Brayden and Brynn: November 2006

Brayden is up to TROUBLE these days. He wants to explore, examine, manipulate and learn how to do everything big people do. He loves to put CD’s in and out of the stereo and DVD’s in the player or DVD boxed. He will sometimes turn on the TV, put a movie in the player and sit in his pooh chair with the remote in his hand ready for the movie to start.

He is obsessed with light switches. In music class we pretend to blow the lights out for the last lullaby. Brayden gets a real kick out of it, so we have started to do it at home when we turn a light out, but now he wants to play with the switches and turn them on and off all the time. Mommy and Daddy’s arms are very tired from holding him up to the switches. He whines to play with the switches any time we leave a room.

Brayden’s newest game is unrolling the toilet paper, opening the toilet lid and flushing the paper down the drain. The neighbors must love the bang of the lid 20 times over. I took the paper off the roll today hoping he would move on to something else, but he turned to the dirty tissues in the trash and continued. What was I thinking? He is unstoppable. He will always find a way. I am closing the bathroom door now, but he just bangs, whines and cries for me to open it up.

He also loves taking his wet wipes out of the box and throwing them into his diaper trashcan. These new games are going to get expensive. The only way I can get dinner fixed is to show him a movie or let him sit on the counter and empty a tissue box. He loves throwing all the tissues to the ground. I have also found that letting him open and shut the microwave works or empty all the spice jars out of the rack.

Bray works very hard at helping me with the laundry. He pulls the lint traps out of the dryers, wipes it clean and throws away the lint. Then he returns the trap to its place and puts the quarters in the slots. I am amazed how his little hands can get the coins in the right spots. Then he pushed the button to start the machine and we wait for the next load.

Whenever we come through the front door, he is eager to get the keys, stick them in the lock and unlock the door. He will not come in, until he has had a turn (or I should say 10 turns). He also loves to turn the hands on clocks, sweep the deck (or do anything on the deck), squeegee the windows, and play with button on anything (especially the radio, answering machine, computer, camera, and telephone).

He loves his “teddy” and many other animals and figurines right now. He carries them around and does daily activities with them. It is very cute.

We have Christmas up already and Brayden loves to say “Hi” so our Santa and pat him on the head. He also loves taking off his ornaments and toting them around the house.

We cannot get out of a store without playing hide-n-seek around the clothes racks. He is a nut for hide-n-seek anywhere. Not a day goes by without playing.

His big words right now are Daddy, Cool, Neat, Dude, Whoa, Uh-Oh, Boom, NOOO!, Teddy, Yeah, and Here. You can tell he has a valley girl for a mom. He will try to repeat anything you ask him to say. It is pretty fun. He has been playing with his language a lot. He uses his tongue funny and draws out words, especially his “Noooo!”

We have been struggling with bedtime for a week. It is taking an hour to get him down. Maybe I will have to give up more of my alone time in the evening and set a later bed time. It seems to work better that way and then he takes longer naps in the day. That is always nice so I can get more rest. I think he may never sleep through the night. I still need to nap when he does.

He is a silly guy. We can see him really starting to show some independence and strong will. Gotta love it!!!