Dear Brennan,

You are now 33 months old. And this is an exciting update because it's the last one before Dada comes home from deployment! Woohoo! I think it's gonna be pretty fun to watch the two of you interact with each other. I know you'll love wrestling with him again. We will also be taking another trip to Disney World before your next update - a last little hoorah before "boy baby" arrives. But for now, let's focus on what you've been up to for the past month.

You are currently wearing mostly 3T clothes. I think you're still pretty small for your age, but I can tell you're getting taller. I don't see it day to day, but there are certainly things you can reach now that you couldn't reach just a few weeks ago. You're still in size 6.5 shoes - a tiny little foot. I think I need to get you some new snow boots because we've already had our first snow of the season. Speaking of weather, you made it through your 2nd hurricane. We were very fortunate because we didn't have any damage and never lost power during Hurricane Sandy; many people lost everything. I pray you have a heart for helping people in need when you get older. You also witnessed your first presidential election - and by witnessed I mean you stole my "I voted" sticker and slept through the results. When asked who the president is, you respond, "Obama." Shockingly enough Auntie Val taught you that one.

As you quickly approach the big 0-3, I'm so happy you're still napping. You usually nap for 2 or 2.5 hours, which is so nice for this tired Momma. Currently you're still wearing a Pull-up during nap time and it's almost always a little wet when you wake up. It's so strange that you went six months or so staying dry during nap and now we've had a few months of being wet. You're always wet in the morning, but for now I'm not worrying about that. You are still a good sleeper at night too, but I'm wondering if you're starting to have dreams or nightmares because several nights a week you'll start whining in the middle of the night. You fall back to sleep without me ever coming in your room, but it's not like you to be so restless. I love our nighttime routine and I hope it can stay the same or close to the same once the baby comes. Even if we've had a stressful day, I can almost always count on bath and bedtime to be easy and relaxing with you.

So about those stressful days, you have definitely been testing boundaries lately. You know the difference between right and wrong and always look back at me when you're about to make a poor choice. You also know my "mommy stare" and know you're in trouble when you see it. You're currently going through a hitting stage. You aren't hitting out of anger or meanness, you just like slapping people. You're just being playful, but I'm working hard on breaking that habit. We are working on finding good things to do with your hands like clapping and hugging and I'm starting to see an improvement. Just the other day you were about to playfully slap me and I stopped you and sort of jokingly said, "Brennan, what would Jesus do?" and you said, "Jesus no hit Mommy!" It made me smile. I know boundary testing is all part of growing up and thankfully the majority of the time you're still a good listener. It's a big deal to me that you follow a direction the first time it's given. According to BabyWise, for first time obedience (FTO) it's a good idea to have children make a verbal response like "Yes, Mommy" when a parent calls the child's name. When we started working on that this month, you loved it and it quickly became a game. You would stand in different places around the house and say, "Say Brennan's name". I'd say your name and then you'd say, "Yes, Mommy" and come running to me. You understand emotions so well and can tell me if I'm making a happy, sad, or mad face.

I am so thankful for your sweet, sensitive, and happy nature. You get so excited for the smallest little things and your whole body starts shaking. Your teacher says you're the happiest kid in class. You love going to church and seeing all the people you know. You're a big hugger and run up to them and give them big bear hugs. You're pretty much a celebrity at church! You also have this sensitive side though. If someone even barely bumps you, you get upset. I think this mainly comes from being an only child. I'm sure having a brother will toughen you up some!

You have always loved music and would sort of sing along with me when I sang, but you've just started singing songs by yourself. I love it! Just like talking, you sing really fast so it's hard to understand, but it's just adorable. My current favorites are you singing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and "Jesus Loves Me". You talk up a storm now and make me laugh so many times each day. Some of your funnier new phrases are "that's too yucky!", "not yet" and "Brennan a crazy boy!". You have become a pro at tracing letters and numbers and will occasionally write the letter B on your own. The "Letter School" app is amazing and is one of your favorites. We just recently added some new apps to the iPad and you love "Marble Math Jr", "ABC House", "Thomas and Friends Heroes of the Rails", and "Interactive ABC HD - Pre-reading for Kids". I had to start limiting your time on the iPad because you are obsessed with that thing. You seem to think a "limit" has something to do with "lemons" but for now you understand that when the iPad is on a "lemon" you can't use it.

You still love wrestling and want to wrestle with anyone and everyone. You also love to intentionally fall down and say, "Crash!" You love chocolate milk and candy and sweets. You're super good at memory games - like super good - it blows my mind. You love school and your teachers love you. I'd love to be a fly on the wall and see what you're like there. Papaw and Linda just came up to visit you and you loved spending time with them. Eeek! I'm sure there's much more I could talk about. I'm so thankful for my iPhone so I can add notes to it throughout the month to make these updates possible.

Mommy loves you so much. I know you'll be excited to have your Dada come very soon and then we'll have a little more time as a family of three before the baby comes along. I think you'll be a great big brother.

Love,
Mommy

Here's a video for you to enjoy.


And here's a link to the professional photos we had done recently.
http://www.brendadelossantos.com/Portfolio/Clients/Brennan/i-Xhw38Zr/1/Ti/Autumn01-Ti.jpg

Bathtub Paint

I have wanted to try bathtub paint with Brennan for such a long time. I pinned the "recipe" for it forever ago and just have never gotten around to doing it. Plus the little fact that the recipe calls for corn starch and for the life of me I didn't think I'd ever find corn starch in the grocery. Then today I'm there with Brennan and it just pops out at me as plain as can be.

The recipe called for 1 tbsp corn starch, 4-6 pumps of baby shampoo, 2-3 drops food coloring, and 1-2 tsp of water. I didn't get too fancy this time and just made blue, yellow, red, and green since those are the food colorings I had on hand. I played around with the consistency a little bit and it turned out the first one I made was definitely the best. The others were a little too runny. Brennan had fun painting, but didn't want to do it for too long. He liked dumping the paints into the tub better. You can see the color of the water below. I'm not sure this was our cleanest tubby ever. And I do need to go scrub down the tub really well now because it definitely left a ring since he dumped all the paints into the water. I think we will definitely do it again soon!

The pictures don't really show much. I didn't even get a shot of the blue on the wall, which was the best one. Oh well!

After our bath, we went into B's room and found Ringo laying in his bed. Well this week it's my bed since my in-laws are here. Silly dog!

Happy Halloween

I've been a little MIA from the blog. We have company staying with us right now and went through a hurricane. We fared extremely well through the storm and had no damage and never lost power. We were very fortunate.

Tonight we took advantage of two local spots for some fun Trick-or-Treating. We first went to our church for the 3rd Annual Light the Night. Love this little fishy!

Then we headed to the Mystic Aquarium for their first ever Trick-or-Treating. They decided to open their doors to everyone so kids could stay off the streets since some still have significant damage from the storm. I didn't get any pictures there because it was just Brennan and me and about a thousand other people. I wasn't about to let go of his hand to snap a picture.

We had a great night! Happy Halloween!

Picture Day

Picture day at school turned into picture day at home too! :) Thankful for a cooperative (not to mention very handsome) subject!

Fall Tot School Fun

I love those days when you feel like you've been a good Mommy. I know I am good Mommy, but I certainly have good days and not so good days. Today was a good day.

I have said it time and time again that when I have specific activities planned to do with Brennan, our day goes much better than when we just "wing it" and go with the flow. I had a productive day this morning while he was at school. I stopped by the commissary and bought a few groceries, after unloading those I found some great fall Tot School ideas (mainly from 1+1+1=1) and printed off some of those, and then I even cleaned both bathrooms before having to head back to pick up B.

He was all smiles when I picked him up from school. So happy he's still loving it! Brennan and I played a little bit in the basement after school and then had lunch. It was nap time after that and unfortunately he didn't sleep as long as usual. However, it wasn't all bad because I knew I had some go to activities we could do together.

First off I introduced him to a new iPad app called LetterSchool (thanks, Confessions of a Homeschooler!). It is so good and Brennan loves it. It's a tracing app and has capital letters, lower case letters, and numbers 1-10. It has you trace each thing three times and Brennan did all of them (capitals, lower case, and #s) today. That's a lot of tracing! To say this app was a hit is an understatement.

I convinced him it was time to take a break from the iPad and he immediately discovered the baggie with googly eyes in it. I found the Monster Math idea here. I cut some "monsters" from card stock and wrote addition problems at the bottom. B was easily able to put the correct number of googly eyes on each half of the monster and then count them all up to get the sum. I also put problems on the back, so there are 8 addition problems in all. I knew he'd be able to do it because he loves the addition game in the Preschool and Kindergarten Learning Games iPad app.

Then we got to the some of the fall Tot School stuff. First he wanted to do the dice activity. He completely understood what to do. We used Apple Jacks cereal to graph our results and then he got to eat them while I started fixing dinner. Once he finished his cereal, he found the Do-a-Dot page I had printed and brought it into the kitchen saying, "Oh wow, oh wow! A acorn, P pumpkin!" Once dinner was in the oven, we sat down and did the dot page together. Then he wanted to do the scarecrow puzzle. The puzzle is cut apart into 10 strips and I left the strips numbered, so he could work on ordering numbers. He was able to do it easily.

I want to say here that I didn't make him do any of these activities. In fact, I didn't even show him any of them. He saw them sitting on his table and showed interest right away. I would never force him to do these things, but I'm glad he likes them and it really made for a fun and delightful afternoon.

By this time, dinner was almost ready. It was delish by the way. I made baked bruschetta chicken. I marinated a chicken breast in Sun Dried Tomato dressing all day. Then chopped up a tomato and mixed it with mozzarella cheese, dried basil, and a little more dressing and threw all that on top of the chicken. It baked for 25 minutes and was done. Super easy and yummy!

After dinner, Brennan and I played in his room. His new favorite game is for him to sit on his bed while I sit on the floor and we throw this little light up ball back and forth. Tonight he even wanted to switch places, so I sat in his bed and he threw the ball up to me.

Again, so thankful for days like today! And to top it off, since B didn't nap very long he was in bed before 7:30. :)

iPhone Pics!

Here are a few pictures I've shared other places, but not on the blog yet.

Brennan really enjoyed making this apple craft. He's all about glue right now.

I printed this page for Brennan the other day, but wasn't sure he'd even be able to do it. He found it and asked to do it and I was shocked at how well he traced the numbers. I only helped a little with the 8.

Brennan got to use his new art tray from Michael's for a special lunch treat while watching TV. The tray was only $6.99 and he's loving sitting at it and coloring.

And he likes to use my belly as a pillow.

 I snapped this one tonight before tubby time. Ringo drives me crazy, but Brennan loves him!

Dear Brennan,

Oh Boo-Boo, you are 32 months old and seriously the cutest little guy on the planet. You continue changing so much and I know your Dada won't be able to believe how much you've changed when he gets home. It's super sweet to hear you talk about him and how he's on his "big black submarine". I'm excited to see you guys play together again.

You are wearing mainly 3T shirts and 2T pants. I feel like you've regressed a little with potty training. I've started putting you in a Pull-Up at naptime because you were peeing while you napped and it was way too hard for your pregnant Mommy to change your sheets and mattress pad everyday. Most days during the past week you've been dry after nap, so hopefully it was just a fluke. You are still always wet in the morning and I really hope we see a change there soon. You still wear a 6.5 shoe. I don't have any stats on your weight or height right now.

Sleeping and naptime continue to go well. I'm thankful you are still napping! Mommy has been napping almost everyday during naptime too! You've always been really funny about sleeping because you've never wanted anything in bed with you. You've never had a blanket or a stuffed animal. Nothing at all. Tuesday night it was pretty chilly in the house and I finally convinced you to sleep with a cover. You actually asked for the cover again last night. You're one silly boy.

You absolutely love school. You never cry when I drop you off. Sometimes you cry when I pick you up and ask to go to back to school. :) Your teachers say you are absolute joy! That makes me so happy. I think in the month you've been there you have become much more outgoing. You are much more willing to go play with other kids and you seem much friendlier at church. You talk a lot about your teachers.

We started story time at the library again and you love it. You love the teacher, Mrs. Tracy. She reads three or four stories to us each week and then has those books plus others related to the same subject that we can check out. We always check out one of the books she read and you get all excited about reading that one during the week. Just this morning you wanted to read all five books we checked out from the library right after waking up. You just love books and have started wanting to track the words while I read to you. I'm continually amazed by how smart you are. You also have a phenomenal memory. While at the beach GeGe showed you the combination to the safe in their room one time. You remembered it the rest of the week. You'd take the remote and press the safe combo and say, "Open!"

We had a great time in Myrtle Beach. You loved the beach and the pool and seeing family. You were an amazing traveler and I was very thankful. The first week back at home, you were super whiny. I think we were both adjusting to doing things on our own again. You seem to be back to your normal happy self now. You seem to have a very empathetic nature. You don't like to see other kids cry and recognize when someone is sad. You say, "I'm sorry" all the time. Most of the time you haven't done anything wrong, but I'm glad you willingly say it. You are also very polite most of the time. You are good about saying please and thank you. You love giving Mommy hugs too. You must give me at least 25 a day.

You continue to talk more and more. You've just started saying, "Ummm..." when I ask you a question and you're thinking of an answer. You will also tell me I'm "so beautiful" if I ask you how I look. I might've taught you that one. :) You say. "woohoo" often and frequently say, "Pop goes the weasel". By far the most annoying thing you say is, "No home, no home!" over and over again in the car when we are headed back home from somewhere.

Right now you seem excited about your baby brother. He should arrive in about 3 months. You like to hug and kiss my belly where "boy baby" lives. There are a couple of names at the top of my list right now and you have a favorite from that list. Now we just need to get Dada on board. I bought the first matching outfit for you boys the other day. I can't wait to see what you think of the baby once he's actually here.

I am so thankful you are almost always a sweet sweet boy. The frustrating moments and pretty few and far between. I love how excited you get over little things. I just love you so so very much!

Love,
Mommy

Here are a few pictures of you this morning all ready for Fire Prevention Day at school. Unfortunately the fire truck broke down and wasn't able to come to school today, but you sure looked cute in your fire truck sweater!

The Case of the Missing Earring

I've had more than a few forgetful moments during this pregnancy that I have blamed on baby brain. For example, before Kyle left for deployment we knew his car wouldn't be driven at all during his time away. He asked me to start it once and week and let it run for five minutes. And I haven't had any problem remembering to start it once a week, but something happens in those "5 minutes" that I'm supposed to let to run and my brain shuts off. I get busy playing with Brennan, fixing dinner, eating dinner (or all of the above) and multiple times Kyle's car has been left running for an extended period of time (we're talking 45 minutes once and 2 hours another time) before I remember it. Serious baby brain right there!

Ok, now let's talk about the case of the missing earring.

Last Wednesday morning as I was brushing my teeth, I looked in the mirror and realized I was missing an earring. One of the diamond studs Kyle had given me. I wear these earrings all the time and never take them out (except for cleaning once in a blue moon). I couldn't believe I had lost one; especially because the backs screw on! How could it just fall out without me noticing?!?! I immediately started scouring the house. I assumed it must've fallen out overnight, but didn't find it anywhere in or around our bed. I looked all around and didn't find it. When B and I left the house that morning, I looked all through the car with no success.

Losing this earring was really the icing on the cake of a rather crappy couple of days. The first few days after arriving home from vacation were rough. I felt like Brennan was super whiny and I was readjusting to doing everything on my own after having my family around to help for a week. The TV broke while I was away and I thought I knew how to fix it and ordered a part, only to find out that wasn't the problem after all. I was able to get the TV working again, but it was just bad timing. Not that there would be a good time to the lose a diamond earring.

I never got around to calling my OB or a local consignment store - those were the only two places I went on Tuesday other than driving B to and from school. I just assumed it HAD to be in the house somewhere and hopefully it would eventually show up. Since Kyle and I aren't able to communicate right now, I decided to send him a facebook message hoping he would read it before we talk on the phone again. I just wanted to tell him the story about the losing the earring and tell him what a crummy week it had already been hoping he'd be less angry about it.

Since then I've kept my eyes open for the earring, but have been wearing a different pair that Kyle gave me. I wore that pair to bed last night and in the middle of the night the earring in my right ear started bothering me while I slept. I decided to take it out and as I was doing that, it was like deja vu. No kidding. All of a sudden I remembered that on Tuesday night in the middle of the night my right earring was bothering me and I decided to remove it. I could remember it so vividly; unscrewing the back carefully in the dark and placing it in the drawer of my bedside table.

So the case of the missing earring was solved at 4am this morning. I had taken it out in the middle of the night and put it in the drawer and completely forgotten about it. It's even funnier because I open that drawer every single night to get out my pen to write in my journal and hadn't seen or thought it about once until last night.

I'm seriously losing it! :)

A pic from Sunday - 26 weeks 1 day

Soccer and Spiderman

Nothing too exciting to blog about today. Just wanted to share a couple pictures from last night and this morning so that Dada can check out what we've been up to once he's able to read the blog again. It's definitely a bummer to not even be able to email him about our day right now.

Last night Brennan's school had a little picnic. I didn't know of anyone that was going, but thought it would be fun and it got me out of cooking, so we went. There were very few families there, but we had a great time. Brennan didn't eat much food; he was too interested in playing with the big kids. There were two soccer balls there and he immediately wanted to play. I have never seen him be so outgoing and independent. It was really surprising. He was laughing with the kids and holding their hands. He even walked by me at one point while holding a boy's hand and said, "Goodbye, Mommy!" He really had a great time and I enjoyed watching the big kids be so kind to him. I pray he is kind and patient like these kids were last night when he get bigger.

Today was the Groton Fall Festival. I assume it's an annual event, but this is the first time I've heard of it. It was at a local park and B and I decided to check it out. We had to park FOREVER away, but thankfully they had free shuttle service, which made Brennan's day. The festival was cute. There were tons of booths and lots of vendors and gobs of free stuff for kids. Brennan walked and walked and walked all around with me. It felt nothing like fall since it was 76 degrees and we were both sweating, but I'm so glad we went. Brennan even got his face painted like Spiderman and painted a pumpkin blue!

Annual Pictures at BF Clyde's

I decided to take Brennan to BF Clyde's Cider Mill this morning. I figured it would be much less crowded on a Friday morning than a Saturday morning and hoped I could get some good pictures of him. We've taken him there every October and it's so fun comparing the pictures we take each year.

Unfortunately there were a lot less pumpkins there than usual and many of them were super ugly. But I still managed to get some cute pictures. First, let's take little trip down memory lane.

Here are a couple of pictures from October 2010. We went there twice that year.

Here are couple from October 2011. Brennan had just recently started walking.

And finally here are the shots from today. I put him in an orange button-up shirt to keep up with tradition, but it was really too warm to be wearing it.

Love him! We are getting professional pictures taken a week from tomorrow. Hoping B cooperates as well as he did today!

Here's one more with pictures from each October.