Dear Mr. Independent Brecken... Please return my sweet little boy!!!!!

A few things are for sure....

1.) Gone are the days where Brecken peacefully went about his day, playing with what we gave him, eating what we offered him, drinking his milk like it was going out of style. In place, Brecken now SPEAKS HIS MIND (in a beautiful sounding chorus of cries and off pitch groans) and in bodily motions of hand flapping.

2.) 10 month old can throw temper tantrums. What?? 10 month olds can throw temper tantrums?? Who knew?!?! To break it down for everyone, this is how it goes: Child is sitting on a blanket outside, enjoying time with his parents and the beautiful sun. Child sees leaf that he would like to eat so scoots to the edge of the blanket to obtain this goal. Child grabs leaf and plays with it, getting excited about the moment he can put it into his mouth. When child tries to eat leaf, parent pushes leaf away from his mouth. Child looks irritated but remains positive. When actions repeat themselves, parent takes leaf away. What happens next, I am positive, can only be a described as an absolute, 100% accurate, no-doubt-about-it Temper Tantrum: Child look up at parent with angry eyes, nostrils flare challenging parent to back down... When parent doesn't back down, BOTH arms start waving in riot form, mouth opens WIDE in preparation for the full body scream that will in no time ensue, LEGS start to kick in front of said child. This, family and friends, is not going to defeat THESE parents. We look our sweet, innocent little baby in the eyes and tell him "that's enough" while we stand our ground and not give him back the one thing in life that would make him smile again: His leaf. Within 10 seconds, he is happy again..... Onto trying to put a stick in his mouth :)

All in all, our spring break was a success! We had some down time, some much-needed organization time, lots of play time, and visiting family time! I also feel like our little boy has done a lot of growing up in the past week.... Not necessarily "yippee" stuff, but "growing up" stuff nonetheless. Brecken, who stopped drinking from his bottle a few weeks ago, now doesn't like drinking "just" his sippy and prefers to have half of his meal first, then a little milk as he eats. He thinks he's a big boy beyond his months :) :(

Still no crawling, but getting closer to walking every day! He seems to have great balance and likes to stand up to his toys by himself while he plays with them. He gets everywhere he needs to get, without the "crawl" itself- He mostly army crawls backwards and rolls to his destinations. For the first time in his life, he is now starting to get frustrated when he can't get to something. Maybe this will light a fire under his tooshie to get him up and moving, but it makes our ears bleed :) Brecken loves playing basketball- Especially dribbling and still smiles all the time. He loves to laugh at everything, and now claps at himself whenever he thinks he did good (which is often). We've been using signing with him since he was born and while he's been "understanding" for awhile he had never signed back- Until last night when he signed "more" when we were having dinner! I was such a proud mama!!! I think he got over half a bag of yogurt melts as a result which probably isn't good, but like I said, I was proud and just couldn't stop :)

Brecken LOVES to read books. In fact, just last night, Brecken and I laid with a blanket on the floor in his bedroom to read a few books before bedtime.... A "few" turned into an hour and a half of books! He was focused, touching all the pictures and listening intently! It made for a later bedtime, but he was really into them!!!

I still haven't taken the weeks' pictures off of the camera so will post later! According to our scales at home, Brecken weighs 23.4 pounds.... Not sure how accurate that is compared to the doctor scales, but that's what he is for now!

Happy Sunday to all....