21 Months...WHOOP!

Mr. Braden turned 21 months on May 27th and he is getting SOOOO big! :) He is a bundle of joy and a source of many of our laughs. :) We love him to pieces. :)

Here are some highlights for Month 21:
1) Braden is IN LOVE with our Armada. He could take or leave the Altima but for some reason there is a big obsession right now with the "big car". If we pick him up from school in the Altima, he talks about the "big car" all the way home. The minute we get there he gets out and walks over to the garage to try and lift the door so that he can get to it. It really does crack me up. There have been evenings that Chris and Braden have had to ride around the neighborhood in the "big car" just to get him to stop talking about it over and over again. ;) And everytime we talk about going somewhere he asks "In the big car?" :)

2) He is into matching things right now. We have some matching books and he really likes to put things together that look alike. He also likes to match up different puzzle pieces and magnetic animals, etc. He is great at it too! :)

3) As random as it is, Braden loves bandaids right now. If he ever gets hurt he first wants his "football ice" or "puppy ice" which are just a little football and a little puppy that are ice packs. Then if he scrapes himself and he is barely bleeding then he wants his character bandaids. He will talk about the "Cars" bandaids, "Toy Story" bandaids, and "Mickey Mouse" bandaids as long as you will let him. :) One night he was so upset that he could not have a Mickey bandaid on his knee before he went to bed that I literally thought I was going to have to let him sleep with the box in his bed! :)

4) Braden remembers everything these days. If you are talking with him about something one evening like "Tomorrow we will go swimming" then he will literally wake up the next morning saying "Go swimming?" And if you try to distract him from something he wants in an attempt to get him to forget about it....it is not going to happen. The dude is smart. :)

5) Potty "practicing" is still going on. I would not really call it potty training b.c we have not really started working on it diligently yet...but he does use the potty whenever he wants and that is good enough for now. :) Every night before his bath he insists on sitting there for a little while before he hops into the tub. :)

6) Braden is IN LOVE with his daddy. I mean WOW!! He cannot get enough of Chris and he usually wants him to do almost all activities with him. "Daddy Go", "Daddy Go".....is a common conversation in our house. He just thinks it is so cool when they are together. He will often say "Hold you Dada" when he wants Chris to pick him up. :)

7) Braden can officially unlock the front door and walk out on the porch. Before he could just open the door if it was unlocked...but now he can also unlock the deadbolt. UGH! :( Scary stuff. So we are going to have to turn our chime on our house alarm back on, as well as institute some additional safety measures. Before long my entire house will be completely childproofed, and I might not even recognize it anymore. :)

8) He has decided there are some mornings that he is ready to get out of his crib but not completely ready to get up. So on those mornings when you walk in to get him up he will say "Rock". He wants you to take him over to the rocking chair and hang out with him for a little while. I went into his room one morning last week and he said "Rock". Well I was not going to turn down any cuddle time for sure...so I obliged. :) He laid his head down on me and sat like that for a little while, and then he popped up and said "Music". So I turned his CD player on. A few minutes later he popped up and said "Hair" which apparently meant that he wanted me to run my fingers through his hair while he laid there. What a life, right? :) Spoiled rotten much? HA! :)

9) It is very important that we know that Braden is a "big boy" now that we have Brant at home. He is obsessed with telling us that, and he must do so AT LEAST 10 times per day! :) It is so cute so we have to mess with him sometimes. We will say things like "Are you a baby Braden?" To which he will promptly respond "I a BIG BOY!!" very emphatically. :) He wants to make sure we are certain about this fact. :) He also tells Chris that he is a big boy as well, and he tells me that I am a big girl. If that was not coming from a toddler then I might be a little offended. :)

10) He still loves to hold Brant and thinks it is so cool that he gets to do that. I think it is the most precious thing ever. :)

11) A good nap for Braden (pretty much since he has been born) is about an hour and a 1/2 at a time. I know that when most babies move from 2 naps per day to 1 that they often take two shorter naps and combine them into one longer one. Well not Braden. :) He decided that for the last 9 months (since he turned a year) that he just really needed an hour and a 1/2 a day. Oh my!! So that was kind of annoying. The good news is that as of the past week or so he has changed his ways. :) He has decided it is cool to nap for 2 1/2 to 3 hours and we are in LOVE with that! :) It even often gives Chris and I a chance to take a nap as well on the weekends. :)

12) He is into singing these days, and the song he likes to sing most right now is "Jesus Loves Me". He does pretty well...and if we sing along with him then he can get most of the words. :)

13) I mentioned that he was WAY into flags in his month 20 post. Well in addition to flags, he is also WAY into airplanes, motorcycles, and bicycles right now. He points them out constantly when we are driving around. :)

14) The cutest thing ever that Braden is doing right now is learning to whisper. :) Oh my gosh I love it!! His little voice is just precious and he does such a good job!! Sometimes when I am putting him to bed we will just sit there and whisper to one another. He loves it and he actually does it very quietly. ;)

15) And last but not least, now that Brant rides in a stroller most of the time when we go out, Braden has decided that he LOVES his stroller again. You know...the one that he hated from about months 12-19. :) He gets upset if we get somewhere and Brant gets to ride in the stroller but he does not. Gotta love how things change in a toddler's world. :)

So that is what is going on in the life of our 21 month-er. :) Never ever a dull moment! :)