March 26, 2010

Two-and-a-half!

At the same time Olivia turned 6 months old, Bradshaw turned 2 and a half years old.

He is my awesome little backseat driver. He will see a red light 200 yards away, when I'm already coasting, and he'll yell, "BOP! BOP Mama! Red light!" (He says Bop instead of Stop, even when I have him repeat after me, "s-s-s-stop" he says, "s-s-s-bop") And the instant it turns green he's yelling "Go fast!"

Bradshaw calls Olivia "Baby" all the time. They were both in the bath when I pointed to Olivia and said "what's her name?" Bradshaw: "Baby! .....uh Girl! ....Sister? dunno. Oh! Lila."
(Lila is his version of Olivia.)

Often, when I get Bradshaw up from his nap, he announces, "poo-poos" and pointed to his pants. "Okay, you want me to change your diaper?" In an angry, deep voice, "NO! i' FINE!"

He's my helper when we're doing laundry. He puts the quarters in the machines and each time he takes his dividend of the quaters and tells me the machines need more. If I ask, he laughs and tells me "pockets.....mine." He loves collecting change and bills. At one point I found almost $15 in one of his pockets.

Bradshaw loves talking about emotions. Even to the extent of telling me if the people we pass on the sidewalk/at the grocery store are mad, sad, scared, hurt, 'cited, happy, tired, hungry, thirsty, etc.

If Bradshaw is throwing a tantrum he has a time-out in his room. The door is halfway open and he can come out when he feels better (ie tantrum over.) For him it works very well and he usually comes out smiling and ready to play. The other day he declared he needed a time-out and I went in to check on him because it was so quiet and he had climbed into crib and gone to sleep (for the night).

He is very protective of Olivia. She was crawling over to Dustinn's computer cord (which Bradshaw knows is dangerous for Olivia). He streaks across the room and pivots so they are face-to-face and says "no baby. owie" pointing to the cord. "no touch never ever ever ever!" And he picks up the entire cord and tucks it behind the couch where she can't reach it.
He uses that phrase whenever he wants to be emphatic, "I love you ever ever ever ever."

Bradshaw knows family routines and loves to act them out. (This is about the tantrum thing again. As a disclaimer, he really is a very happy-go-lucky boy and rarely throws a fit.) The other day he looked at me sternly and said, "Mama. sad. crying, [imperatively] room." He took by the hand to his room, guided me to sit down on the floor. Put a toy in front of me and said, "sad. stay. all better." He came back 5 minutes later and said (with shocked/surprised intonation) "Mama happy!!! All better!" and wrapped his arms around me and kissed my face. Then he lead me by the hand out of the room saying, "play?!"

Bradshaw has a great appetite. He finished a Costco-size peanut butter jar in a couple of weeks just by eating spoonfuls of it. He also has eaten a whole bowl of plain tuna while I turned my back. He has eaten 5 servings of brocolli in one sitting. Crazy, right?

Bradshaw often introduces himself as Diego and rescue things around our apartment. He also loves handing us an imaginary object, not telling us what it is, and then laughing when we've swallowed the keys or put the ice cream in our pocket

He's our silly, happy, sweet, fun, affectionate boy and we love him SO much.

3 comments:

Nelson said...

I love hearing the details and short stories. Bradshaw is a champ. We love the little tike so much. Hope to see him and you all in a few weeks in between semesters! :)

Pancho said...

OH little boy:D i cant wait to see him... 5 days!

Erika said...

So cute! Sweetie is our backseat driver. :) That's hilarious that Bradshaw puts money in his pockets and it's SO cute that he is so protective of his little sister. ;)