My Favorite 2 1/2 year old

Rockin’ Mommy’s sunglasses

Let’s face it.  This blog has been quiet for a few months and when I do post, it’s very much baby related.  Unfortunately, that’s probably a little representative of how things are going at home.  I’m trying to be very conscious of not talking about Aedan too much and reassuring Brody that he’s still my favorite “big-boy.”  As the end grows nearer, I think he’s getting more and more worried about his attention from his parents.

Yesterday, I dropped him off at daycare and along with begging me to stay longer to play with him, he actually whimpered (not quite crying) when I left.  He hasn’t acted that way in well over a year.  It nearly broke my heart. 

So, the last few weeks, we’ve tried to do some extra-fun activities and have been doing as much “family of three” stuff before that changes.  Our regular babysitters haven’t been happy about this arrangement, but Brody is getting lots of mommy & daddy time! 

Zoo Train

“Driving” a tractor

Snack-time in front of the Badger Game

So here’s a few updates on what Brody is into these days:

-Despite the start of the football season, he’s still obsessed with playing baseball.  Which also means I often have baseballs thrown at me when I’m not looking.  (we’re working on that!)

-He still loves reading books – his favorite lately seems to be “The Big Hungry Bear,” which is funny because we’ve had the book for a long time but he loves it more after reading it with Aubrie on our vacation with them.

-We don’t let him watch that many TV shows, so the few we approve of generally rotate.  The last few weeks though, he’s loving Dora & Diego.  Lately he’s been a bit of a TV addict (asking to watch it all the time), so we’re saying no a lot more often and trying to control that for now. 

-Still as active as ever.  The best days we have with him are when he gets time to run around outside.  It’s better when we go somewhere (like the zoo).  I’m dreading winter-time!

I LOVE the funny things this kid says & does…so here’s a few:

-“I don’t want one brother, I want TWO”

-Randomly singing a Tim McGraw/Kenney Chesney song in the car…when it wasn’t even playing on the radio!

-“Mom you can’t wear boots, it’s not snowing outside!”  (Clearly I’ve stopped taking fashion advice from him)

-“I don’t want to be a big brother, I’m going to be a big sister”

 

Goodbye 2011!

2011 was a great year for our family, but more than anything, it was the year without any major changes!! It felt good. (OK, Jason was promoted to VP and I was promoted to Manager, but I am not counting those as major changes since we stayed in the same jobs, just added responsibility)

I look back at our lives since we got engaged. Basically, Jason put the ring on my finger and we took off running:

*2005 – Engaged, graduated, moved to Kansas City, started a new job (also the year Jason and I got back together after a 1 year hiatus)

*2006 – Jason moved to Kansas City / started a new job, married, bought a house

*2007 – Sold our first house, moved to Cincinnati, adopted two doggies, Jason started a new job

*2008 – Sold our second house, moved back to Wisconsin, started new jobs

*2009 – Pregnant!! Bought our third house.

*2010 – Brody! A fun, but exhausting year…

*2011 – Time to breathe….

2011 really was the year of travel. I love vacations, big or small. I don’t like to sit still, so getting out of town every chance we got, was really fun. We had big vacations (NYC & Punta Cana) and we had a ton of smaller vacations (Michigan, Indiana, Kansas, couple of Wisconsin getaways).

Without the big changes, 2011 was really a great year. It had it’s ups and downs, but we really had fun and grew as a family this year. Taking Brody on a plane for the first time was probably the highlight of the year as well as an entire week with my husband and friends without children. While I love Brody to death, it’s refreshing to spend a little time on ourselves.

I look forward to 2012 and everything that it will bring, hoping for an equally low-stress year.

But look at how far we’ve come…

Dec 2010

Summer 2011

December 2011

Christmas Day

Today Santa will have brought Brody wonderful gifts placed underneath the tree. He will likely get bored from opening gifts and end up distracted by the ones he’s already opened. Jason and I will exchange gifts (I really think he’ll love what I bought him!!)…and we’ll enjoy the not so quiet Christmas morning with a toddler.

Then our crew will come over. Our immediate family on my Dad’s side consists of 7 children, 2 parents, 1 spouse, 1 boyfriend, 1 grandchild…and that’s how we became the Brady Bunch…

It will be noisy, it will be fun, and we’ll love every minute of it. Again, Brody will be a spoiled little man, as he loves it when all of his aunts come over.

Brody’s GG (Great-Grandma) & Great Aunt Molly will join us later in the morning before we do nap-time and head over to my step-mom’s parents house. The rest of the day hasn’t been decided yet, but there will definitely be a Packer Game and quiet time. With all fingers crossed that Brody is in bed by kick-off.

At the end of it all, we’ll be exhausted, but I’ll wonder how it came and went so fast.

I love the holidays.

It’s the holiday season!

I LOVE Christmastime. I love it even more now that I have a little guy to share it with. Last year was fun as his first Christmas, and he was able to do a lot since he was almost 1 at that point. However, this year, I know he’ll enjoy it a lot more and he understands a lot more.

We’ve been reading him the Christmas Story in his bible for awhile. But one of my proudest moments as a Mom (so far) was when my sister told me that Brody pointed out Jesus when they went to look at Christmas lights. It was one of those moments where you realize that what you teach them and tell them really sinks in! (He also calls the bible his Jesus-book…too cute)

Since we were on vacation for a week in December, it put me a bit behind on the Christmas spirit (though my shopping was basically done Thanksgiving weekend…woohoo!) So as soon as we got home, I kicked in the Christmas mode…

First up? Decorating Christmas cookies! A friend of ours bakes cookies with her 2 year old, and I’ve never really done that with Brody. So I though sugar cookies would be a perfect start.

He did a pretty good job putting on the icing…

Then he soon realized he could eat what he was decorating with and started licking the side of the sprinkles container (since frosting was all over it). He did a pretty good job though and loved eating his artwork!Next up? Santa Claus! Now, as I mentioned before, I was already behind on Christmas stuff…which included prepping Brody for the big Santa Claus visit. He freaked out last year…
So I probably should have been talking to him about it for at least a week ahead of time to get him excited. Instead, I really only gave him 1 days notice. He was so freaked out by Santa that I couldn’t even attempt to put him on his lap. I’ve never seen him so scared in his life, so it wasn’t worth making it worse. Get me outta here!!!

Daddy, help me!!

It went quick and then we were able to take some pictures of him in his cute outfit. Oh well, hopefully next year will be better!

Working Mom Struggles

As I mentioned before, the end of our summer got a little crazy at work. For a few months I was working crazy hours. At least 6 weeks of it Jason was basically a single parent, when I never even left town! I easily thought about quiting my job daily. (OK not really since I knew it was only temporary and I love my job).

I’ve gone through busy periods in my career and had jobs that never seemed to not been in a busy time. Everytime that happened though, there was only one person I was leaving at home. When it was just Jason and me, he was very understanding when I had to work late. Sure I’d get the occasional complaint, but at the end of the day, he understood that I enjoyed my job and sometimes that required a lot of hours.

Ever since Brody was born, I’ve been in a job where we have busy times, but that really only amounted to 50 hours a week. And I’ve been very lucky where I can work at home at night instead of staying at the office late.

Then we had an unexpected thing come up at work (it was accounting related, so I won’t bore you with the details), that not only did I have to work late and work weekends, it wasn’t optional. For the first time in my career, I was told that I had to work all weekend. We were here for 15 hour days for over 10 days straight. Which = not seeing Brody for most of those days.

Things I learned:
1. There is a reason I work where I do…this was a rare situation, where other career paths I could have taken would expect this on a regular basis.

2. I’m not emotionally capable of handling being absent from my family for long periods of time. There were a lot of tears shed… (Also, working 90-100 hours in a week is exhausting)

3. I have the BEST HUSBAND IN THE WORLD! Ok, I already knew that, but, he’s always been there for me when I needed it and this time was no exception. I normally take Brody to daycare every day. But in order for me to get home before 10pm at night, I had to start coming in earlier than daycare opened. So he had to go to work late a couple days a week, just so I could be in at 6am. His job is important to him too, so it wasn’t easy to have to balance that as well as taking on Brody full-time.

On the weekends when I was at work, Jason didn’t just sit at home with Brody staring at the TV, he actually took him out to do things. Our zoo passes were awesome because they would just head out to the zoo for a few hours and then head home when they got bored. He really is a great father.

4. We have a great family. Again, I already knew this, but we had a few people have to come and babysit last minute because I couldn’t get out of work. It’s a huge help having them around and knowing Jason wasn’t in it alone.

5. I do really work for a great company. There were many people who had to go above and beyond this summer and they made sure to recognize everyone.

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!

Why I blog

As anyone who actually still looks at this blog knows, I have barely written anything in the last few months. So I began reflecting on why I blog…

Well, it started as a way to document my pregnancy and then realized it’s also a great way to keep family and friends (who I never have time to call on a regular basis) in the loop on Brody’s development as a baby. He was changing daily, so it was nice to document it.

Now…Brody has gotten a little older and while he is still growing and changing at a rapid pace, it’s not the same as the first year of his life. Some weeks, I don’t have as many things to write as others. Then there are the weeks that I have a ton to write, but don’t have the time to do it. Then when I find time, I forget some of the things I wanted to write about.

The other day I was browsing through older posts on my blog and looked at some pictures of Brody that don’t seem so long ago. Yet, he looks so different today than even a couple of months ago. And I realized that I’m missing out on documenting his first summer as a toddler. And it’s been a busy, adventurous summer!

So on that note, a preview of our 18 month professional photos (taken by McManigal Photography). Once again, she did a wonderful job capturing Brody and our family. These are only the first few that we’ve seen, but I expect the rest to be just as wonderful.

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.

Happy 4th of July

Brody celebrated his first 4th of July this weekend. It was a busy weekend and overall he had a great time!

Saturday we headed downtown to the fireworks that I used to go to when I was a kid. It meant a lot to take Brody with me even though it took a toll on his regular sleep schedule. He decided to boycott his afternoon nap and didn’t fall asleep until well after 9. Then when the fireworks started he woke up again. However, he didn’t seem to mind the noise at all! He actually started to giggle at some points and just wanted to play. We were so close the fireworks that debri was falling down on us, so he stayed in his stroller well covered up. But we did let him see the fireworks a little.

Then on Sunday we headed to Brody’s Uncle Nick & Aunt Jenny’s house to celebrate the 4th with Jason’s family. Again, his sleep schedule was very off. Despite his constant yawning and rubbing of eyes he refused to miss out on any fun by taking a nap. We couldn’t get him to sleep all afternoon/evening and when he did fall asleep, he woke up 15 minutes later. Finally he fell asleep….once the fireworks started! Who knew that loud booming and crowd noise could put a baby to sleep? We were smart enough to keep him strapped in his carseat the whole time, so he slept through the fireworks and straight to bed when we got home. Apparently this is also the trick to getting him to sleep in until 8am.

To wrap up the fun-filled weekend, Monday afternoon we headed to the Brewers game. This was Brody’s third Brewers game in his short 5 month life. He slept a bit during the game waking several times to loud cheers. I don’t think he appreciated the crowd constantly interupting his sleep. He handled the heat really well, but his clothes didn’t last long. What’s cuter than a baby in nothing but a diaper in public? I didn’t care as long as he was cool enough.

In the last month…

Brody has started eating solids:

Been swimming:

Started sitting unsupported (he cannot pull himself up yet, but will stay sitting for quite awhile!):

Got an exersaucer:

Started playing in a jumper:

He’s also had multiple runny noses, fevers, two ear infections, a sinus infection, hives, rounds of antibiotics and passed all sorts of germs around the house! So between the doctor appointments, busy summer activities and my busy work schedule, things have been a bit quiet on here. If not sooner, I’ll definitely be back to posting more regularly in the fall!