Brian Brian Brian

As I look back on my recent blog posts, I realize that the blog has become a little Emy-centric and there are a few reasons for this. One is that Emily is growing and changing so fast that regular photographic evidence is required. And two is that, Brian absolutely hates to have his picture taken. He squirms and worms and run and hides when the camera comes out. He doesn't want to smile, claims he "doesn't know how!" and we've tried everything including the classic bribing with candy, threatening, bargaining, peer pressuring, forcing, reverse pyschology, you name it, the boy is immune to it. Every now and then at just the right moment, I'm fast enough to capture a fleating grin on film (or stick rather). But most of the time we enjoy lots of Brian smiles undocumented.

Here is his "I'm trying to smile" face

A pretty decent smile because off camera daddy is tickling his belly, the terrible side-effect of which is a hairy arm in the frame but you take what you can get

One of Brian's favorite new games is playing ball rolling with his sister, they both just light up when rolling the ball back and forth.

Some other recent interesting facts about Brian:

-He has grown 3 inches in 6 months, and stands at almost 42 inches tall!! That's a tall 3-year-old!

-He can't remember the difference between macaroni and pepperoni and is always saying he doesn't like macaroni on his pizza cause it's spicy.

-He can almost recognize the entire alphabet now, not just in order. He regularly points out letters to me that he sees all over the place and then tells me what words start with that letter, like "Look a D! Daddy starts with a D!"

-He still hasn't grown out of his potty talk stage, ugh. But in other potty news, he's now requesting privacy when using the bathroom and you can almost expect a slap on your hand if you violate his bathroom privacy requests. He doesn't return the favor.

-He can do everything on his own now, or so he tells me. He can wash his own hands (just needs a cleaning crew to wipe down the sink and mirror and replace the entire container of soap afterwards). He can carry anything (as long as it's not bulky or weighs more than 8oz). He can pick up his sister (until he hears me scream no!!!). So, as you can see he's not quite ready to leave the nest but I like his can-do attitude.

-He requests we go to "the bakery" almost daily and when we do go, he orders his own sandwich, "a 'sont and turkey and cheese." Which means he wants the kid's meal with turkey and cheese, on a croissant.

-He's started calling his sister "peanut" for reasons I have not yet discovered. Peanut is also used randomly in place of other normal words, sort of like an ad lib thing. He's got a sense of humor.

-He loves to ride his bike and play ball with Daddy

-He's still terrified of the tractor tipping scene in Cars but wasn't scared at all of Beast in Beauty and the Beast.