January {2016}

This month Brett:

• loves look and find books. We have a few that show you 6 different objects on one side of the page spread, and you have to find them hidden somewhere in the big picture. These are "My First" look and find books so there are those 6 items plus a few others and he loves when you ask him where ______ is whether it is one of the 6 items or just any of the other ones that are on the page. He is really increasing his knowledge of a bunch of different things through these books and our other first words books which just show pictures of things and the name of what they all are. 
• knows a lot of his shapes: star, heart, circle, square, oval. He is getting really good at pointing them out but we have quite a long way to go with him telling you what they are called. The star is the one he sees and points out everywhere, so that's probably his favorite shape right now; that and the oval which he loves to say too.
• can reach the elevator call button. He's finally tall enough to push the button when we go to MyGym, but he has to get all the way on his tippy-toes. He's so excited when he can do anything like Blake does.
• just moved up to the next age group at MyGym (23 month - 2.5 yrs) because they changed the time of his other class and it wouldn't work with Blake's school. Even though he's only 20 months, he can definitely keep up with everyone physically. It's good to have him in class with the older kids now so they can encourage him to start talking more (and saying his name) and growing socially and maturing enough to participate in circle time.
• has gotten really hard to get into his car seat without distraction. Once he gets plopped in, he wants to roll over, stand up, and either mess with the light on the top of the car, grab on the handle over the door, or climb over into Blake's seat. Even after letting him explore (which we rarely have time to do since we're on a schedule most of the time) he would rather sit in Blake's forward facing seat than get back into his old boring backward facing one. 
• is saying lots of new words, he will even try a lot of new ones if prompted. I think I've lost count of all the words he's saying these days but he hasn't started putting them together for sentences just yet. He does a pretty good job of communicating what he wants most of the time either through words or sign language so that is the important thing in my book for now. We've started adding a lot of food type words to his signing vocabulary since he is getting to be a pickier eater. 
• loves to eat fruit pouches. These are what we used to phase out the breastfeeding and he still loves them and will eat at least 2 at a sitting before I cut him off and make him eat something else. This happens first thing in the morning, then for his AM snack, and then his before bed snack at night. His favorite seems to be just the plain applesauce (which he will eat out of a bowl with a spoon if we have time) which are small so he can eat a couple of them easily. Oh and we made up a sign for fruit pouch and he has gotten quite good at doing that too.
• stacks a lot of blocks on top of each other. I think he's done up to 7 of the peek-a-blocks and 7 or 8 of the small cylinder foam blocks before they fell over. He is very persistent and will try again as soon as they fall over, which is really great.
• calls animals by the sounds they make. The most common one is woof-woof since we see people walking their dogs out our kitchen window all the time when we're in there eating. For the pig he just sniffs because I used to snort for the pig sound in one of the books we used to read.
• started using a pillow in his bed. He's had quite a few colds lately and we wanted to see if getting him a pillow would help him sleep better and we're still not sure if it's helping that much or not. It's a nice and flat one but he's still sleeping in the small crib so it takes up a lot of room in there.
• calls Blake, Bubba. It was too hard for him to say Blake or anything close so we told him to just call him Bubba and he's totally embraced it. To make things more confusing he's decided to call himself Bubba too, since he's Blake's brother (bubba).
• went to the doctor for his 18 month checkup (at 20 months) and weighed in at 23 lbs (8%), measured 32.25" long (25%), and head circumference of 19.25" (73%). Poor boy is a walking candy apple. The doctor said she wasn't concerned about failure to thrive because he did so great on his autism screening and because his head is so big haha. He is super active and basically can't sit still unless he's sleeping, and even that is restless a lot of the time. 
• is getting back to taking 1 nap a day. For a while we tried it and he was so tired an cranky most of the day. It seems like he does much better with a longer nap in the morning starting closer to 11AM and then just going to bed early. We had been doing a shorter nap in the morning and a longer PM nap around 2:30PM with Blake (which gave me a nice break) but he has had a lot of trouble falling asleep in the afternoon so maybe it's finally time to shift his schedule. It's always tricky though because he seems to want to fall asleep on the way to pick up Blake from school, and then his nap is ruined because it's too short for everyone!
• loves wearing big shoes. He loves walking around the house in shoes, but he also loves wearing mine, Chris's, and even Blake's. Needless to say you have to plan extra time when you're getting ready to go somewhere so you can find your shoes.
• is starting in on the hilarious quotes. The other night I asked him "What do you want for dinner?" and without missing a beat, his response was "cookies." I guess you had to be there but I couldn't stop laughing because he said it with a totally straight face then cracked a tiny smile after he realized I thought it was funny. I just can't wait to hear everything this boy is thinking.
• insists on flushing the toilet no matter who uses it. He'll squeeze by you and stand with his hand on the lever, staring at the water, waiting to flush it as soon as you're done (and sometimes a second before). He freaks out and cries when I do it out of habit (after I go) before he can get back to do it himself. Blake is very sweet about it because he'll yell for Brett to come and help him flush just to make sure he doesn't miss an opportunity.

This month Blake:

• gives lots of ultimatums. There are many times I'm very grateful that he uses words to express his anger instead of lashing out physically (His teachers have said the same thing.) "If you don't let me do art, I'm not going to do art ever again." (Some of them make me laugh because he doesn't realize what he said in his fit of anger.) "If you don't let me eat pretzels in the living room I'm never going to love you again." Sometimes they're completely unwarranted because I didn't hear him ask for something. "If you don't get my drink I'm not going to go to bed ever again." And so on...
• learned how to make and send letters in the mail and did a lot of practicing at home. I had a bunch of old unused envelopes from our extra wedding invitations that he has put to great use. He writes his name on a square or strip of paper and puts it in the envelope and seals it with an old return address label folded over on itself. Then puts a square sticker on the front as a stamp and another return address label in it's spot. Most of the time he leaves the "to" address space blank but sometimes he'll put some ink stamps on there.
• can write his name! He's done it a few time with a lot of help but now he does it all on his own and it is so stinkin cute! He didn't have much trouble learning the B and L so he would sign everything "Bl" and stop because the other letters were "too hard". After much coaxing I was able to convince him to practice the other letters and he's gotten much more comfortable with them.
• describes things with words like coldness, blackness, whiteness etc.
• tried wheat and cocoa and seemed to do fine with them. The boys really love Enjoy Life chocolate chips so they are a good treat for now and hopefully will be a good choice for a "reward" when Brett starts potty training for real.
• quotes: "Mom, I don't really love you because I love soft shirt guys Mom (the long of saying Dad.)" (Blake put some clothes in the hamper after I asked Brett to, and Brett was screaming.) Blake:"If you're not happy you should give me a hug." *hug* "Do you feel better?" Brett:"Nahhh." Blake:"You're wrong, you do."

Pictures:

The boys discovered that the door to the patio is magnetic so all the fridge magnets got relocated.

It was really cute how well they were playing together. I've taught Blake that Brett wants to help him so he needs to give Brett "jobs" and Blake has embraced his new position as delegator. Brett loves the attention as well, so it's working out for now.

Until Brett decides he wants to do it a different way...

"No Brett, they have to be in a perfect line like this."

This boy loves being outside.

Peekaboo!

Trying on Bubba's new sunglasses (gah-gis).

Cheese smile hahaha.

He's been loving the play kitchen lately.

They are so cute with their snuggles until Brett gets a little too aggressive and I have to rescue Blake. Brett is getting big and he always ends up pushing his big 'ol noggin into your throat when he tries to snuggle.

My loves!

A rare shot of this boy holding still. 

Giving me "the look". Brett has this one mastered as well.

Grandpa came for a quick visit one day after he went to my cousin's wedding over in Orlando. Blake couldn't get enough snuggles and Brett warmed up after a few minutes. They were both so excited to spend time with their Grandpa and Blake was bouncing off the walls because he had someone new to do art with.

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