Reading Rainbow

I sure wish Brendan could experience Reading Rainbow, that was one of my favorite shows...ever.  I'm sure it's out there somewhere in DVD land, but probably listed at a crazy price.  Brendan loves reading.  He has about 20 of his books completely memorized, so he'll sit down and "read" to himself aloud.  In fact,  when he wakes up, it's the first thing he does, he picks several books from his bookshelf and then sits on the floor and reads.  In between books, he tries to open his bedroom door and shouts, "Mommy! Mooooooooooommyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!", then sits down to read again.  It's interesting that he can open other doors throughout the house, but yet he can't open his own bedroom door...hmmmm.  Every time we read a new book, B has a majority of it memorized after 2 read throughs, so that he can sit and "read" it on his own.  It's the cutest thing ever; he even reads with emotion.  Let's just hope his love of reading lasts a lifetime!

The memory on this kid amazes me (he gets that from me, not Charlie!).  We went to Walgreens one morning and I bought a Cadbury egg for us to share in the car, as a special treat.  Anytime we pass ANY Walgreens, he points and yells, "chocolate", oh dear.  And his latest thing is saying "maybe after dinner", anytime he asks for something and we say no to it.  "I have a chocolate?"  "We don't have chocolate for breakfast."  "Ohhhh, gotcha mommy, maybe after dinner."  Replace the chocolate for any food or activity and the same conversation happens about 30 times a day, every day.  I said "maybe after dinner" to him ONE TIME, about 1 week ago.  He hasn't forgotten it and it's now his favorite expression.  Along with the ever awesome, "oohhhh, gotcha mommy" after I explain something to him.  We get to have real conversations with him now.  How much they grow up in just a few months, it's amazing and sad at the same time.

B is absolutely obsessed with construction trucks, so we love Bob the Builder on DVD (they have to be the ones that are on-site, they show real construction sites and trucks!) from the library.  I wish that show was still on too, then it would be conveniently on the DVR.  We recently went through some construction in the town south of us and B went NUTS.  He could barely breathe, he was talking so fast, "Look exa-ater (excavator)!"  "Look bulldozer!"  "Look digger!" "Another bulldozer!"  "Crane mommy!"  And on and on and on.  Sitting in traffic because of construction had never been so fun.  B also loves his trucks (big rigs) and cars too.  So the movie Cars is also a big hit with him.  Although he doesn't sit still long enough to watch the whole thing, he loves the first half!  He asks for "Mater" and "Light-ing MaKeen", and he'll talk about the "tacktors" falling over because they were scared, and he'll repeat that same tractor story about 80 times after seeing the movie.

It's nice that B can request certain things to eat when asked what he wants to eat for a meal.  His number one requested item is "cereal bars", the ones from Trader Joe's.  Then comes "fruit cup" and "pancakes, sausage, and syrup!  Pleeeease?"  And when given two choices for a meal, he understands and can pick one of them...so much easier.  In fact, that's how B will eat his daily yogurt (thank you Yoplait for making your yogurt with 2x the calcium of any other yogurt...it's not natural, like I prefer, but desperate times call for desperate measures!)...as long as we show him two different flavors and he gets to choose, he'll then eat his yogurt...oh, and it has to be while sitting on the couch watching a show, after nap.  Yeah.  Again, desperate times call for desperate measures.  The awesome thing is that B is drinking a little milk!  Woohoo!  At every meal he has his favorite straw sippy cup and it has milk in it (no choice there!), and he's gotten used to drinking milk at breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  It may not be as much liquid as he'd take in if it had water in it, but at the end of the day, he drinks about 6-8 oz. of milk.  It's progress...huge progress.  And I'm so proud of him!  He doesn't even complain anymore and he stopped asking for water while eating.

Now if I could get ready for potty-training and make progress with that (I'm avoiding it like the plague, but he is showing signs that he's really ready to start the process).  B has peed on the potty 3 times so far...thanks to running bath water.  As his bath fills up, we put him on the potty to wait and tell him to make pee if he needs to...and he has 3 out of 4 times so far.  It's exciting and we act like we just won the lottery, but he seems very non-plussed by the excitement.  He acts as if it's no big deal, like he pees on the potty all the time.

And last, but definitely not least (mainly because it's hysterical), we have a major drama king here.  When he doesn't get something he wants, he puts on a show (sometimes that show is a major tantrum, but most of the time it's a fantastic act, one that would work on a Grandma perfectly, but not mom and dad).  For example, we read 2 books before his nap, he picks out his first book and we finish it, then he chooses "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" as his second, I veto it because it counts as two (which he does know--if he picks that one first, he knows we only read that book).  I tell him no, but we can read it at bedtime.  He promptly hangs his head and slowly walks to the corner of his room, faces the corner (head still hanging), puts his hands on his head, and starts quietly moaning, "No One Fish, Two Fish, so sad."  He slowly turn his head around to see if I'm paying attention and he'll repeat himself, head hanging once again.  I explain to him that he can pick another book or get into bed for his nap.  He picks One Fish...again.  I tell him no...again.  He then puts his head in his hands and whimpers and says, "So sad. So sad."  He gets this pathetic look on his face, like I just destroyed all of his dreams.  I offer the two options one more time, a lot sterner.  And he quickly stops his charade--I swear he shrugged his shoulders--and picks a different book.  He does this for many things, including, but not limited to wanting cookies, wanting a movie or show, wanting to go outside.  Where does he learn this stuff?!?!?  It's so hard not to laugh, because it's hysterical to witness.  I wish I could record it and show him later!