Part 1 of a major catchup! (aka Brae's note from his mother)

Mamabeek gave me a heads-up that I’ve been neglecting the blog, so here I am.

To say we’ve been busy is a bit of an understatement.

Brae is now in spanking good health with no recurrences of the bugs that kept attacking him over the winter, and this I reckon is down to the Doc suggesting that he might be slightly asthmatic. Bit like his mother, in that it’s not really even noticeable unless he’s battling a cold etc, and then it only pops up to complicate things and delay recovery. One puff every day for about a week, and he’s right as rain.

Braeden’s had another growth and development spurt.. did I say one? Seems like half a dozen! He’s quite capable of talking but prefers to chatter away in his baby language for the most part, then suddenly dazzles adults by popping out a complete (and somewhat grammatically correct) sentence when he feels like it.

Kids are funny creatures. You get into a habit of doing things with them & don’t think they’re paying attention, until they show you that indeed they were. Plus they were taking notes for later.

We were sitting around chatting one morning (a week after his second birthday) while Braeden rifled through the kitchen cupboards. He does this daily – sometimes it seems like hourly. Out he came, with as many dessert spoons as he could find. He stood between his parents, then started laying out the spoons on the couch, talking quietly as he did so.

It wasn’t til he got to about the fifth one that we realized.. he was counting them!

He’d only found seven spoons, so had to start over.

“Wuh, doo, dee, orr, ife, icks, ehen.”

Parental conversation halted, a shared glance of “Nah, no way.. he couldn’t possibly have done.. could he?”

“Wuh, doo, dee, orr, ife, icks, ehen.”

We found some more spoons and found that Master Braeden can count to ten. He gets a bit lost after that. Well actually nine is his favourite; once you get to nine apparently every second number is nine. You learn something every day.

We hadn’t set out to teach him how to count, but it was second nature to count things thanks to Joey and her grapes. I reckon parrots are a very good preparation for having kids – you learn to deal with smart mouths, tantrums, picky eaters, toy obsessions, and lots of other things that parents of kids know all about. Wayne counts Joey’s grapes as he gives them to her, so he just carried on with Braeden. (Not that Braeden eats grapes.. there’s the picky eater for you).

Having a kid that can count while still in tantrum territory has its drawbacks. Braeden’s Kindergarten teachers chuckle about “Braeden’s Must-Haves”. This refers to the day’s absolutely essential item that must be taken from home to Kindy. Usually said item came from the kitchen cupboards. Just today I mounted a Black Ops maneouver to retrieve and hide the cheese grater before we left for Kindy. But other items have enjoyed the trip, such as the garlic crusher, the tongs, the potato masher, Tupperware lids, the pot-scrub and even the cutlery holder from the dishwasher!

That holder was nearly the undoing of Wayne one day when he took his son to Kindy. Wayne decided it had to stay in the car, and was dumbstruck by the screams, kicks, hair-pulls and total meltdown thrown by his son even once they were inside the grounds & in the sand pit. Braeden was inconsolable, pointing to the car, with tears pouring down his chubby cheeks. There was nothing for it but Wayne had to sprint all the way out again, and return with the Must-Have. As soon as it was offered, Braeden’s sobs dried up, his sunny demeanor returned, and he ran off to play with his friends, gaily waving the cutlery holder as he went.

When Wayne told me, I rolled my eyes at him and said “You really should know better than to even try. Remember I went through the same thing last week with the pot-scrub?”

And now the grumblemunchkin can count. Great! This means you can’t whip out an item from the Must-Haves en-route, because if he thinks “Hmmm.. this feels a bit light/easy to manage” he stops, lays out the items and it’s “Wuh, doo, dee…? … ?”

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

And you haven’t even made it to the car yet.

I think I’m going to have to stagger this update over several entries. Quite a lot has happened in the last month (oh all right, two months!).