Out of the mouth of Brady

I find I'm enjoying the stage Brady's in a lot more than I thought I would. I'm a baby person- I Love babies. But Brady's at this stage that can only be described as HILARIOUS at times. I'm documenting some of his cuteness so I don't forget it.

Brett sold the pub table and chairs we used in the townhouse; so the chairs were sitting upstairs waiting for the buyer to come by tonight. This kid is extremely observant and it was of course the first thing he noticed when he came home from daycare. He said, "What that? I climb." and I said, "No Brady. Those chairs are very high. Do not climb on them. That's dangerous." Two hours later Brady ran to the door to see who rang the doorbell and we told him the lady was here to take the chairs. He puts out his little hand to her in the "stop" motion and says, "No climb on it! It's Dangerous!!!"

Brady loves to feed Romey. Whenever he notices that Romey's dish is empty he says, "Romey need food," picks up the bowl, and tries to fill it (sometimes he gets all the food in there, other times we have a clean-up lesson). Afterward, he walks the bowl back to Romey's eating space, puts it down, and always says, "Say thank you Romey, say thank you."

In addition to hearing what we say parrotted back through the mouth of an almost 2-year-old, we also see ourselves in his imaginary play. The other day he was sitting on the floor with his stuffed monkey. He laid the monkey down and was murmuring to him. Brett and I weren't really paying attention until Brady announced to us, "I need a wipe!" and we realized he was pretending to change the monkey's imaginary diaper. We listened more closely and heard him saying, "It's okay monkey. Won't hurt, put medicine on it. Brady make it better monkey." all the while wiping the monkey and going through the motions of a diaper change. (Can you tell that Brady has some frequent diaper rashes and we often say things like, "I'll put medicine on it. Mommy make it better. It's okay."?)

Here's some other cuteness we're hearing lately:

"What does a ____ (animal) say?" It's a riot when he quizzes us like we quiz him. It's like he knows what the cow says, but wants to make sure we do too. :)

"Not a toy!" He hears this a lot about our things and will point these things out.

"That's a big tv!" He still acknowledges Brett's recent purchase and announces it to people who come over.

"Spid-uh need a ladd-uh!" He always says this when he's singing Itsy Bitsy Spider. I think the logic is a riot. Uh, spider if you would just use a ladder, the rain wouldn't wash you out.

Brady uses pronouns amazingly well. He does not confuse "you" and "I" as many toddlers do. Even if we say something like, "Brady, are you hungry?" He'll reply, "No, I not hungry." or one some of my other favorites- "I need something to eat." or "I need a nack!" (One of the few pronunciation issues he has is with s-blends, as in "snack.") The only time he confuses a pronoun is when he sometimes still says, "Carry you?!" when he wants us to carry him. I find this hilarious though and (despite it being against what I was taught as a speech-language pathologist), I don't correct it b/c it makes me laugh.

He uses "too" appropriately and often. We'll be driving in the car and I'll say something like, "I see an airplane." and he'll say, "I see a airplane Too!" (often emphasizing the "too"). Sometimes he does use the third person and say something like, "Brady see a airplane Too!" He switches back and forth.

"Be careful." and it's cute because it's sounds like "Be cayaful" :) He says this when he's doing things like climbing up or down from the couch or chairs, rounding the corner while running, and when we've told him something is hot (like a coffee cup).

The one thing we don't love is that for some reason lately he's been calling us Mom and Dad a few times. Brett finally stopped answering to Dad and would correct Brady and say, "I'm DadDY!" But at times, it's funny. Yesterday when we were outside, Brady said, "Daddy mow the lawn." and I said, "Yes, he did." and Brady said, "Good job Dad." He says that a lot too-- "Good job" and there's something about an almost 2-year-old commending your actions that I find Very amusing. :p We were driving in the car and Brady said, "Top sign Mommy!" and I said, "I see it. Thanks Brady. I stopped the car at the stop sign." and he replied, "Good job Mom."

"He's so cute." When this is said in his adorable toddler voice that drags out the cuuuuuute word, it cracks me up. Apparently we tell him this a lot, "You're so cute Brady!" so when he's loving on his stuffed animals, he'll say, "He's so cute!" or "Elephant so cute!" while he's snuggling with them.

Brady's Always singing these days. His favorite song is the ABC song, which often leads in to a few bars of Baa Baa Black Sheep and sometimes Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (they have the same melody and apparently sometimes are all one song).

We were out eating kabobs the other night and Brady saw a woman with a headscarf and automatically said, "Omayma!" (his daycare provider). I said to Brett, "Have you noticed that Brady says "Omayma!" whenever he sees women with headscarves?" and Brett replied, "Sounds about right. Have you noticed that he says "Mimi!" whenever he sees an Asian woman?" LOL!!!

Nesting

We're all doing our own form of nesting here. For me, that means finally selling the second guest room furniture and clearing out the room for the Littlest Luhring. For Brett, that means getting a new tv for the family room. ha! For Brady, that means helping out whenever and wherever he can...and playing with Everything and Anything in the process.

Helping Daddy disassemble the guest room furniture:

Playing in the cardboard box that the tv came in:

Amusing himself in Best Buy while Daddy searched for tv accessories:

Here's the Luhring version (based on true and recent events) of the "If you give a mouse a cookie, he's going to want some milk" story...
If you finally give Brett the "okay, fine" to buy a new tv, he's going to want a new entertainment center, HD cable box, and all this other stuff that "just has to go with it."

While we're cleaning up the family room and getting the old entertainment center and tv out, we'll conclude that it's time to replace the carpeting...and would prefer it be done before the baby comes.

Clearing the room for the carpet installation will prompt us to better organize Brady's toys and store some of the "younger" toys in the basement.

Going down in the basement, we'll realize that we have way too much stuff and Mommy will just get completely overwhelmed and announce that her nesting phase is done. She'll sit on the couch downstairs and turn the tv on. When she turns the tv on, Daddy will note that it is the only tv in the house that is not HD. And chances are, if Mommy agrees with Daddy that this tv needs HD cable, then he's going to want a new tv to go with it! :)

If you are familiar at all with the "If you give a mouse a" books (we are because Grandma and Papa have given them all to Brady- and they are some of his favorites that we read All the time!), you definitely see the humor here. ;p

Park Place

After another IHOP breakfast, we again went to a park today. It turned out to be a beautiful warm day!

When we were all on, this seesaw balanced our family perfectly- Brady, LL, and I together right now are about the same weight as Daddy. :)

Brett took these and thought they were neat because it looks like Brady is flying off in to the trees.

Love these-
It happened that Mr. Tim and Kellan came to Dinosaur Park today too! So fun running in to them! Kellan and Brady (who are exactly one month apart) will both be big brothers soon! Danisa is pregnant with their second child and due about 6 weeks after we are- hooray!

Meeting Request

Brett and Brady each had cancelled meetings this morning, which opened up their calendars for time with each other. Brady was supposed to meet up with his bud Oliver for a playdate at the park, but Ollie is sick. Brett had a work meeting get re-scheduled. So we sent Daddy a meeting request for lunch and play time, which he gladly accepted. I discovered that the awesome Clemyjontri Park that everyone's always talking about is a mere 5 miles from Booz Allen's headquarters. We scoped out the park and played a little bit, then picked up Daddy and lunch, then went back to play. This super fun time resulted in a Three hour nap. whoohoo! Playtime, mid-(work)day Daddy time, extended nap time...could the day get any better?

The colorful park matched Brady's silly (but warm) hat :)

Girlie Girl

We had a growth-check sonogram today. I was so excited for another chance to see our little girl! At my dr appointment last Thursday, my fundal (uterine) height measurement was off by one centimeter. Since I am usually spot on, Dr. Setty wrote me a referral to get an additional sonogram. Sweet! Today they confirmed that growth is just fine. In fact she is measuring about 2 weeks ahead. We are 28.5 weeks now and she's measuring about 30.5 weeks. With an estimated weight of 3.5 lbs, they told me she was in the 89th percentile (yup, we're talking percentiles already). :) I also asked the tech to confirm for me that Littlest Luhring was a girl and she showed me what she called the "hamburger buns" and said, "Yes, she's a girl."

Workin' at the Carwash

Daycare was closed for a vacation day today. Brett stayed home with Brady while I went to the office for a meeting. I pulled in to the driveway to find this hilarious scene- Brett trying to accomplish the household task of washing his car while keeping his almost 2 year old son entertained. Brady was Thrilled to be Daddy's helper in this task. He was a super squealy happy boy who kept saying, "I working." This made me think of the car wash song. He was delighted to put his hands in the soapy water, play with the rag and sponge, wipe his hands all over the car (giving all new meaning to "hand car wash"), and spray with the hose. Good thing it was so nice outside- both the car and the little worker boy's clothes got doused with water! He was Soaked, but oh so happy! It's all in a day's work...

Visiting Big Sis KK

Before heading out this evening, we took a timer shot of our family. Brett found a new make-shift tripod (a.k.a. the mailbox) so we got a nice change of scenery.
Brady wanted a solo shot...perhaps to showcase the fine (George Clooney-like) haircut that Daddy gave him yesterday. He sat very nicely for his haircut (while reading books and playing imaginary games with me) so Daddy could take his time and do a great job. What a handsome little man! Gotta look his best for his plans tonight...
The plans were to go over to the Kalbs to meet sweet baby Devan and spend some quality time with KK. It was really fun to see Brady and Kadyn play together this time because they seemed to genuinely be having fun themselves! Sure we had some teaching moments (re: hitting, sharing, and being polite) but these two are at great ages for interactive play.

These are my absolute favorites. So Darn CUTE!

Running Errands with a Coffee Break

We stopped at Starbuck's before running errands this morning. Brady insisted that he wanted coffee. What?! Dude, you cannot always be "just like Daddy." He had to settle for water in a baby Starbuck's cup- but had a great time sitting at the table with us, doing "Cheers!" and sipping "just like Daddy."

Then we played at Home Depot. I read in a parenting magazine that Home Depot is an excellent place to take your child because it's like an indoor playground- with all sorts of things to play with. Brady always has a good time playing in the kitchen displays. None of the cabinets are childproofed and the mini fridges are perfectly sized for toddlers. Today he also "turned the pages" and pet the carpet samples, drove And pushed the NascarT, and ran around the store.

Trick-or-Treat!

Happy Halloween! Although he doesn't really know what candy is, Brady got the concept of trick-or-treating this year. I think it helped that he had his older friends, the Cassadas, to model for him. We all went to the first couple houses together. After that, I came back home to hand out candy while Brady, Daddy, and the Cassadas continued to gather some loot. I conducted my own version of the gestational diabetes (GD) test and overloaded on sugar this evening. (I actually did have the test on Thursday and was borderline. But really, what was I thinking, scheduling the GD test a few days before Halloween? eesh!)

Nap Time

This afternoon Brady put all his stuffed animals in the tent Mimi got for him (that is currently in our family room) and then asked for a blanket. It was close to nap time and I reminded him of that. He replied, "I sleep here. Animals, blanket, tent." If only that were true, I would have let him. He looked adorable so I took a quick picture...but he had a nice 2 hour+ nap upstairs in his bed- with his usual bed buddies- Elephant, Spot Doggie, and Ratatouille.