My house was clean two minutes ago, sorry you missed it.

As I sit here writing, I hear the "bang! bang! bang!" of the cupboard doors. A toddlers attempt to either annoy us enough so that we will actually open them or venting his frustration that we won't let him get in to play with all the fun things like oh, stoneware, cutting boards etc. Imagine if you will, a wild man who desperately needs to use a restroom on a door that is locked. He pulls and pulls and pulls on the door until he gets himself in such a state that the yanking of the handles has become habit and a way to unleash his pain. Yes, this image is equal to Brighton's frustration, minus the potty part (he can do that in his pants) replace it instead with curiosity. It simply drives this little boy.

curiosity seems to also equal climbing on EVERYTHING. And I do mean everything. If he had pointier ears I would swear he was part "kitty". The other thing that seems to be a favourite toddler past time is following behind mommy after she's just picked up 5008 books and put them in their rightful places and pulling them back out onto the floor. I think today, collectively, I've done this 38 times. Then there's the wooden train. It was so romantic of me to think, while I was pregnant of course, of my little boy calmly pushing his toy train around the room. **ENTER DREAM SEQUENCE** Gently he would take the blocks off of the train and because he was so brilliant and calm, he would replace them exactly where they were when the toy was purchased. Then he would return to his gentle play. Perhaps, even, taking a much cherished stuffed bear and hugging it to sleep after giving mommy and daddy a kiss on the cheek **SMACK YOURSELF BACK INTO REALITY!**...Ok that last part was pretty corny...But you get the idea. Oh no romantic fantasies here. The minute mom or dad puts the train back together again, he briskly pulls off every block until the poor wooden spokes are again naked. I'm not sure where the blocks disappear to but we've lost almost one per day since we bought the train this past weekend.

Does this give us some kind of insight to my son's future character? In what job does a person rip things apart just for the pure joy of it, but not assemble them back together again? The only things that cross my mind are past episodes of CSI Las Vegas. I suppose I should give him a little time since he really is only 15 months old and is not going to get a job for at least another 15 years and not go to college for at least 16. OK, 17 but still. I guess so long as he's not stabbing goldfish or drowning neighborhood cats I need not worry...(don't worry, he would never do such a thing. He makes it abundantly clear that he loves all of his pets and would never stab them and it's hard to drown a fish...)

By the way, he has learned where his nose is, where mummy's nose is, where daddies nose is, where his feet are (where his shoes go), and where his teeth are. He also enjoys giving us very slobbery kisses. I'm trying to teach him Euro kisses (cheek to cheek) but he has yet to master it.

4:00 AM

Well, here I am again at 4 AM unable to sleep. My son and my husband sleeping peacfully in bed while I toss and turn thinking about one stupid thing after another. Why doesn't this happen when I DON'T have to work the next day?

Anyway, Brighton is starting to mudder out some audible words. I know he can recognize and associate words that we say (better watch that language mom!) but I had yet to confirm that he actually understands what we're saying. The other day I swear he said as I was changing him and he hadn't had his first nap yet "mom sleepy". Sally and Tom swear he was saying his name Bri-ton. And when asked where his shoes go and where his toes are, he points to his feet. He also really loves his new pet "feeshees" (two betta fish, one is named "SPOT" the other dubbed "BOB") How cute is that? I think he's also been saying "thirsty" which comes out a bit more like "datty" don't ask me how I know this I just do.

Brighton also has some new fascinations. One being his belly button. And everyone elses belly button. He's infatuated with trucks, or tractors, or anything with big wheels. His new most favorite toy is none other than a big cardboard box with "windows" cut out.
He also has a new bestest buddy...You can barely see her in the photo but that's Brighton laying on Feebee in Dad's chair. I was working on the computer yesterday and didn't hear anything so I went to check on him and this is what I found. I had to literally tip toe back into the sunroom to grab the camera.


We have a new visitor whom I thought was just coming to see us out of the curiosity of our human lived inside this big box called a house. Saturday morning a squirrel decided to peer unscrupiously into our kitchen window. Of course, Andrew noticed him first and he scared the daylights out of Andrew. He immediately presumed the squirrel was rabid, which I assured him the squirrel probably was not. Turns out, he was just eating my petunias in the windowboxes on the deck...so I left him three of my prized pecans and bought a squirrel feeder which I still have to fill with corn.

A Day at the Park

Brighton and I decided to have a picnic at the park. I loaded up some lunch, packed up his Radio Flyer and off we went to the park! Brighton ended up eating a green acorn (we sat under an oak tree), heaven only knows how many bugs, grass, and his sandwich, cheese, cheddar rice cakes, some of my potato chips that he commondeered, and that's about it...that I know of. As you can see from the photos, he really enjoyed drinking from the water bottle. He attempted at several times to steal the straw from my soda. We had a good time. We went to the swing set afterwards to swing for a little while. HE really enjoyed that, especially when mom got her big buns into the swing next to him. He giggled and giggled.

When we came home, we were both pretty whiped and hot. So we decided to hop into the shower to cool off. Almost immediately upon removing his diaper, he stood up by the tub and peed on it! Great, this is the start of something isn't it? So he took a bath, I took a shower. When we finished, I took him into the bedroom to put his diaper back on and get him ready for his nap. Before I could grab the diaper, he looked down at his boy parts as if something curious was about to happen. Then it came. The spray of baby urine soaking my just cleaned bedspread. "No no no!!!" GREAT! So I quickly put the diaper on (backwards first eventually the right way) then proceeded to fold laundry while he wore himself out crawling around the floor. Back to the predatory behaviors of toddlers. It was useless to try to fold the laundry, so I pitched what was left of it back into the basket and nursed the little turkey to sleep.

Yoga and Toddlers don't mix

This morning I attempted to perform my "spine release" TRI yoga routine. I knew it would be difficult with the little man roaming free, but I had no idea. As I was in child pose after another particularly difficult pose I chose to forget about , focusing on my ooji breathing I hear "CRASH!" I break my relaxation to look up at my one year old climbing his favorite, mount end table, and tossing the equivalent of a flag, the lamp, off the table. I pause my video. Check to make sure nothing is broken, and remove said toddler from the end table.

Back to natural breath and natural seat and completion mudra. Beginning cobra, I lie flat on the ground, face down, as I begin cobra one (just lifting chest using back strength). Triumph. Toddler is somewhere playing with toys. I return on exhale to face to floor, and begin cobra one and go into cobra two. Toddler sees me doing this and thinks "hey, I'll just go see what she's doing". I hear the faint "plop plop plop" of quick toddler hands against the floor then as I ascend into cobra, I can hear and feel several of my bang hairs being pulled out by sticky little hands who love the feel of the yoga mat. I breathe through the immediate pain. Then, I see (and feel) slobbery, spitty, wet raspberries in my face. Complete with a huge grin. OK, I had to giggle. So after much crawling in and out and under and over me while in different poses, I decide that Yoga is apparently as much fun for a toddler as it's supposed to be exercise for mom. But wait, there's more. I'm attempting to be in total relaxation, arms outstretched in the "t" position, legs straight out, hands in ohm madra, starting to feel relaxed when all of a sudden, I feel...oh how do I put this gently...hm...well, let's just say Brighton wanted a bit of a drink. (I didn't mention that I didn't bother to wear a bra under my t-shirt, not thinking). Needless to say, I didn't quite end my yoga at home session with total relaxation, but I did leave it with a bit of a giggle.

Silliness & Disappointment

Well that's a fun title huh? Well I'll start off with the bad news. We got an offer on our house before we left for San Diego. YAY! Then when we come back, we found that they couldn't get financing for our house without at least 5% down. So they can't buy the house. They want it badly, but can't come up with $2500! We're not talking $10,000 or even $5000. $2500! Well, I can't judge. I don't know that when Andrew and I were first married we could come up with that money either. At least not without borrowing it. We even offerred to loan them the money but the banks wouldn't go for that either. So we're back at square one and the people who we were hoping to buy the house from is going to list it with a realtor. So that house will go fast if we don't figure something out. There is some light at the end of the tunnel however. One of the kids that used to work for Luke (Big Luke) is looking for someplace to rent. So if worse comes to worse we have that option.

On with the funnies.

Last night Brighton learned how to give raspberries. He learned on my boob while nursing. He thinks it's terribly funny and I suppose we do'nt help when we laugh at him. Well, it is pretty funny. I am hoping to be able to record the sound. We got a video of it but that will not be released due to it's graphic nature. haha.