It’s a rare, quiet evening for us; maybe the last one in for a long while. We dropped Braden off at Kristin’s parents’ house this afternoon, then stopped by our friends’ house to watch the first half of the Packers game, before coming home. We had dinner while watching the rest of the game, cleaned, then double-checked we had everything ready.

We’re going to bed fairly early, as we have to check in the hospital by 6 a.m. before our 8 a.m. C-section. Kristin has to stop eating by midnight. We wonder if we’re going to get much sleep.

Journal home

Braden has really improved on the Angry Birds game. He’s better at controlling the direction of the bird, and he knows which birds change when you tap them mid-flight.

He plays it wherever he can–our tablet, Kristin’s iPhone, Kristin’s dad’s iPad, Brian’s iPod touch, etc. Brian recently gave Braden his old cellphone to play to Angry Birds, but that didn’t stop him from still asking for the other devices.

Speaking of the tablet, Braden is getting more adept at using it. We’ve already mentioned he can unlock it, but to see him move apps, add shortcuts, load YouTube, etc., is quite the sight.

***

We can’t get Braden to stay in his room all night. Several months ago, he began coming into our room when he woke up in the middle of the night. We initially let him do it, but unfortunately it became a habit. Now if he comes in the middle of the night, we take him back to his room, much to his disappointment. Otherwise, if it’s close to time to wake up, we let him stay.

It’s harder to put Braden to sleep, too. He wants us to stay in the room until he falls asleep, but we simply don’t have the patience for it.

***

Poor Kristin. Like Brian, she had to deal with an accident in the bathtub. It started with Braden passing some gas, then he had some diarrhea. He said, “Mommy, mommy, look!”

***

We’re amused when Braden repeats things in a list. For example, we may say, “Braden, do you want any milk?” He’ll respond, “No, I don’t want any milk.” We’ll try again with, “How some juice or water?” He’ll then say, “No, I don’t want any milk. I don’t want any juice. I don’t want any water.”

***

We finally got Braden to wear his new shoes, which we bought a couple of months ago. His Converse shoes were getting a bit tight, and these new shoes are so much easier for us to put on him.

Journal bath, sleep, talking, video games

We enrolled Braden at a Montessori preschool, and his first day was today. What helped ease his transition was that he attended class twice in December to get somewhat acclimated.

We like the location on the west side. It’s just off the Beltline, and not too far from Brian’s office and Brian’s mom’s house.

It’s cute to see Braden has his own locker. We have to bring his own snacks, since sometimes his teachers serve cheese, which he can’t eat.

We elected to the do the morning program, which runs from 8:30 a.m. to noon. Depending on the weather, the children usually end their morning on the playground. It was not easy to get Braden to leave!

Journal preschool

We are still amazed by how much Braden can eat. On Thanksgiving morning, he ate about three full bowls of oatmeal. We were worried if he was going to be able to eat Thanksgiving lunch (with Brian’s family) and Thanksgiving dinner (with Kristin’s family) … but he did.

At our first Thanksgiving meal, he was offered some cocktail wieners but adamantly refused them. After Brian got Braden to try the sauce, he ate about eight of them!

When we go out to eat, he likes to order now (if he’s not too shy with the waitress). He’ll either ask for chicken and french fries or hot dog and french fries, though sometimes he asks for chicken AND hot dog. Coincidentally, we were eating at the Madison Club for dinner last week, and they gave him sliced hot dog as the amuse-bouche, before his entree of chicken strips.

Despite all this eating, Braden has not grown in the last two months. Brian measures his height at the beginning of each month, but Braden has stayed the same from October to December.

***

The other day Braden climbed into his stroller and wanted to be pushed around. That made us realize that we have not gotten him to ride in his stroller for several months. In fact, we couldn’t even remember the last time he (willingly) rode it.

At least he still rides in the grocery cart. He likes being handed the food, which he then throws into the cart. On quicker shopping trips, he likes to carry the basket.

***

We like watching Braden play with his toys. He’s at the point where he’ll have his toys talk to each other. For example, he may have his crocodile chase another action figure, who will say “don’t eat me! don’t eat me!”

Braden also enjoys reading through the Toys ‘R Us catalog. He tells us every toy that he wants. We think he’ll LOVE Christmas this year.

***

Another one of Kristin’s cousins, Gretchen, just gave birth to her second child, Addie. Congratulations to Gretchen, Todd and big brother Bennett!

Journal congrats, feeding, toys

What a difference a year makes. In 2010, Braden didn’t eat much or any of the candy he collected on Halloween (Kristin ate it). This year, candy was all he wanted to eat in the days following Halloween.

Still, we were surprised that he didn’t seem in the mood to go trick-or-treating, despite how much we promoted it to him. On the Friday before Halloween, Brian took Braden to State Street, where several hundred children went business-to-business. It wasn’t until Braden saw other kids dressed up that he finally put his SpongeBob costume on.

On Monday, we went to Monona, and Braden again refused to dress up until he saw other kids in costumes. (Oddly, he loved wearing the costume at home.) Then when we went trick-or-treating, Braden got tired after just a few houses and begged to be driven or carried. Thus, we only stopped by about 6-8 houses.

Kristin did a great job training him to say “trick or treat” and “thank you,” though we had to nudge him a bit due to his shyness. Speaking of shyness, Braden now knows that he’s shy, since we say it so much. When he hides from people, some times he’ll say, “I shy.”

Brian called Braden a candy monster the other day and Braden got upset, screaming “I’m not a monster!”

***

Brian dressed up as Duff Man from the cartoon “The Simpsons.” It was cute to hear Braden say, “Daddy dressing up as Duff Man?”

***

A few weeks ago, Braden discovered that we store our DVDs in a cabinet by the TV when we pulled out one of his Sesame Street videos. He hasn’t really explored it much, which made us extra surprised by what happened last night. The movie “Elf’ (with Will Farrell) was on TV, and Braden went to the cabinet and pulled out the DVD of “Elf.” We were stunned.

How the heck did Braden recognize the movie from the just the side of the DVD case? We doubt he can read the word “elf.” That kid never ceases to amaze us.

***

Braden was half scared, half amused by the lobster Brian ordered for dinner the other day. The amusement came from the fact that he thought the lobster resembled Mr. Krabs, a character from the cartoon “SpongeBob SquarePants.”

***

The following situation happened before, but it’s fresh in our minds since it happened last night again: Braden refused to have his face wiped after eating spaghetti, but we did it anyways. He then ran over to his bowl of spaghetti and dunked the bottom half of his face in it to get it messy again. What a funny guy!

***

A shout-out goes to Kristin’s cousin Katie, who gave birth to her second daughter (Evelyn) last Friday. Congrats to Katie and Scott!

Journal candy, TV

It always seems that groups of women get pregnant at the same time. Not only is Kristin pregnant, but so are a bunch of her coworkers and two of her cousins. Plus, some of our neighbors and friends have just had babies recently.

Here’s a photo from the UW football game vs. South Dakota. Cousin Katie (next to Kristin) is due in November, cousin Gretchen is due in December and Kristin follows in January. It was funny when Brian took the photo, as a woman behind us said, “Oh my God, are all three of you pregnant?!”

***

Braden is getting more and more curious. He’ll often ask what an unrecognized object is used for. When he comes across a TV show he doesn’t know, he’ll ask, “What’s this show called?”

Interestingly, though, he still doesn’t know what the word “why” means. When we ask him why he has done something, he honestly doesn’t know how to answer.

***

Braden has noticed that daddy does most of the cooking at home. When he sees Brian in the kitchen, he’ll say “Daddy cooking?” But when Kristin cooks on the rare occasion, Braden says, “Mommy not cooking!”

***

We do think that Braden knows a baby is coming soon. He likes the book about having a little sibling that we read him (he usually picks this book every night). Hopefully this will ease the transition for him.

Journal curiosity, pregnancy

Kristin had her 20-week ultrasound yesterday. It was bittersweet. The baby is healthy, within all normal parameters. However, it will be a … BOY! We had been wanting a girl, but now Braden will have a little brother to beat up.

We had enough difficulty coming up with a name for Braden. We are not sure how we’re going to come up with another boy’s name.

At least we don’t have to buy a whole set of new clothes. Braden’s ample wardrobe will now pass down to the next in line.

***

We’re not sure how Braden learned to use the phrase “excuse me,” but he did it three times today. He burped twice after lunch, and after both times he said it. Then at home, when he was trying to walk by Brian, he said “excuse me.”

***

In our breakfast bar/kitchen counter, we have our laptop. Braden is now able to climb the bar stool to sit in front of the computer. He enjoys watching YouTube videos, but he can’t quite master the mouse yet. That’s why he prefers to use our touchscreen desktop downstairs, because he can simply just touch the videos he wants to watch.

***

We love watching Braden get excited about certain treats. For example, if presented with, say, animal crackers or a cookie, he’ll say, “Oh! Animal Crackers!” and then pump his arms up and down while smiling.

***

Braden won a toy sword at the fair in Lake Geneva when we were down there a few weeks ago. Brian taught him the difference between the sword and the sheath. It’s amusing when Braden holds them apart and says, “sword … sheath … sword … sheath.” It reminds of us of the scene in the movie “The Jerk” in which Navin learns the difference between shit and shinola. “Shit … shinola.”

Journal talking, technology, ultrasound

As Braden’s vocabulary continues to grow, we’re still enamored by how he pronounces certain words and phrases. For example, he says “they-air” instead “there” and “Bob Bob Pair Pants” instead of “Sponge Bob Squarepants.”  

He still confuses proper nouns, too. He’ll say “Braden hungry” instead of “I’m hungry” and “Daddy feed you” instead of “Daddy feed me.”

We also enjoy watching him try to sing along to songs, like “Sesame Street.” He’ll mumble for a bit and them jump in when he knows the words, such as “air is sweet.”

We think Braden isn’t learning Mandarin as easily as he once did because now he thinks words are contradicting. For example, he doesn’t understand why there are two words for “hat” or “rice” or any other word.

***

We were a bit hasty in thinking Braden exited the terrible twos, because over the month of July, he re-entered. It really comes down to him not wanting to ever change his clothes in the morning or at night.

Sometimes the timeouts we give him works, sometimes offering him a treat works. However, letting him pick out his own clothes, which as we previously mentioned was the supposed “cure,” no longer works.

Just this past week, he’s starting to despise baths, too. It’s funny, we used to not be able to get him out–he just loved baths. Now, it’s a struggle to clean him.

***

Braden is getting better at brushing his teeth. He used to just suck on the toothbrush, but now after watching Brian “scrub” his teeth (done deliberately), Braden does the same thing.

He also figured out how to unlock the gate blocking the staircase, so we got rid of it (good timing, too, as our house is now on the market). Braden also can connect the top clip of the seatbelt of his child seat (fortunately, he can’t undo it–yet).

At the Brewers game last week, Braden helped Brian with the grill by flipping the meat. We’ll post pictures soon.

Journal bath, new skills, talking

Last week we went to Bent’s Camp in Land O’ Lakes, Wis. (at the UP border) with Kristin’s parents. Our cabin, which was spacious with three bedrooms, two baths and a separate three-season room, was secluded and had its own pier.

We always made Braden wear his life jacket when he was on the pier, and actually, he enjoyed wearing it (sometimes we couldn’t get it off him). He was eager to use a fishing net to “help Daddy catch fish.” However, on the few times that Brian did catch a fish, the fish frightened Braden slightly. He also didn’t like the worms, which he at first called “snakes.”

Braden also seemed to enjoy boating, which we did for most of the day on Wednesday. Bent’s Camp is on what’s called the Chain O’ Lakes, so many lakes are connected by small, hard-to-find channels. Fortunately, Braden never seemed to get seasick, despite how much he moved about the pontoon boat.

We had a couple of cloudy days, unfortunately. On one of them, Tuesday, we drove 30+ min to Paulding, Mich., to check out Bond Falls. It was very pretty out there, and Braden liked climbing the path with his grandpa.

We wanted to take Braden to this beach Brian found not too far from Bent’s Camp, but we never had the chance. Braden did get to play twice on the small beach at the resort itself, though we would have preferred a larger area.

One afternoon Braden refused to nap, even after Brian tried for 1.5 hours. Other than that, he slept fairly well the entire week, unlike the last time we went up north, back in 2009 at Maywood when Braden was just five months old.

For the most part, the bugs left Braden alone (instead, they attacked Brian). Braden also got to see some deer and loons (plus he imitated their wolf-like howl).

Finally, the travel for Braden was pretty good. The drive is slightly under four hours; we timed it so that he would nap most of the time, with a break for lunch each way.

Make sure to check out the Bent’s Camp photo album.

Journal vacation

Over the past month or so, we’ve noticed Braden has slowly phased out of his Terrible Twos, which he actually started around 18 months (he’s now 28 months old). One way we’ve ‘measured’ this is by how few timeouts we have to give him now. In fact, we can only think of one in the past month.

It also helps that we’ve recognized Braden’s independence. He likes to do things such as  sit in a regular chair at the dinner table and as previously mentioned, pick out his own clothes in the morning. Speaking of the former, he has not sat in his high chair at our house in several weeks; in fact, we’re thinking of packing it up.

***

Braden’s ability to form sentences is amazing. For instance, today he used the word “too,” which we didn’t realize he knew. He still understands more than he can express–the other day, he was saying something garbly that we couldn’t understand.

He’s slightly better at recognizing colors but still has trouble from time to time. However, he can recognize most objects, as evidenced when he correctly picks them out from one of his books.

Braden also like to sing. He’s know the Alphabet Song, and he’ll often use the tune with other words.

Journal talking, terrible twos