Brady vs.Christmas Ornament

Brady - 1, Christmas Ornament - 0

We have a series of football quarterback ornaments that my husband received every year for Christmas. I'm not quite sure exactly how everything happened, but it started with Brady helping me decorate the Christmas tree and accidentally stepping on Peyton Manning, breaking him into two pieces. Peyton's glued together joints must break apart pretty easy because next thing I know, Peyton's now in a career ending 4 separate pieces.

Brady kept trying to put him back together, saying "I think he's okay now" before a piece would fall back off. I told Brady to set the ornament aside and I would glue it back together later. I didn't get to it fast enough, so Brady enlisted the help of Daddy to tape Peyton back together. The following pictures pretty much speak for themselves at this point.

To Brady, Peyton is now as good as new. He is now residing on the Christmas tree where he is ridiculed daily by the other quarterbacks.

Happy Thanksgiving?

So I'm spending Thanksgiving Day in my own home for the first time since I can remember and it's not a good thing. While most everyone else in the country is gathered with friends and family around tables brimming all varieties of delectable food, I'm gathered around a table with little boys recovering from fevers, rashes, and other maladies we won't discuss, and eating applesauce, toast and animal crackers. Yummy. The good news is the energy level is down in the house and I get a moment to update the blog. I thought I'd write a list of 10 things I'm thankful for this Thanksgiving, if anything to keep my mind off of the great food and conversation I'm missing.

Things I'm Thankful for:

1. The upbeat attitude of a 3 year old who sits down to our sad little Thanksgiving lunch of applesauce and animal crackers and exclaims "We're having a party." It made me smile. I think he's just about over his bug.

2. The immunizations earlier this week that made Luke run a high fever and gave him a full body rash because they protect him from illnesses that could be much worse.

3. The chance to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. I haven't had the opportunity in years.

4. Dark chocolate M&Ms.

5. A warm house.

6. A pantry that's always full of food, so even after we'd emptied the fridge in anticipation of going out of town for the weekend, there's still plenty to eat when your plans are changed at the last minute.

7. A loving husband that has promised to bring me home a piece of dessert from his family's dinner. I know he will deliver and that it will be wonderful. He comes from a family of great cooks.

8. Our digital TV recorder that has allowed Brady to lay on the couch and watch a recorded episode of The Pink Panther cartoon 4 times today and counting. The tune tends to get stuck in your head. Dum, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, da-duuuuuuuum, da-da-da-dum. Your welcome.

9. Cheap food as I realize the price of bananas today are the same as they were when the Pink Panther episode first aired decades ago. (There's a grocery store scene.)

10. Wikipedia that allows me to learn in 10 seconds that the Pink Panther episode mentioned above first aired in 1978. What did we ever do before Wikipedia? Man I feel old when 1978 can be referred to as decades ago.

11. Bonus thankfulness - Little boys that are napping at the same time. I've only had that happen one time before today, mostly because Brady doesn't usually take naps any more.

12. Bonus again - The soda I can pop open now that Brady's asleep. :)

Halloween Fun

It's been a few weeks, but I'm finally getting around to adding Halloween pictures. Brady dressed as Will Rogers and Luke as Chief Joseph, a cowboy and an indian. Can you tell yet where I grew up? The blog address gives you a great big hint.

Brady had a great time playing at our church's fall festival while Luke spent the evening trying to eat his costume. Here's a picture of the boys in their Halloween t-shirts from their Nana and posing with a pumpkin made by Grandma L. Finally for a review of past halloweens with Brady, click here.

P-U-S-H

Overhead from Brady while reading the lid of a trash can, "P-U-S-H. That spells throw it away!"

Summer Fun

A few highlights from our summer. We've managed to make a trip to the zoo, go out of town to visit some family members, and put up a fence around our yard (more Ryan, than we on that one). Brady got to spend his first overnights with both sets of grandparents. He also lost a fingernail in an unfortunate door smashing event but his response after the fact was it was okay as he still had 9 left. (The fingernail is now growing back quite nicely.)

My personal favorite was waking up one morning and fishing a squirrel out of our wading pool. Poor thing couldn't get out, but I learned that squirrels are pretty good at treading water. Brady thought it was the silliest thing and spent the next few weeks checking his pool for swimming squirrels every time he went outside.

Awanas kicked off at our church this week and thanks to a picture from our church's children's minister, we have an example of Brady's growing need to do things his own way, even if it means wearing a crown upside down.



















Here's a couple of recent pictures of Luke who is all smiles anymore. In fact he spent most of today smiling at the antics of his brother. That can't be good.

Out of the Mouths of Babes?

So I haven't put the baby mirror up in my car yet. You know, the kind that in conjunction with your the car's rear view mirror allows you to see your rear facing baby. Instead, I've been relying on Brady to let me know what's going on with Luke. A few weeks ago, we were driving down the road and Luke suddenly goes from crying to instantly quiet as babies that age sometimes do. The relaxing calm that comes over me from a baby that has stopped crying changes quickly to worry as I remember that I had a blanket on Luke's lap and oh no, what if he's moved it up over his face and is suffocating, and I can't see him, and, and, and so on with the type of hyper vigilant yet cloudy thinking that comes with the combination of having a newborn and sleep deprivation.

I decide I'll just ask Brady if Luke has fallen asleep or not. The conversation:

Me: Brady, look over at Luke, is he asleep?
Brady: Yeah, he's asleep.

I decide that wasn't a good question as a passed out baby and an asleep baby would look the same to a 3-year old. Time to get more specific.

Me: What about his face, is the blanket over his face?
Brady: No. Yeah.

Okay that's no help.

Me: Look at his mouth, is it open or closed? Can you see it?
Brady: Unintelligible answer.

At this point, I look for a place to pull over so I can check on Luke. If you're thinking to yourself, why didn't she just do that in the first place, did I mention the whole sleep deprived/ cloudy thinking thing? Anyway, as I start to pull over, Luke wakes back up and begins crying again, clearly not muffled by any blanket. As we drive on down the road to the sound of an unhappy baby, I hear Brady say, "Mom, Luke's mouth is open." "Yeah, it is." I reply.

Things I Never Thought I'd Say

#256 - No, we can't wash baby bottles in bath water.

A Camping We Will Go

Okay, so not all of us, just Ryan and Brady went camping for the first time together. Reports came back that a good time was had by all.





































The weekend also included going fishing for the first time at a family reunion.



















The story goes that Brady announced that if he caught a fish, he was going to put it in "mommy's new special purse" for safe keeping. My purse isn't special, but it is new, and I really don't want a fish in it. I'm learning it is possible to want your child to succeed at something and be both a little disappointed and relived at the same time when they aren't.

But I'm Older Now

I've made the mistake of whenever Brady asked to do something that wasn't age appropriate, that he had to wait until he was older. Unfortunately I didn't ever specify how much older and this has now backfired on me. Now that Brady has turned 3, he has informed me he is now old enough to do the following:

- Shave

- Use eye drops

- Drive - in fact, he informed me that not only is he old enough to drive now but that he is also going to teach Luke how to drive. Then they're going to take the Jeep to go get ice cream.

Every response from me now comes with a minimum age of 30.

Here's a picture of Brady at his birthday party.

Cards Fans

Okay so maybe Luke's hat is a tad bit too big. He'll grow. By the way, Brady's favorite player is Albert Pujols and he has assigned Skip Schumaker to Luke.

Again, Really?

Since it is summer, I guess that means it's time for Brady to get stitches...again. Did I mention he's not quite 3 yet? Sigh. This time it was an unfortunate encounter with a bookshelf. For a refresher of summer stitches 2007 and 2008, click here and here

I've also created a handy-dandy illustrated picture for your viewing pleasure.















This was the most minor of the incidents and as you can see in this bonus picture with Luke, about a week later all is better.















If anyone needs a reference to a good facial plastic surgeon, let me know, I'd be happy to provide one.

Luke Is Here

A quick change to the header of the blog and we're off and running. Luke Douglas arrived on May 24, 2009 at 9:56 am, 7 lb 4 oz, 21 in.















Everyone is adjusting nicely and Brady absolutely adores Luke.

And his hat.

Brady was also quite fond of the couch at the hospital.

He makes sure to give Luke lots of hugs and kisses every day.

Spring Has Sprung

My favorite time of year and main reason I haven't posted anything lately. We've been having too much fun outside. Brady has had lots of fun learning about shadows,


















feeding the birds,


















hunting Easter eggs,














and taking in his first Cards game of 2009 with his cousin.














Don't they look super excited?

An unrelated funny Brady story for you. We were at Target today and Brady kept asking to get out of the cart and help push. I'm still not ready to let him do that when we're out by ourselves just because he still has the tendency to bolt on me on occasion and there's no way me and my 8+ month belly and I can keep up with him right now. So, my standard answer is not until you're older, but for some reason today, I used the word bigger. After telling him this for probably the third time, Brady proceeds to stand up in the seat of the cart (I don't buckle him in anymore because he's usually really good about staying seated, albeit in some unusual positions sometimes) and announce to me "Look, I bigger now. I help push cart." I cracked up. He couldn't figure out what was so funny.

Old McDonalds

Brady is a big fan of food from Old McDonald's, at least that's what he calls it. Not that we go there often, but in a pinch, I've been known to use the drive through. One day we were out all morning running errands no where near our house and needing to both eat lunch and kill about an hour before a scheduled play date. I remembered a McDonald's near where we were with a playground. Brilliant, I thought to myself, we'll get lunch and burn a little time before our next stop. We've not eaten in a McDonald's with a playground before, but I'm sure everything will work out well. If you've read many other stories on my blog, you'll remember that anytime I think I'm brilliant is not a good sign.

First we go to the counter and order our food, which goes well. We sit down and eat our food. Brady couldn't be better behaved. He looks longingly at the playground, but doesn't put up a fight about eating his lunch first. Now it is time to go play. Brady dutifully takes off his shoes, puts them in a cubby and races off. He gets to the two story tube-and-bubble-with-slides-type playground and quickly discovers that there are no stairs to get up to the top, but rather staggered landings, which are too far apart for him to climb. If only he was an inch taller. I start to feel really bad for him as kids that are not much bigger than him climb by him time and again. Brady doesn't mind too much and goes to play in the bottom of one of the tube slides - climb up inside the slide a few feet, slide back down, etc. At one point, inspiration must have struck, because the next thing I know, a pair of socks come flying out the end of the slide, and I can't see my son anymore. Next thing I know, I hear "Hi mommy, " and I look up to see Brady sitting in one of the clear plastic bubbles at the top of the two story structure, which has somehow just grown in height to what seems to be about five stories. How he climbed up the inside of that slide so fast, I'll never know, but he's happy and everything is completely enclosed up there, so we're good.

Brady plays for a while in the tunnels at the top of the playground, then a while longer, and a little while more. He's as happy as a clam in the tunnel, but seems apprehensive about the slide. We start running out of time, and he's not coming down. Kids pass by him and I ask him several times to follow them down the slide. No, he says. We really need to get going. I take a look at the staggered landings to see if I can climb up there. While the landings were too far apart for Brady, they're not far enough apart for my increasingly pregnant body. I consider climbing up the slide the same way Brady did, but that doesn't seem like it will work too well either. Multiple warnings of it being time to leave, and he's still not budging. I begin to look around at the other adults in the area and consider asking them for help. Most are grandparents, but one dad about my age looks promising. I decide to keep him in mind as a last resort as I couldn't imagine a conversation that wouldn't be incredibly embarrassing for me. I think to myself, Brady has to come down sometime, at some point he'll be hungry, then I remember that we just ate, so it could be a while. Brady is still having a wonderful time sitting at the top and smiling down at me. I begin to wonder if McDonald's has an official plan for kids who are "stuck" in their playground with pregnant moms who can't reach them.

Finally, in desperation, I decide I will tell Brady I'm leaving, walk away, and see what happens. I realize this could either go very well resulting in Brady coming down like I need him to, or very badly with a hysterical, crying child at the top of the playground that I still can't reach. Fortunately this story ends well. I tell Brady bye and begin to leave when I hear "No, mommy, wait for me." I turn around, and zip, down the slide he comes, laughing the whole way. As we're putting his shoes on, I ask him if that was fun. "Yeah," he says, "I do it again." "Some other time, buddy," I tell him, like when you're six.

Snow Day

So this is kind of old, but with the thought of snow coming this evening, it made me think of the good snow we got earlier in the year and how much fun Brady had making a snowman and playing in the snow. His aunt came over for the event and a good time was had by all. Here Brady is with his snowman, which he appropriately named "White."

At one point, it was decided that Brady needed to sled down the small hill in our yard. Unfortunately, we don't have a sled. We found that a trash can lid works just as good and Brady loved it. Could we be bigger hoosiers? Did I mention the trash can lid sledding took place in our front yard?

A Conversation

An excerpt from a conversation between Brady and I on the way home from daycare this evening.

Brady: Why dark outside?
Me: Because it's night time.
Brady: Why night time outside.

Insert several back and forth questions here involving the sun, moon, darkness, etc. All start with "Why." Moving on.

Brady: Why no snowing?
Me: I don't know, I guess God didn't want it to snow today. (We've been talking about how God made the snow, etc.)
Brady: Why God no want it snow?
Me: I don't know Bud, you're going to have to ask him that one.
Brady: Where God is?
Me: (Oh, gee. How do I answer this one without confusing him. Think quick, I don't think the everywhere is going to work) You know how we pray to God? That's kind of like him being there with us when we talk to him.
Brady: Where Jesus is?
Me: (Okay, maybe not the answer he was looking for. Let's try a different tact.) He's in heaven with God.
Brady: Oh. Where Jeff is?
Me: Who's Jeff?
Brady: I want to watch Cars at home.
Me: We'll see.

It amazes me how quickly he moves between subjects. I've survived my first theological discussion with my son and it gave me a chuckle afterward to think of how quickly he could make me sweat.

Bradyisms

Brady has said/done a few amusing things lately that I thought I would share:

When putting on fleece lined jeans for the first time this year, Brady's immediate response was, "Oooh, that's niiiice."

One Sunday morning, Brady announced that he was driving himself to church that morning. I asked him if he was taking mommy's car or daddy's truck. He responded, "No, I drive my orange car." Referring to this.











My response was "Good luck on Olive, buddy."

When asked what he wanted for dinner one evening, Brady responded "McDonalds." Then continued into semi-song "Had a farm, EIEIO. Moo moo here, moo moo. Cow." I guess that means he wants a hamburger?

For some reason at the moment, anytime Brady talks about, sees a picture of, or hears a dog, he yells "Dog" runs across the room and then slides on the floor like you would into home plate, feet first. There are so many things I don't understand about this - What is he doing? Why? Where did he learn how to slide like that?

And the first, but I'm sure not last, mortifying thing my child said: When opening a Christmas present of clothes, Brady immediately tossed them aside and said "I got clothes at home."