Dear Brennan,

You are one year old! It is so hard for me to believe! The past twelve months have flown by so incredibly fast, but at the same time it seems like you have always been a part of this family. It's hard to remember what life was like without you. You might be one, but you are still my little baby. So much has been going on, so let's check out what you've been up to.

You are wearing 12-18 month clothes. Somedays you just get to stay in your jammies though! Mommy is so thankful for hand-me-downs that help keep your closet and dresser full of cute clothes! You still wear size 3 diapers during the day, but are wearing size 4 overnight diapers at night to try to prevent leaks. Mommy now tries to give you something to play with during diaper changes so you don't fuss. The best distraction is your toothbrush. You'll chew on that and usually lay still.

Here is what your day looks like most of the time.

7:45 - Wake

8:00 - Eat breakfast

8:45-9:30 - Play in your room with Mommy

9:30-11:30 - Nap

11:30 - Eat lunch

12:30 - Independent playtime in your pack-n-play

1:00 - Play with Mommy

1:30-3:30 - Nap

3:30 - Maybe eat a snack

4:00-5:00 - Play (hopefully with Daddy if he's home)

5:00/5:30 - Eat dinner

6:00/6:30 - Bath

6:45 - Bed

Usually your morning waketime and bedtime are pretty consistent. You don't always nap at the same time each day, but you always take two naps. I am really excited because I am going to start Tot School with you! I have been following 1+1+1=1 for a long time! She just sorted her activities into categories based on age, which helps a ton. At your age, Tot School will mainly just be playing with you like I've always done. It is just make sure I am talking to you and teaching you things during that playtime. I started here to get some ideas.

You still aren't crawling, pulling up, or cruising. You are just one laid back dude. You will roll to get to something you want. You still LOVE books right now. Your current favorite is Little Boy Blue. Mommy gets to read that one to you about 100 times each day. Reading to you is fun because you have started to pointing to more things. You have a counting book that is Baby Einstein and there is a ladybug somewhere on each page. You can find and point to the bug on every single page. You can also pick out the dog, cat, and duck in your First 100 Words book. You are a great page turner too!

You are now completely weaned. It was a very easy transition, just as I thought it would be. You were definitely ready. You weaned straight to a sippy cup and easily switched to whole milk. You are a good eater. You feed yourself at every meal now. Mommy still feeds you oatmeal at breakfast and sometimes yogurt for a meal, but everything else you do by yourself. Your favorites are: mandarin oranges, peaches, pears, hotdogs, and pasta with sauce. You have practiced with a spoon some, but it is still early for you to know how to use it. You still only have four teeth, but I can see another one just starting to poke through on top.

You are doing really well with signing. You haven't added any new spoken words to your vocabulary, but I am hoping that comes soon. You can sign the following words:

all done

please

more

water

food/eat

bed/sleepy

milk (you don't do that one much though)

You have picked up new signs very quickly, so I'm sure you'll be adding more very soon. You also use grunts, pointing, and your eyes to communicate what you want. Just the other night you kept looking at your swing and then at the TV. I asked if you wanted to watch your movie and you pointed to the remote control. We got your Praise Baby movie set up, put you in the swing, and you were happy. It's so fun being able to communicate with you!

You have learned a few new "tricks" during the past month. You will show us your hair and your tummy. You will blow raspberries when I ask, "Where's your motor?" You will usually blow kisses if asked too.

You also still LOVE bath time! You kick and splash. You have several strainer toys and you love for me to fill them with water and then let the water run all down your face. You also get excited when the water is draining from the tub and want to sit right by the drain and touch it.

You do have a pretty serious case of separation anxiety right now. You do great during your independent playtime in your room, but you do not like it when I leave you in the church nursery on Sunday. This past week, there were already two boys in there playing, so you happily went in and started playing. However, once you realized Mommy wasn't there anymore, you weren't too happy. Food helps you calm you down though. I told the nursery workers that and it seemed to work because I didn't get paged to come get you this week!

Tomorrow is your big party! Your Auntie Lala and Uncle C-Dub are here to help celebrate and tomorrow more friends and family will be here! We all love you so very much and are excited about your big day. This past year has been amazing and it is so exciting to think about what the next year is going to bring! I love you so much!

Love,

Mommy

Here is a recap of all his pictures for those of you not on Facebook.

Brennan today - one year old!

11 months:

10 months:

9 months:

8 months:

7 months:

6 months:

5 months:

4 months:

3 months:

2 months:

1 month:

1 week:

Friday's Fab Five!

Happy Friday! Here's a short and sweet Fab Five. I will be posting Brennan's 1 year update later today!

1. Brennan is one year old today! Whoa! Check him out playing on the computer earlier this week. He is on the site Kneebouncers. Unfortunately they have started charging for their site, but there are still a few free games.

2. My sister and brother-in-law are here! They will help us celebrate at Brennan's party tomorrow!

3. We are going to tour ESPN in Bristol, CT this afternoon. When Lauren and Clint have a baby, they are going to name it (him or her) ESPN, so it is quite fitting! :)

4. Brennan had a fun playdate with his friend Brady on Wednesday!

5. I got to babysit for my buddy Parker on Monday. I would say it was good practice for when we have another baby, but Brennan napped the whole time, so I was only watching one kiddo.

Hope you have a great weekend!

Here a few shots of Brennan this morning now that he is the big 0-1!

To him it is just another day.

Brennan knows how old he is.

He even got a special pancake in the shape of a one!

He sure loves his new ride-on toy from Auntie La-la and Uncle C-dub.

Hi LaLa!

Brennan is so excited to see his Auntie LaLa tomorrow. He wanted to tell her hi before he went to bed.



Here are a few pictures for your enjoyment too!

Our First Date

Laura, over at Storybook Reality is hosting her first blog link-up today. In honor of Valentine's day, she is asking us share about first dates. I guess I better join in, because if it wasn't for Laura, I might not have met Kyle!

After graduating from Georgetown College in 2004, I stayed on campus that summer as a summer school RA. It was a pretty boring job and I felt very lonely. By this point, Laura was already living in Charleston. After talking to her on the phone one day and telling her I was bored, she recommended I check out the post-college Bible study at Southland Christian Church called The Space Between. I did check it out and ended up attending each week. Even though Kyle was also attending the Bible study, we didn't meet until a group of us from the study met at church on a Saturday to help clean. After that, Kyle and I would talk on Thursdays and he asked me for my phone number and then called to ask me to dinner.

I remember a lot about our first date. I still remember what I wore (but I don't remember what he wore). I met Kyle at the house he shared with three other guys. Before we left the house, we sat at the piano. Kyle played the song "Lord of the Dance" and I sang it. I don't really remember why that happened, but it did. We then went out to his car. He opened my door for me and I noticed his car didn't have automatic locks, so as he walked around to his side of the car, I leaned over and unlocked his door. (He would later tell me that I passed that test by doing that).

We then drove to the restaurant. He wouldn't tell me where we were going. On the way there, he received a phone call. It was from his best friend's mom, Mrs. Hamilton. He answered the phone and it was pretty funny because he told her he was on a date, but wouldn't say out loud where we were going. We then arrived at our location; Bistro 147. It was a small restaurant and pretty fancy inside. I remember when we walked in the door, we were greeted by a host who said, "Mr. Calton?" I think they assumed it was him based on the time of the reservation he had made, but it made me feel like he was famous or something. Our table was right in the front window overlooking a fountain. I remember once our food came, we were both enjoying our meals. Kyle asked if I wanted to try a bite of his. I didn't know if I was supposed to take a bite off his fork or use my fork to try a bite. I mean, this was a first date. I ended up taking a little bite off his fork, which he seemed fine with.

It was a very nice first date. I really liked him.  Kyle has told me since then that he wasn't sure if he'd asked me out again because I had such a thick country accent. Ha! I'm glad he was able to get past that!

This is the oldest picture I could find of us on my computer. It is from November.

Friday's Fab Five

This week, I made sure I remembered to do a Fab Five!

1. On Monday, Brennan and I ran some errands. We went into iParty and I saw one of my former student's mothers. She actually saw me first. She said her daughter, Megan, is doing well in 5th grade this year, but that 4th grade with Mrs. Gould (my maternity leave sub) and me was her best year so far. It definitely brought a smile to my face to hear that! I also received a really nice email from my principal yesterday after I informed her I would officially be resigning from my job in Colchester. I really loved my job there, so it's nice to hear others liked me back!

2. This week are trying out Target brand diapers. So far I really like them. I was still putting a Pampers on Brennan at night, but on Thursday morning he woke up soaked in pee. His pjs were wet, his sheet was wet, even the mattress pad! It was like he hadn't even been wearing a diaper at all! So I guess we'll try the Target diapers overnight or buy some other overnight diapers. Maybe he's just ready to move out of Pampers size 3. Anyway, the fabulous part is that I like the Up and Up diapers so far, so that will save us money.

3. I made Hearty Queso Chicken Soup with Black Beans and Potatoes for dinner Wednesday night. It was YUMMY! I highly recommend it. I cooked and shredded the chicken the day before, so the prep time was very short! And the company was pretty good too because the Cizeks came over. :)

4. Brennan is drinking whole milk! During the weaning process I was mixing expressed breast milk with whole milk and he seemed to like it fine. Yesterday was his first day drinking straight whole milk and he did great. I am still warming it up right now. So glad it was an easy transition.

5. In less than one week my sister and brother-in-law will be here! They are coming to help celebrate Brennan's 1st birthday! Brennan can't wait to see his Auntie La-la and Uncle C-Dub.

Teacher Talk Thursday - Show & Tell

Today over at Snyder Stories, Abby wants us to just talk about ANYTHING teacher related. She said it could be a great lesson, a cool project, a funny story, ANYTHING.

I am going to go with a funny story. Being an elementary teacher means I have plenty of funny stories to tell, but there is one that tops them all. The best part is, when I was interviewing for my fourth grade job here in CT, the interview committee asked me to share a funny story. I shared this same story with them. I warned them that it was inappropriate, so now you have also been warned. So here it goes...

It was my second year teaching. I was teaching 2nd grade at an inner city school in Lexington, KY. It was the second or third day of school. I had all the students gathered on the floor around chart paper during Reading. We were reviewing blends. We started with "sl" and students were raising their hands giving me words that started with that blend. I would then write the word on the chart paper and once we had a good list, I read each word and the students repeated after me. We then moved onto a different blend and repeated the process.

Our final blend was "bl". Students were doing a great job coming up with "bl" words. Then little Austin (I still remember his name) raised his hand and said, "balloon". I told him balloon started with "b" but not "bl". A few words later, Austin raised his hand again and again gave an incorrect word. The third time he raised his hand, I was a little hesitant to call on him, but I wanted him to get it right. This is how the conversation (and my thoughts) went:

Me: Yes, Austin?

Austin: Blowjob.

(At this point my eyes probably bugged out of my head, but I was able to keep my composure. I also had an aide in my my room. She was sitting behind all the students writing in a notebook and immediately looked up).

Me: Austin, do you mean blowdryer? Like what girls use to dry their hair?

(I was proud of my quick thinking!)

Austin: No. Blowjob.

Me: Austin, I think you mean blowdryer. It's how girls dry their hair.

Austin: Yeah. That's what I meant.

I don't know why he ended up going with my suggestion, but I was glad he did. And yes, this was a 2nd grader! I ended up adding blowdryer to our list of "bl" words. As I read the list out loud and had the students repeat each word, it was so hard not to laugh as I got closer to reading "blowdryer".

By lunchtime, the story had made its way through all the teachers in our building. I did end up talking with our school counselor to check on his home situation. I wasn't sure why a 2nd grader would even know that word. It turned out that he lived with just his dad and an older brother, so we assumed he just heard it somewhere.

But at least he finally a "bl" blend right!

Can you believe I shared this story during a job interview?!?! I had already been working at the school as a long-term sub and was interviewing for a full-time position, so I knew all the staff. I don't think I would've shared the same story if I wasn't already familiar with all of them. But I did get the job!

Check Out These Tricks

Here are a few of Brennan's "tricks". I was so happy because he did almost all of them the first time. Hope you enjoy!