Fashion Advice from a 2 Year Old

The perks of a sweet little boy just keep coming…

Last  night, talking to Jason on the phone:
K: Did my package come in the mail today?!?!
J: Yes, I see you got two pairs of shoes.  The white ones are ugly.  (This is what I love most and least about my husband – he holds nothing back)
K: Well, maybe they are, I did pick them out online…I’ll look at them when I get home.

Get home & I think they’re cute – so I ignore Jason and proceed to wear them this morning.  I walk into Brody’s room to wake him up.  Within 30 seconds of being in the room:

B: Mama’s shoes are pretty!!
K: (Not sure I heard him right) What did you say sweetie?
B:  Mama – pretty shoes!!

After thanking him for being such a sweet little boy, I quickly yelled downstairs to tell Jason that he’s clearly wrong about the shoes.  We’ll just ignore the fact that I’m taking fashion advice from a two-year-old!

Favorite Words

Of course I loved the moments that Brody said “Mama” for the first time, or when he started calling me Mommy instead.  I even loved it when he realized my name was Kellie and listening to him try to pronounce it is pretty cute.

However, my absolute favorite words, so far, haven’t been the most common ones.

There is just something cute about little kids saying things that you wouldn’t expect them to say.  For instance, the first time Brody said “Bless you” when I sneezed, was absolutely the cutest most adorable thing I had ever heard him say. 

Another cute one?  When he started saying, “excuse me” when he was done eating, in order to be excused from the table, instead of just “all-done.”  They taught him that one at school, but it was just such a polite thing to come out of a 2 year-old’s mouth!

My newest favorite words?  “You okay Mama?”

This usually happens if I drop something, or hurt myself and yell something I probably shouldn’t in front of a 2 year old (though I’m getting really good at keeping the swearing to a minimum, I still need to watch the words like “crap”).

This morning, I dropped my cell phone in the hallway and Brody was still laying in his crib (he does this when he doesn’t want to get out of bed in the morning).

All of a sudden I hear from the other end of the hall, “You okay Mama??”  It’s the one of the sweetest 3 words that come out of his mouth…and I love it. 

30 Seconds with my Toddler

“Shoes” as I put on his shoes

“Moon!” pointing to the Nike symbol on his shoes

“No Brody, that is a swoosh – can you say swoosh?”

“No! Moon!”

“Swoosh”

“No!” OK – that argument was pointless.

“Shoes on….socks on”

“Airplane” points outside

“Mama gloves” points to my gloves

“Dada gloves” no gloves to be seen

“Dada working”

“Yes Brody, Dada went to work, are we going to go to school?”

“Doggies! Doggies barking!”

“Milk cold”

“Yes, your milk IS cold, let’s go to school now”

Lather.Rinse.Repeat.

Chatty Brody

“Between 18 and 20 months, his pace will pick up as he acquires ten or more new words each day. If he’s especially focused on learning to talk, he can add a new word to his vocabulary every 90 minutes!” –BabyCenter.Com

As much as I was surprised to read this statistic, I am also not very surprised. Even though Brody is almost 22 months, this describes him perfectly. He constantly is saying new words that I had no idea he knew! Even when we’re not intentionally teaching him a new word, he’s learning it by listening to us.

Aside from the fact that I need to watch what I say (and do!), it’s amazing watching him pick up every little thing. Somehow in the last couple of weeks Brody has learned the word “Coffee.” So every morning he points to our cups and says, “Mama coffee/Dada coffee.” And I swear we don’t drink THAT much! Then we were out to dinner and he asked for our “fries.” I think he gets fries at daycare, but he’s never had them at home or out with us before. So I had no idea he even knew what those were! Guess I should probably start watching what I eat too…

He also likes to put ownership to everything. It’s “Brody’s milk”, “Mama’s coat” etc. He also generalizes certain things. Mommy and Daddy is universally applied to anyone that looks like a Mom or Dad….in books, at daycare, at the store… It’s akward the first time your child points at a strange man and yells “Daddy!” I just keep repeating, “yep – that’s one of your friend’s dads” and hope one day he’ll catch on.

Toddler Talk

Conversations with Brody:

Jason: “After we get a haircut, we’re going to go to Kohl’s”

Brody: “Cole!!!” (Brody’s name for Aunt Nicole)

Me: “No Brody, we’re going shopping, at Kohl’s Department Stores”

Brody: “Cole’s!!!”

Me: “Boy, he’s going to be pretty dissapointed when he realizes Nicole won’t be there and he has to go shopping for Kitchen gadgets…”

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Brody: “Ben? Where Ben?” (Ben is one of our chocolate labs)

Me: “Ben is upstairs, Cody is right there” (Cody is our other lab)

Brody: “No, Ben!”

Me: “Is Ben your favorite?”

Brody: “Yes”

Me: “Is that because you can only say ‘Ben’? “

Brody: “Yes!”

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Me: “Brody, what do you want for breakfast? Waffles?”

Brody: “No! Cereal.”

Me: “Oh, you want cereal?”

Brody: “No!!”

Me: “What do you want for breakfast?”

Brody: “Waffles!!”

Laughing our way through Toddlerhood

It’s been way too long since I’ve blogged. First, it was because I was working ridiculous hours…I mean “ridiculous, I haven’t seen my child in 5 days” kind of hours. Then I was back to working normal hours and spending every waking minute with my son, husband, family, friends and then catching up on all the house related stuff we ignored.

Now…we’re catching our breath, so it’s time to blog again! Which is really a good thing, because, seriously, toddlers are funny. I mean babies are cute, sleepy and cuddly. But toddlers are really fun. They’re also difficult, stubborn and stressful. But very fun.

Brody is in a stage where he freaks out if anything isn’t the way he expects. Example: he likes it if you give him a cheese stick whole & he’ll take bites off of it. If you break it into little pieces for him, he doesn’t want it, and will literally cry about it. In his mind, it’s just not the same! You learn which battles to pick and move on.

So this morning, Brody and I were walking out to the car in the garage like we do every morning. However, today, I wasn’t wearing any shoes. My shoes were in the car already and I was going to put them on in the garage (my husband is probably rolling his eyes right now that I didn’t at least put sandals on and now my socks are probably dirty).

And Brody, could not handle it at all. “Mama, shoes!!”

When I reassured him that they were just in the car and I could walk out to get them, he just started picking up every other pair of shoes I had by the back door.

“Mama shoes, mama shoes” as he hands me one shoe after the other. He actually refused to walk out the back door until he saw me pull my shoes out of the car and put them on.

It’s times like this that you just have to laugh at how his little brain works. If you’re not laughing, you’re probably pulling your hair out trying to rationalize with him…so we choose to laugh.

More stories, including a catch-up on how our last 3 summer vacations went (Michigan, Green Bay, New York), coming soon!

Updates

It’s been over a month since I’ve blogged. So obviously my resolution to blog more often is failing. As for my other three resolutions, I’m 1 for 3. Organizing – I’m made good strides here: updated fridge calendar, coupon organizer, place to put bills and even organized my pictures on our computer.

As for the other two, I haven’t lost any weight and a promotion at work in early January hasn’t been helping my ability to be home more often. But it’s early in the year and at least I’m trying to make an effort on working less & living in the moment more – I swear!

As for our adorable little toddler…

Brody continues to change in front of our eyes everyday. I think I say this about every stage, but I’m really loving all the new skills he’s learning.

He’s up to using 4 baby-signs to communciate with us (more, all-done, eat and please/help). The last one just recently and he’s using the sign “please” but seems to use it mostly when he wants help with something. He understands the sign “drink” but doesn’t use it. We, however, use it with or without the word and he understands what we want him to do.

He also understands us really well. We ask for a hug or a kiss and he’s happy to share them with us (by far my favorite skill – even though his kisses are a bit sloppy 🙂 ). We ask him where his doggies are and he’ll point right to them. He knows the word “no” but cleverly ignores it when he wants to (how young they start!)

Brody’s favorite activities these days are: playing catch with his doggies (although he does get upset when they run off with the ball and don’t come back), playing with shape-sorters, dancing and playing with blocks. He giggles constantly and I can’t get enough of it.

Talking

Brody can say “mama” and “dada” and “baba” and “lalalalala.” However, none of those things actually seem to mean anything to him, except that they are fun sounds he can make with his mouth. Until now…

I’m now convinced that Brody thinks “Mama” = “More food now!” We hear it the most when he’s in his high chair waiting for food. And when he’s especially hungry he starts saying it more frequently and more urgently. “MAMAMAMA!”

Then it stops when I walk over to him with his food. Therefore Mama = Food.

Jason tried reassuring me the other night by reminding me that when Brody wants out of his crib, he will occasionally say “mama” as well. So he’s convinced that Brody just knows who will give him what he wants.

I can’t complain though…there aren’t a lot of “dadas” flying out of his mouth. 🙂

Brody’s "First Word"

Jason and I are convinced that Brody has already spoken his first word: “ow.”

Every once in awhile after Brody sneezes, he makes this adorable noise that sounds like “ow.” It’s really cute and the first time we heard it we both swore that is what he was saying.

Last night we had our first non-biased witnesses to this behavior. They agreed with us that is what is sounded like. So I’m officially convinced, at less than 3 weeks old, our genius baby is already talking!