Dear Brennan,

You are 27 months old! You are changing so much right now. It's fun (and sometimes frustrating) to see your little personality developing. You continue to do really well with potty training. We had one week during this past month that was a little rough, but we made it! Most days you are accident-free. Occasionally you'll have a little accident still; those seem to happen when you haven't had a BM for a few days. In fact, that seems to throw your whole mood off! You now have all of your baby teeth too! You're such a big boy!

As I type this now, you're already waking up from your nap. That's one thing that has been frustrating about this past month; you're not taking as long of a nap for me. I am thankful you still do nap because I have many friends with kids around your age that have already stopped napping. I'm not ready for a napping strike yet. I'm not sure why you're not sleeping as long all of sudden. I know our silly pets can get pretty loud sometimes and that might be part of the reason. One of the challenges of potty training is that I can't just let you lay in your bed too long once you do wake up because I don't want you to have an accident. I guess Momma just needs to change her attitude and be happy you do sleep for a little bit instead of being grumpy that you're waking up earlier than you used to.

Most mornings you've been waking up earlier than normal too. Not sure why, and again I know it's later than some kiddos sleep, but I've been one tired Momma lately. Your whining has increased greatly during the last month, which is a huge pet peeve of mine. I know it's just a stage as you keep learning new words, but my oh my it's frustrating. You have also thrown a few tantrums. Thankfully they've been at home and have all been at night around bathtime. I think you're just worn out since naps aren't as long anymore. It's definitely been a challenging month!

I'm hoping the whining starts to subside because you are using so many more words now. You are finally speaking in phrases and it's so cute. I had started a list on my phone of all the new things you're saying, but now there are just too many to count. Some of my current favorites are: "wildcats, here we go, love you, help please and help Momma, thank you, and outside".

Even though you can be whiny and clingy at home, thankfully you are usually an angel when we are out of the house. We still go to the same places as usually (aquarium, children's museum, and Target mostly). We also went to your first movie this month! I think this coming week the weather is finally going to be consistently warmer. It's still been in the 50s most of the time and so we haven't gotten to spend a lot of time outside. You love being outside and Dadda built you a new sandbox that will be tons of fun this summer!

I am having fun watching your imagination grow! At the children's museum the past two visits, you have made up a game all by yourself! There's a mat with four different colored squares. You take a ball and call out a color, then try to throw the ball onto that color. It's super funny to watch. Lots of times you have a very short attention span. You will only do an activity for a few minutes before saying "all done" and wanting to move onto something new. If something keeps your attention more than five minutes, that means you really like it!

Again this month, I've seen great improvements in your climbing. At the mall play place, you can do so much more independently now! You can climb the stairs to the slide and move yourself onto your bottom and slide down all by yourself. You have started climbing on many of the things there. You're also much more independent at the playground now and love all the slides there; even the tube slide! Sometimes you'll still throw a fit when I make you climb up the stairs at home, but I just hold my ground and you eventually climb up.

I've been trying to give you lots of choices and to let you do as many things independently as possible. Your underwear and overnight PullUps are where you can reach them and you pick those yourself. I've also been letting you pick out your own shirt in the morning. You rotate between four shirts; three Mickey shirts and a Thomas the Train one. You get your own breakfast from the cabinet each morning and I let you "brush your teeth" by yourself before I do it for you each night. Sometimes you say, "B do" when you want to do something by yourself.

Now that you're in a big boy bed, it's nice because you like to read books in there with Momma. I love reading with you and I think it's super sweet to read in your bed together. Speaking of your bed, I think you must be the only child that sleeps with nothing in your bed; no pillow, no blanket, no stuffed animal. It's just you and your binky. That stinky binky that we need to get rid of, but Momma isn't ready for you to give it up if it means giving up nap time! No way!

You'll have some changes coming up soon. Dadda is about to go back to a submarine and will be gone for four months! It will make for an interesting summer to say the least. In September you will start going to school two days a week. You'll be in a little toddler class with seven other two year olds. It's only for 2.5 hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but I think it'll be good for you and for Momma.

This update has gotten long, but I just don't want to forget all these things you are doing each month. It's so fun to go back and look at past ones. l love you to the moon and back!

Love,
Mommy

Here are two pictures from today!

Good morning!

The sun is finally out - we're at the playground!