Briggs Monster

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

21 Months - Where did he go?

Briggs man, you are almost 21 months old and just a few months shy of your 2nd birthday and I have decided that from this point forward I will no longer be feeding you. I have had such a great time watching you grow and learn, but now I'm ready for it all to stop. Seriously, this is all happening too fast and regardless of how much I've been warned this would happen, I cannot stand it.

One of your most recent vocabulary achievements perfectly sums up how I feel about all of this. You will drop your Woody doll in the car or cover daddy's face with a pillow and then say "Where'd he go?" Which is made all the more adorable by the cutest inquisitive face, a shoulder shrug, and two upright palms. It is absolute perfection and makes me ask just where did my Briggs baby go?

You are 100% boy. You are rough, prefer nakedness, and love everything daddy loves. Trucks, tractors, lawnmowers, baseball, football, swords, dogs and horses. You and daddy (although I think mostly daddy) have a slight obsession with monster trucks. Currently you have 12 trucks ... I believe it is one for each time daddy has taken you to Walmart ... and you can pick out each one by name. You are constantly asking to watch monster trucks on youtube and love pointing out all the big trucks on the road.

I still see glimpses of my sweet boy in there as you still love reading books and you have your moments where you enjoy cuddling. The other night you insisted on taking a little bunny and your beloved FredBird to bed with you and we enjoyed watching you on the monitor as you spent more than 20 minutes tucking them in, patting them on their butts, and telling them night-night. You've started giving real kisses, well, open mouthed kisses. But you are at least getting the idea! You are a pro at waving bye-bye and will now say hi too.

You are adding new words to your vocabulary daily and its so much fun figuring out just WHAT you're trying to say! In the car you LOVE to sing songs like "Wheels on the Bus", "Itsy Bitsy Spider", "ABC's", and "Old McDonald". You do all the hand gestures for the first two and our favorite verse is when the mommy's go "shh, shh, shh" since that comes along with a sweet little finger to your lips. You are putting words together really well and are starting to speak sentences that are 3-4 words.

Recently you have found that there is not much time for sitting down to eat and you would prefer to just snack all day than to bother with a meal. Although you ate like a champ this past weekend for Granny Brenda making me look like a liar. You are a dipper ... you love any food that gives you the opportunity to dip into a sauce, especially ketchup! One food that you love that seems surprising to everyone is tomatoes, you gobble up just simple-chopped tomatoes. Today you tried and loved raisins which surprised me.

Your most recent obsession is Toy Story, but more specifically Woody. Aunt Krista gave you a big Woody doll for your first birthday and now that you have seen the movies you are extra fond of him. He had to ride to school with us this morning and I'm worried we are going to wear out the movies pretty quickly. This hasn't totally replaced your obsession for birds and poultry though! You love to check out the birds in the yard as well as those we see out driving. We have been out to feed the ducks at the Botanical Gardens on campus and a recent visit to see Nana also gave you an opportunity. You now know the difference between a chicken, rooster, duck and goose! Aunt Linda recently brought you the St Louis Cardinals mascot, FredBird, and you're pretty much in love with him too.

We have had a very busy past few months with visits to the zoo and children's museum, visits and even some pool-time with friends, visits with family, lots of time with horses and ducks, as well as your first boat ride. You have pee-peed on the potty once which was total luck on my part, but now you've lost interest in it again.

Now that you are saying SO much I am vowing to write a shorter blogs more often to keep up with your antics!

Monday, April 15, 2013

Silly boy

18 months old. Am I really still counting months??

Phew, I may be close to a month late in writing this post, but I blame it all on you Briggs man! You are a WIDE open, NON-stop, 18 month old TODDLER!

You are absolutely hilarious and full of cuteness! Your favorite words are still "no" and "dada" and you use those words way more than anything else. Up until a little over a week ago, you really didn't have more than a dozen words. Now you are saying something new every day. You are trying hard to repeat words that we say - last night you said "purple" and this morning "burr".

At your most recent check-up, you measured in at 23lbs and 10oz and were 33 inches tall. You are right at the 50th percentile for weight and around the 75th percentile for height. That came as a surprise to me as most of your 18month clothes are tight around your pudgy belly and too long for what I thought were your short little legs!

You have a great daily routine set. If left to sleep - you get up around 7 or 7:30am. Then you play, play, play until lunch time at 11. Naptime can start as early as noon, but is typically 1-3pm. Then you play, play, play until dinner at 6. In between there are lots of snacks and "wawa". Bath time is around 7pm and then bedtime is supposed to be 8pm, but you stretch it out to almost 9pm sometimes. You have started fighting bedtime more telling me "no-no", but there have been times that you have walked yourself down the hallway to go to bed too.

Currently you are the biggest kid in the Creepers room and your best buddy is Paige Duncan. The two of you are just adorable playing together! Every morning when we head out the door, you always have to have two trucks in your hands to take with us. When you get to school you are always so sweet to share with Paige. I'm not so certain that she is into GraveDigger, but she smiles anyway! Trucks are TOTALLY your thing (and daddys too). You have at least two dozen trucks and they are always spread all over the living room floor and coffee table.

You have started to enjoy Thomas the Train as well as Curious George videos. Sesame Street is still pretty cool - especially Grover. Daddy and you also enjoy a good MonsterTruck Jam. We recently went to our first Clemson baseball game and you loved all the excitement and kept saying "bayball". Now every sport appears to be "bayball", we'll get that straightened out later.

You love to play outside with your trucks and in the sandbox. You adore going to visit the farm with daddy. Like any boy - you love to ride on the golf cart, 4-wheeler, lawn mower, gator, and recently daddy took you for your first tractor ride. Now that you have visited with the horses at the farm - almost every animal sound is "nay". You really like ducks and chickens too.

You are a typical toddler. Moody and Bossy! You love to dance to music - if you are in the mood. You are a pretty good eater - if you are in the mood. And you will lean in to give me kisses - if you are in the mood. Occasionally you will wave bye-bye and you have been known to blow a kiss once or twice. Currently you love bath time, although that wasn't the case three weeks ago.

Over the last three months you have gotten your first bloody nose and your first and second skinned up knees. I had much better success with your third haircut - I used clippers and it was quick and easy! We have continued to fight the germs from school and have had pink eye as well as lots of good snotty colds. You also have had some skin sensitivities and I'm just hoping you haven't inherited my issues.

One of your favorite indoor games is to dump out all your stuffed animals onto your bedroom floor - then dive on top of them - bury yourself under animals - and then hide from mommy. Too funny. You also enjoy playing in your playroom, in your hallway tent, and with all your books. You are definitely a book lover and enjoy books where you can point to all the things you know. You are super smart and figure things out so well - so this is very enjoyable too!

This past weekend we went to Summerville to celebrate Easter with all the grandparents. You were in heaven showing off all your skills to all the family! On Sunday we had Easter dinner with both families at Granny Brenda's. You played the entire day and only took a 20 minute nap. I was so shocked what a great mood you were in regardless of the lack of sleep! You were super sweet for Nana and PopPop and even said both of their names. That moment was worth a million bucks!

You are getting better at playing by yourself and enjoy the independence. I know it's time to come check on you when I haven't heard anything for a minute. Just this past weekend when we had the windows open - I came into your room to find you up on your stool leaning into the screen on the window. You don't always look for trouble - but it finds you pretty easy!

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Man I love this guy!

Had to add this video and story up on the blog ASAP!

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This past weekend my parents came up for a visit so we headed out Saturday night for some grub. When our favorite BBQ joint was too packed, we ventured over to Smoke & Blues - a place that has live Bluegrass. Just as we finished eating, the band started up and Briggs was in heaven. He danced all over the floor for at least 30 minutes. He tried his best to get every little kid to join him out there. The two little girls in the video were a bit shy about his affection and would only entertain him for a few steps - and like typical girls they stayed together and never really danced with him. It was an absolute riot and we were all were tickled to death! Featured here, his signature "manic" move really had him worn out by the time we left!

This will certainly be a classic that will appear again ... likely at his wedding!

Briggs is truly so entertaining right now and is such a sponge for information! Each day he is adding new words to his vocabulary and his personality is shining through too! He LOVES being outside, playing with his cars, and anything that has to do with DADDY or DODO (aka Logan, our dog).

He has learned his head, ears, eyes, nose, mouth, belly and feet. He can tell you animal noises like duck, dog, cow, tiger, dog, wolf, monkey, horse, and cat. He knows ALL the sesame street characters and GROVER is by far the favorite. Briggs can point at SO many different things in his books when you call them by name and now a favorite childhood book of mine is also one of his - The Everyday Word Book. It is FULL of little pictures that have tons of detail.

This kid is just amazing.

Sunday, January 6, 2013

From 12 mo to 15mo

In the beginning we measured your age by hours, then days, then weeks, then months. Now the mommy world says the important increments are every 3 months - so my blogposts are going to follow that trend. Mostly because now you are moving so fast I can hardly keep up and have much less time then I did before!! So much has happened over the last three months and I cringe a little every time I have to tell someone how old you are.

You are definitely a physical kid and all your milestones up until now were all about physical development, but now we are really starting to see your communication skills grow. You have about a dozen words in your vocabulary with the most common being daddy (or dada), no, bird, ball, quack, and since we just had Christmas, hoho was also a favorite. You are quite the babbler and will sit in the backseat and just go on and on! I love it!!

You can now wave, clap, blow kisses, high five, and occasionally will throw up touchdown arms. You are very regimented in your routine and know all about things like bath time, getting dressed, diaper changes, riding in the car, walking to and from the house, and going to school. Even though you love your routine (and we could literally set a clock by you), you really do well on the weekends and when we visit Summerville. We try hard to stick to your schedule, but you are pretty forgiving when we goof it up.

We've done a lot of visiting and driving throughout November and December. With the holidays and the loss of your great-grandma Kitty, you've spent a lot of time in Summerville. Thanksgiving was kind of a bust since as soon as we got to Summerville I came down with the flu. Thankfully you had gotten a flu shot and didn't ever get sick. You still enjoyed some time with both grandparents and were quite the piggy with all the yummy food.

Christmas was much better and we spent a full week visiting. You had a great time seeing all your cousins, aunts and uncles and of course grandparents. You really weren't that into opening presents this year - you preferred talking about Santa and just running around outdoors. One of the highlights of the holiday was going to the James Island County Park Christmas lights - you absolutely loved it and had a great time seeing the lights and riding the carousel.

As of this past week your stats are 31in tall and 22lbs. (I think the height may be a little off since you wouldn't hold still to be measured accurately) You are mostly wearing 18mo size clothes and your shoe size is a 4. You have really shot up in height here recently ... maybe you won't be such a shorty after all! We are officially down to just one nap a day from 1-3pm. You still get a little crabby in the morning around 10am, but a snack and some elmo can fix that!

You haver had four front teeth and four bottom teeth for quite awhile and now there are two bottom molars that are fully in and two top molars peaking through! This is helpful for all the food you munch. You are not at all a picky eater and I normally just fix you some bites of whatever we are eating. It's hard to say what your favorites even are because you gobble up pretty much everything I put in front of you. As soon as the food starts being donated to Logan, we know you're done. You still love to drink milk and otherwise mostly just drink water and the occasional juice.

You love books, animals, sesame street videos, singing songs, and shooting basketball in your toy room. Logan isn't a huge fan (except for at mealtime), so you don't often get to hug him - but you will pet, hug, and kiss any other animal that will let you!

We've given up on going to get haircuts and now I just snip the long pieces at night when you're sleepy. You are so curious that it is next to impossible - so you mostly wear it pretty long and shaggy.

Here is a quick collection from some various video shots: