Well, I DID tell him to say "Cheese"

Bathtime, Anyone?

The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week

Hi everyone. I'm hacking into Mommy's blog to tell you my sad, pitiful tale.



It was my birthday last week. I'm 9 months old now. You know how I celebrated it? No, not with the blissful taste of my very first cookie. With peas. And ground turkey and carrots. Which I can hardly taste, thanks to my horrible cold. I can't even breathe when I eat. And Mommy keeps attacking my face with Kleenex. I hate that. (I let her know, but she still keeps doing it.)

On Sunday I threw up all over the pew during Sacrament meeting. No one even gave me a hug, they just frantically scrubbed the pew.

I have four new weird things in my mouth. They all decided to show up at the same time. I don't know what they are, but they hurt a lot. And they make me drool excessively.

Mommy took me on a walk a couple days ago. I think she was trying to make me feel better. Instead, she sunburned my head.

To top it all off, a mean lady gave me a shot yesterday. And then JEFFREY got a lollipop. Not me. Not even a little lick for me.

I can't even find solace in sleep. My brother keeps throwing toys on top of me every time I try.

If any of you out there love me, give me a BIG hug and kiss the next time you see me.

And tell me that there's more to life than this.

What are you afraid of?

It's been kind of interesting as Jeffrey has grown up to see what has scared him. In most ways, he's like the average little kid: unexpected loud noises, big animals, tall heights. He's actually remarkably good at comforting himself when confronted with them. ("It's ok, Jeffrey, it's ok....") However, occasionally something terrifies him in ways I never would have predicted:

1. Grass. He refused to sit on it or touch it for the first year of his life.
2. Bubble gum. If someone blew a bubble anywhere in his vicinity, he would seriously run and hide.
3. Vacuum cleaners. I call mine "Monstera" because it's big, clunky, and both kids HATE it. Jeffrey's gotten better, though. He now allows me to turn it on without screaming the whole time I vacuum. As long as he can watch my every move from the couch. With his blankie. And a cookie. And his fingers in his mouth. Then it's ok.
4. Electric toothbrushes.

This last item is the topic of my blog today. A couple months ago, I read an article about what a HUGE difference it makes to brush your teeth with electric toothbrushes rather than regular, and how they should especially be used by young children, who squirm too much to let you brush their teeth effectively. Wooed by the article's statistics and doom-and-gloom threats, I was thoroughly convinced. I let Jeffrey pick out a super-cool Walle toothbrush. He loved it. He played with it all the way home from the store.

Then I tried to put it in his mouth.

Screams. Tears. Tantrums. Whimpers. I tried everything I could think of. We sang toothbrush songs. We did a toothbrush dance. We counted to ten before trying to put it in his mouth. I let Jeffrey brush my teeth with my electric toothbrush. I got Mr. Potato and let Jeffrey use Walle to brush Mr. Potato's teeth. (Jeffrey even kindly helped Mr. Potato spit in the sink.) I let Jeffrey try to do it himself. ("It's ok, Jeffrey, it's ok....") But he couldn't actually do it.

We waited a few days. We tried again. Screams. Tears. Tantrums. Whimpers

Repeat the above sentence 3-4 times.

Once or twice, Daddy MADE him use Walle. Not pretty.

Eventually, we just gave up and used Walle only as a tool of terror. The following scene was a typical one at our house for a couple weeks:

Mommy: Jeffrey, it's bedtime.
Jeffrey: No bed.
Mommy: Jeffrey, we gave you your 5-minute notice. It's bedtime.
Jeffrey: No bed.
Daddy: Come on Jeffrey, we need to get ready for bed. It's time to brush your teeth.
Jeffrey: No bed.
Daddy: Jeffrey, Elmo or Walle?
Jeffrey: No Walle no Walle no Walle!
And off he runs to get his teeth brushed by Elmo (the normal toothbrush), and for the rest of the bedtime routine he is absolutely angelic.

I had despaired of ever using an electric toothbrush with Jeffrey. He was doomed to a life of dental dismay. Then a few days ago, at the grocery store, I saw this:



Dude. PROBLEM SOLVED.

My Little Theologian

Jeffrey and I have been doing scripture study together, with limited success. An excerpt from the last scripture we read together:

Mommy: "In the beginning..."
Jeffrey: "In the beginning..."
Mommy: "God..."
Jeffrey: "God..."
Mommy: "created..."
Jeffrey: "created..."
Mommy: "the heaven and the earth."
Jeffrey: "a fire truck."

The Big Brother Syndrome

Jeffrey tries very hard to be a big brother. It's a full-time job.

There's holding the baby...

Playing with him...

Helping him go to sleep...

Feeding him....

And testing out his equipment. (Strictly for safety purposes, of course.)

But sometimes, Jeffrey takes his job a bit too seriously. The other morning, he and Brandon woke up around the same time, and he decided Brandon needed some entertainment.

I heard some intermittent crying that morning for about an hour, but since it always quieted back down I assumed Brandon was still dozing. When the cries finally became genuine, Brian went to get Brandon from his crib and found this:





EVERY toy in the room was piled in there. Not only that, but Jeffrey had taken the time to separate every Lego, empty every baggie, and pull every drawer out of every dollhouse dresser. (Yes, by the way, I give my son dollhouse toys. No apologies. That's just what happens when you have a dollhouse business.) Every inch of the crib was covered 6 inches deep, except for the teeny-tiny corner in which our poor crying Brandon was scrunched.

Oh, brother.

This is what it looks like when a mommy shows off

Since I've posted very few pictures of Brandon since he was born, I thought we'd play catch-up. Here's his entire life in a nutshell:

Brandon, a couple hours after he was born

Getting ready for his first bath

First day with his life-long buddy (or arch-nemesis?)

Brandon's baby blessing, at about 5 weeks old

Brandon LOVED his swing and wouldn't sleep anywhere else for the first 5 months

Brotherly love

Brandon at about 8 weeks

Just after a walk with Mommy in Texas heat to pay rent

Brandon was smiling by this point, but he refused to let me take a picture of it. This was as close as I got for a while....

Jeffrey loved matching his brother--though I thought the brothers would look a little more alike! Outfits courtesy of Great-Grandma

Huddling up at Brandon's first football game

3 1/2 months old

Another unsuccessful attempt to get my SMILING boys on camera

Success! Put Brandon in a Halloween costume, and he won't stop smiling!

Not Brandon's favorite place to be, but he NEVER cries in the car. Mommy likes car trips.

Meeting my old teddy bear Wellington

Brandon at 5 months

Brandon doesn't find stuffed animals as interesting as Jeffrey's cars and trains, but he liked this one a lot.

To prevent being woken up by Big Brother, Brandon took a lot of naps in our bed (until he got really good at rolling over and un-swaddling himself)

6 months old--First Christmas!

He loved every minute of it!

Why do we bother buying toys when babies have toes?

First solids (carrots). Brandon clears through about 6 containers of baby food a sitting. (The boy likes to eat!!!)

A favorite place to be nowadays! This was at 7 months.

He LOVES playing with paper. (Doesn't it show?)

My super-sitter-upper! He started at about 6 1/2 months; he was 7 months in this picture.

Getting ready for our snow day!

Taken last week. So, is he adorable or is he adorable?

I love this kid!!!!

Ever wondered what would happen if you stuck a DVD in the toaster?

Neither did I. But now I know.



Oh. My. Stars.

Let me pre-empt my story by saying that I DO try to be a good mommy. I believe in hand sanitizers, door locks, and plug protectors. But when my little Mr. Mischief strikes despite my best efforts, all I can say is thank you to the Watson family guardian angel--I couldn't do it without him. (His name is Ralph.)

Jeffrey and I were playing a game in the living room when Brandon woke up from his nap. I went to the baby's room, changed his diaper, and came back out. I was gone less than two minutes, so I swear this was premeditated on Jeffrey's part. When I walked out, I saw that Jeffrey had pulled our dining room chair over to the kitchen counter and was standing over our (normally unplugged) toaster. I said, "Jeffrey, what are you doing?"

"Hot dogs!" he said with a smile.

They were not hot dogs.

They were Walle and Up, our poor, faithful little DVDs. Be still, my heart.

So, I've heard of kids sticking cookies or bread in the VCR player, but the reverse, I think, is a new one.

By the way, the toaster came out totally unscathed. (Not to mention my apartment and my son.)

I have contemplated never going to the bathroom or grabbing Brandon from the crib by myself again, but that seems a little dramatic. So does nailing all of our chairs to the floor. And I would keep our toaster above the cabinets where it can only be reached by an adult standing on the kitchen counter--but that seems to create more accident possibilities then it solves. So I will keep brainstorming. In the meantime, I'm going to go read "What to Expect the Toddler Years" three or four times.

And Ralph--thanks a million. Feel free to stick around.

V-Day

For Valentine's Day, our church had a family dance. Now, Jeffrey is a dancing man. It is an almost-daily ritual for us to put on "Sing, Sing, Sing" and just go crazy. Brandon has some other skills to pick up before he can get to dancing, but the kid loves music. So we figured it would be a hit. And it was.

First of all, they had a cotton candy machine there, and a "candy snack bar". You can't go wrong with chocolate and sugar. Actually, we had to position ourselves on the other side of the room so Jeffrey wouldn't keep sneaking over to it. Secondly, we got to dress up. I haven't been able to do that in years! Everyone else came in jeans, but we didn't care. (We knew they probably would, and when Brian asked me what I was going to do, I told him it was MY Valentine's Day and I was going to look pretty, gosh-darn-it.) And we got to DANCE! We did swing dances, Shout, Thriller, Cotton Eyed Joe, the Hustle, Men in Black--all that good stuff. We polka-d around the room, to general applause. My favorite part was the last dance, where Brian and I slow-danced as Brandon chewed on my hair and Jeffrey hugged his Daddy's knees.

It may not sound all that romantic. But I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Global Warming, My Eye

It has been a cooooooold winter in Dallas. Ok, nothing like Chicago or New York, obviously, but still--cold for these parts. A couple weeks ago, we had 9 inches of snow in one day--the most Dallas has ever had! So, Brian worked from home, and during his lunch break, we PLAYED.

Net results:

• Fun family bonding
• Great memories, with pictures to boot
• A discovery for Brian that he can live in Texas and still have snow (just once every ten years or so)
• A reaffirmation for Steph that, despite the fun, she doesn't miss snowy winters in the slightest
• An afternoon of gloriously long naps