s right. Poor Mickey. He looks so sad now with just one ear.
So we got to school, he threw him down for later, and went off to school. I was able to go grocery shopping and even work out! Finally, an end to my annual 24hour fitness donation. It’s been over 2 years. I’ve been paying my dues yearly, since my dad paid the initiation and it’s not as much now. If I stop, then it will be much more expensive. So I’m making it pay off now! For just dropping Brandon off for 3 hours, I was able to get so much done!
I picked him up to take him to do a few more errands (he likes going to the bank) – and we went to work to see the anticoagulation aunties. They were having lunch brought in for the student’s last day. So we hung out there and Brandon found Theresa’s cookies. He suckered her out of two of them. But when the last 1/2 of the cookie fell on the ground, he knew better than to eat it and dutifully threw it away. What restraint-I think if I were eating the cookie, the 5-second rule would have been invoked. After we left there, we went to get Michelle a baby present. Since it was 130p when we were driving down to San Jose, he was out quickly in the backseat. I was able to transfer him to the stroller, shop around for quite awhile, and get most of the shopping done before pushing my luck while still at Babies R Us. Since it’s so far and I don’t get to go often, I like browsing. I browsed a little too long. He sat up, looked around, let out a slight cry, trying to figure out where he was. I quickly oriented him – telling him we were in Babies R Us and he was ok. Another shopper laughed at us, but Brandon was good with the explanation, especially after I let him hold some of the items.
While we were driving back, I hear another “uh-oh” and just knew that Mickey was a goner. Brandon held up the remains and said, “Ball-ball”. Yes, poor Mickey was reduced to a common ball; now like one of the many that Brandon has at home. Good thing it was a standard Mickey antenna ball and not the golden 50th anniversary one!
Video Test
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Brandon
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Row, Row, Row…
Dave asked me today what school does with “Row, Row, Row your boat”. I didn’t know what he meant. He said yesterday when he was giving Brandon a bath, he started singing the song and Brandon did something and Dave didn’t know what it meant. I asked Dave to show me what he was talking about. While Dave was putting Brandon’s clothes on after the bath, he started singing the song and Brandon grabbed Dave’s hands and started rocking back and forth, trying to sing along. It was so cute and unexpected. Wow, they learn so much at school, Brandon’s teaching us new things. Dave was saying yesterday how Brandon was trying to name his classmates and point them out to Dave when he picked him up from school. But Dave couldn’t understand Brandon and doesn’t know the kids, so he couldn’t really make it out. I told him
he should have asked the teachers for help. They are pretty good at interpreting for the kids. Some of the kids have ethnic names and are new to the class and school so we’re not familiar with them. I asked the teacher of the names of some of the kids while I was there just to learn their names and insert them in the night-night’s when we put Brandon to sleep.Today when I went to pick Brandon up, he climbed up on the structure and started pointing out the window saying, “house” or it sounded like “clouse”. The teachers and I were listening carefully trying to figure out what he was pointing to and saying. We couldn’t figure it out, but Brandon kept pointing up and repeating himself, getting more excited. Finally the teacher says, “Oh, clouds!” Yes, Brandon was pointing up to the clouds; it was pretty cloudy today, summer has gone already.