Stairmaster

Our little monkey is getting really fast at climbing the stairs! We are impressed with his skills as we've only let him do it about 5 times so far.

Now, you may be thinking that he could use a little time on the stairmaster with the size of his behind in this video, but that is all diaper! Our little man is still the long lean machine! A voluptuous bum is one of the cons of going the cloth diaper route.

Cute Pictures Playing Outside

Here are some cute pictures of me playing outside on Sunday!

I surprised Mommy and Daddy by climbing up 2 steps on this ladder! I can also climb stairs. I love to climb! You better watch out when I get a little bigger!

Mmmm...this feels good on my teeth!

Speaking of teeth, you can call me Bucky if you want to.

I love my new tractor we got at a garage sale! $3 is kind of a lot for a garage sale toy, but Daddy really liked the pig. Plus, all the animals and farmer make noises and sing!

My super-cute-4-tooth smile!

Dad, why are you making me take this picture? You know I'm too young to swing on this swing! Put me in my swing!

Look at me! I'm on the big slide! Whoa, it's a long way down!

See you soon!

New Motto

Brandon has a new motto. It used to be that whenever he looked at something he would think to himself, "I can put that in my mouth!"

Now, he thinks, "I can stand with that!"

All he wants to do these days is stand, stand, stand! Here's some proof:

I can stand in my crib! Even in my blanket sleeper!

I love my LeapFrog table! (although you'd never know it from this silly face I'm making)

One of my favorite things to do is try to stand with Mommy's nursing stool. I like to roll my toys off of it's slanted surface too!

The laundry basket can entertain me for the longest time! (well, maybe 5 minutes)

This ottoman is great for standing practice! Don't get the wrong idea from this picture. I am not allowed to watch much TV. Mom doesn't let me watch my baby DVDs unless I'm driving her crazy and she's having a rough day. Hmmm....maybe I should whine a little more often...

Here are some other recent pictures to show what else I've been up to:

I can open drawers! Cool, huh?

I like to ride around in the laundry basket and "help" with the clean diapers.

I have both teeth now! No more Sloth!

Last weekend we went to Branson, MO. Mom and Dad thought they should check it out since we live pretty close. We had a good time! I was so good (except I cried a lot in the car on the way there). I went to sleep easily for all of my naps and at night in my pack 'n' play! Here we are on a little hike. This is the first time I got to ride in my big boy Kelty backpack! It was fun!

Also while we were in Branson, we went to Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede (because it was just about the only show Mom and Dad could bring me to). I thought all the lights and animals were really cool, but towards the end I got pretty overstimulated and just tuned it all out and played with my toys. Mom and Dad's favorite part was the racing pigs! Here I am afterward next to a horse. This is the closest I've ever been to a horse, but I wasn't too interested. Maybe I'll figure out how cool animals are in a few months.

I hope you enjoyed the update! See you soon!

Heyyyy Youuuu Guyyyys!

I hesitate to make this post. I no doubt will get some grief from at least one grandparent. I probably should follow it up soon with another posting, so it doesn't linger at the top of the blog for too long. Well....here it goes!

Last week, Brandon gave me a huge 3-tooth smile. I kept thinking, "where have I seen that smile before?"

Finally, it dawned on me.

Sloth. The initially scary, but ultimately lovable creature from The Goonies. Brandon has been lovingly referred to as "Sloth" by his dad ever since I made this correlation.
Luckily the resemblance ends with the teeth (I hope you agree...), and the current teeth arrangement is only temporary as tooth #4 is fast on its way.


Wanna hear something else kind of funny? I was called "Sloth" for a little while in college. I was thinking about it, and I think I remember why. One night a group of us were driving around Winston-Salem completely lost. (I'm lucky I made it back to campus each time I left with my sense of direction and no GPS. My roommate wasn't much better - Right Christie?). We saw a few cops standing outside on the street, so we decided to ask them for directions. In order to get their attention (because I was the driver), I yelled, "Heyyy youuu guyyyys!" (which is the classic line by Sloth in The Goonies rivaled only by "I love Chunk!") I don't know why I thought that was more appropriate than something like, "Excuse me Officers," or "Would one of you mind helping us with directions?" In my defense, I did not say it the way that Sloth did in the movie. It was more like I was calling over a group of my buddies. Poor judgment, I know, but any disrespect was completely unintentional. It's in those situations that spending 2 seconds pre-thinking what is about to come out of your mouth is time well spent. From what I remember, we didn't get a strange reaction out of the officers, and we did end up making it to wherever we were going. The only negative consequence was my short-lived nickname of Sloth.

I hope this will not forever change the way you look at my son. And if I ever hear one of you call him "Sloth" don't expect a Christmas card. Hopefully the name will be lost here soon as that precious mouth fills with little teeth!

Spring Picnic and more

Here are some recent pictures of Brandon:

Do I look like a Demon Deacon to you, or an Angel Deacon?

Don't I look cool in my Spartan shirt and my cool shades? I love these sunglasses! Mom totally thought I would rip them off the first time she put them on me, but I just left them there. Not having to squint in the sun and sneeze (I usually sneeze when the sun gets in my face) is pretty great!

Check this out! I can pull up on my knees now, and I do it all the time! Give me another couple of weeks, and I bet I'll be pulling up to stand all by myself!

Mom, Dad, and I went for a long walk in Shawnee Mission Park and then we had a picnic! Here I am kickin' back by the lake.

This is where we had our picnic. Mom says this is what she imagined parenting to be like - having picnics in the park on a beautiful day with her handsome husband and adorable baby. Mom and Dad ate some food while I read my book and ate some puffs. I love baby puffs!

I can read in all kinds of positions! I do this "downward dog" yoga pose a lot. I guess I'm trying to stand, and this is the best I can do on my own. I've got some pretty strong muscles...at least that's what all the girls say.

All I have to do is flash this smile at one of my parents, and I have them wrapped around my little finger. More puffs please, mom!

Whoops! What is this green stuff! I don't know if I like it!

Oh yeah...it's just grass. I can totally handle this! It's fun to experience new textures.

Just looking cute again...or still.

Like my hat?

Mom likes this picture for some reason, even though you can't see my face. Looks like a greeting card.

Hi! I have 3 teeth! Wanna see?

See you again soon!

Top 14 at 9 months

Brandon will be 9 months next week! We have some cute new spring pictures that I'll post soon (you get a sneak peak of one in the new header), but we've been meaning to do another "favorite things" post for a while now. This is mostly so we can look back and remember all the things we love about Brandon, but some of you might be interested in his cute antics too.

Here are the top things we love or think are interesting about Brandon right now. I couldn't narrow it down to 10, so this is a top 14 list.

• Brandon loves attention (what baby doesn't?). If I'm trying to get something done in the kitchen, he will army crawl across the room and then pull on my pants and ram his little head repeatedly into my shin until I pick him up.
• He loves to stand! He hasn't figured out how to pull up on furniture yet, but if one of us is on the floor with him, all he wants to do is climb on us until he's standing. Once he's standing up holding onto our fingers or shoulders, he laughs and does a silly little bouncing dance.
• Brandon does not like loud noises, but he is slowly becoming more tolerant of them. He HATES the vacuum cleaner, squeaky windows closing, and he is very suspicious of the blender when it goes over low speed. He also starts crying whenever his daddy screams in victory while watching a sporting event. It's probably good for Brandon's mental stability that Michigan State didn't make it to the final game.
  
• Brandon seems to be a little over sensitive to most sensory input. He has super hearing powers for one thing. And he hated grass the first few times he touched it. Now he is really interested in grass and will venture off the picnic blanket to feel it. After his first bad experience with grass (not the drug), I got a little worried (after all I am an OT who has worked with many kids who have sensory problems, and I never thought I'd have a child with them!). So I got out my therapy container of dried rice & beans and did some work with him. He wanted nothing to do with this activity at first and would only touch it with his his fingertips. After 2 "sessions" he now loves to put his hands in the dried mixture. I've concluded that Brandon is hesitant of new sensory experiences, but he just needs a few minutes to explore them on his own with some encouragement and then he is fine. He comes by all this honestly...I had major issues as a child with some sensory stuff. If there was one wrinkle in my sock, my day was pretty much ruined. My blessed mom spent countless minutes each morning before school trying to get my socks right. And I still dislike being barefoot in the grass.
• He has a cute little head shake right before falling asleep. He has done this since he was born. He will shake his little head in a quick "no" gesture really quickly right before he doses off.
• He loves his blanket sleeper. I think it is his security blanket. As soon as we put it on him, he holds the extra fleece fabric on the front and rubs it on his face and bites on it a little bit.
• Brandon gives us kisses! Well, kind of... Sometimes when we kiss his cheeks, he'll turn his face towards us with an open mouth and try to put his mouth on our face! If he succeeds, he will suck like a little fish. More recently, though he has started to bite, so I don't let him give me vampire kisses very often.
  
• Brandon turns book pages, but only if it's a book he's interested in. Out of his book collection of probably 40 books, he really only likes about 6 enough to pay attention for the whole thing. These include Dr. Seuss ABC, Hand Hand Fingers Thumb, The Eye Book, Goodnight Moon, Oh the Thinks You Can Think!, and The Hungry Caterpillar. We could read these over and over all day long and he wouldn't get tired of them (but we would)!
• Brandon is always moving. We are convinced this is why he is in the 10th-25th percentile for weight.
• He loves those baby puffs, and they are extremely helpful for keeping him occupied in the car at stoplights and on any kind of outing. His pincer skills are quite good!
  
• Brandon is starting to have stranger anxiety. If someone new holds him, he either smiles at them right away or starts crying. I don't know why he doesn't like some people at first. He warms up to everyone pretty quickly, though.
  
• Brandon plays a "bib game." While eating, he likes to take off his bib. When I attempt to get it from him to put it back on, he will grab onto it tightly so we are playing tug-of-war, and he just looks me in the eye and laughs. Little stinker! I have ordered a bib that he will not be able to pull off, and I am anxiously anticipating its arrival.
• He laughs when I say "I love you, Brandon." Since he was about 5 months old, whenever I would say those words, he would look at me and give me a little giggle. I love it!
• He smiles at me in the store. I usually put Brandon in the Ergo Baby Carrier when I do my grocery shopping still. He likes it better than being in the cart because I am continually moving. Usually about halfway through my shopping I'll look down at him, and he is just staring at me smiling. When I give him attention, he giggles. It's like he's thinking, "I've seen enough of this store, Mom, I just want to look at you." Pretty cute, huh?
  

Brandon's 8 month pictures

Here is the link to the slideshow of Brandon's 8 month professional pictures by our very talented friend Sarah Sorell!

www.sorellimages.com/brandon8months/

There are so many more great ones from this session as it is so much easier to get Brandon to smile now compared to when he was 4 months old.