1. His rubber duckie
The rubber duckie is a must at bath time-he sometimes holds it like it's his little baby.
2. Water-Drinking and playing in it!
Like mentioned before, he LOVES to have drinks from Mommy's/Daddy's drinking glasses. If he sees us drinking, he will get really excited and start reaching for it.
3. Soccer ball
No explanation needed. He loves it. Loves to play with it, bite it, lick it, drop it, retrieve it...kinda sounds like a dog..haha
4. Pulling off Mommy's glasses
He gets WAY excited when Mommy puts on her glasses in the morning because he knows it is going to be a fun filled day ahead....I think his record is successfully pulling them off 8 times in 3.5 minutes...Mommy needs to train herself to carry Brycen facing out from her body...
5. Paper
He is our own personal paper shredder...well, he is even better than a shredder...he is our paper disposal....He loves to use his teeth to literally destroy pieces of paper and gets a hoot out of Mommy's sad attempts to retrieve the little pieces of paper from his mouth. He opens his mouth wide, starts to giggle, and then right when Mommy has her finger in there; chomp chomp chomp. As a result, Brycen gets away with eating paper sometimes due to Mommy's want to keep her fingers intact.
6. Pulling hair
Enough sad. He's a pro at it, finds it hilarious, and it hurts. haha. Bryce has learned to hold Brycen's hands when he puts him on his shoulders so that Brycen can't pull his hair. However, we were at the grocery store last weekend when Bryce suddenly turned to me and said, "Christi, what is Brycen doing?" Sure enough...Brycen found a new way to pull his hair...with his very own 6 teeth. :)
7. Bath time
Brycen continues to adore bath time, not just for the chance to play with his rubber duckie in the water--but when I said earlier that he is obsessed with drinking water, I wasn't kidding. He's dream would be for Mom and Dad to look away long enough for him to drink up his whole tub. Brycen finds several ways to successfully drink his bath water--clever he is! He has a habit to throw his rubber duckie over the edge (he has an infant tub that sits in our larger tub) and then take his time in retrieving it, slurping the water as he is bent over trying to grab it. Mommy and Daddy quickly caught on to it through and Brycen has a hard time repeating it. So...Brycen then decided to do the full on duck dive which involves him dunking his whole head into the water and coming up coughing with a big grin on his face. We're not allowing him or rather trying really hard for him to do this in the future--he is fast though! So, when all else fails and Brycen will repeatedly splash himself in the face and then lick off the water. Crazy kid.
We do hope he continues to love water as he grows up--getting in the recommended 8-10 glasses a day--but he does NOT need all that extra water now! He is supposed to have very limited, if any, extra water-besides what he gets from food--so, as funny as his water obsession is. At times, it is scary and we are taking measures to try to prevent him from drinking water--especially his bath water--where he still enjoys making 'fountains' regularly in...yuck.
He is also starting to learn how to climb out of his bath tub.
8. Touching everything!
Brycen has a strong desire to touch/hold everything. If someone was to walk in on some of our mornings, they would probably not think too highly of me as they watch a 22 year old literally having to have a tug-o-war with a 6 month old baby in order to get her cereal bowl back. The sad thing is, Brycen has quite the death grip and it takes a great deal of effort to pry his grip off and then he has a tendency to just all the sudden let go...sending cheerios and milk into Mommy's face.
Brycen also decided to grab the whole thing of grapes one morning while Mommy was trying to make Daddy's lunch. Mommy swears that she searched Brycen's entire mouth after taking the grapes away so that he wouldn't choke on his very first grape. She searched- nothing, she turns away, turns back, he is chewing, she checks again, nothing, he chews..then swallows. His cheeks are amazing at playing hide-and-seek and as a result, Brycen successfully had his first grape!
9. Loves his Daddy time.
Lately, Brycen has been getting up when Daddy gets up--much to Mommy's dislike, she loves her sleep! But Daddy has been wonderful in picking Brycen up, changing his diaper, and taking him along as he goes about his morning routine. Brycen enjoys breakfast with Daddy as he will feed him cheerios and the occasional marshmallows and raisins. Brycen loves doing it so much that if Daddy leaves the room without first picking him up, he has a little fit and holds his arms out. When Daddy leaves to go to school, Brycen again has a rough time watching him walk out the door but when he comes back--boy, does he love it! He holds his arms out and bounces wanting to be held. It's adorable. Mommy looks forward to the weekends where Daddy will occasionally take Brycen for an hour or two while Mommy gets to sleep in! Life is wonderful!
Story behind the picture below: So, On Wednesday nights, we have a potluck dinner at our neighbors house; however, when it was time to head over one Wednesday-Brycen was still taking a nap. Not knowing how long he was going to sleep, Christi had a sweatshirt and blanket set out right next to Brycen so when he woke up, we could grab and go. Well, since Christi hates to wake him- we put one cell phone in Brycen's room and took one with us and "listened" so we would know when Brycen woke up. When he woke up, Bryce volunteered to go get him...which was wonderful! And Christi was thinking that Bryce would surely see the sweatshirt and blanket set out so she didn't bother to remind him. Well, Bryce came back with a Brycen that was still in his shirt sleeve outfit. "Bryce??" (Christi)..."Yeah, I didn't think to dress him up until we were outside" (Bryce). Typical males. haha. So for on the way home, Bryce gave up his sweatshirt to keep Brycen warm.
Brycen also refuses to go to sleep until Bryce comes home to give him his good night kiss on his forehead. Tonight, Bryce had a dinner with his research group and Christi thought for sure that Brycen would be asleep long before Bryce came home--however, Brycen insisted on staying up 4 hours!! and then fell asleep in Bryce's arms...
10. Food
He is never picky--wants to eat anything and everything! And will gladly open his mouth anytime to try new foods.
Feeding himself a graham cracker.
11. Bumbo
Brycen loves to sit in his bumbo and make noise by pounding his feet on the counter while attempting to clear off the counter. He has also learned how to spin the lazy susan.
Thing he would rather do without:
1. Clothing changes.
"Let me just go naked!"
2. The blue bulb.
So all parents know this. The hospital gives you a blue bulb to have/use if a baby is ever choking but most use it as a nose boogie catcher. Brycen has had a few stuffy noses this season and thus, can't sleep well. So, we have used the blue bulb to help ease/solve the nose problem. Brycen absolutely hates it and will now plug his nose whenever he sees it. He will gladly open his mouth though--he loves to chew on anything!
3. Nap time
"Mommy..I'm really not tired..how am I supposed to sleep in this prison cell anyway??"
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Recent update:
As for crawling...Brycen can rock on his hands and knees but as soon as he sees a toy-he does a belly flop, and then proceeds to 'swim'-swinging his arms and legs-getting no where. It's a work-in-progress.
We are enjoying life...
And people wonder why I don't dare to go shopping without my husband:)
Bryce bought me a rose to celebrate 2 years since he proposed to me-Nov. 20, 2007
and we are really looking forward to Brycen's first Thanksgiving and Christmas! Happy Holidays!
