The Boy Who Stole Our Hearts: Part Three

I don’t write a lot about my son, but I wanted to take the chance to record some of my favorite memories of him over the last 15 months. Here is part three:

I’ve got rhythm…and so does Brady! I’m not at all kidding  - this one-year-old claps and sways in rhythm. In fact, now when he sees the church, he stops what he’s doing and starts “dancing” (swaying) and clapping. If he hears even the faintest music, he has to dance. He just loves music, and I am more than a little hopeful that my musical gifts have been passed to him.

I always dreamed of a blond-haired, blue-eyed boy, but with my Lebanese heritage I didn’t think that would ever happen. I also worried that I would have ugly babies (just being honest!) because let’s face it, not every baby is cute no matter what you say. Somehow I not only ended up with the blonde, blue-eyed little boy I always wanted, he’s as cute as a button. I’m biased, I know, but I can’t imagine a cuter little baby – Joel even says he feels sorry for the rest of our kids because they can’t possibly be cuter. We’ll see what he thinks if we ever have a brown-eyed, curly-haired little girl… :)

Brady loves to push things and open and shut things. He loves microwaves, drawers, and cupboards. His latest fascination is the vacuum. In fact, we have a small red vacuum that is just his size, so last week I let him vacuum all of my hard floors. I don’t think that breaks child labor laws if he enjoys it! But then I got out the big vacuum and he wanted that one. It was funny because it’s too difficult for him to push on the carpet, but he knows he can on the hard floor. But I have to turn off the spinbrush on the hard floor because, well, it’s not good for the floor – except then Brady thinks I shut it off. So he goes back and forth between wanting it “on”, and wanting to be able to push it. He has four or five push toys, but still defaults to the same one he’s had forever as his favorite toy. I think he would be content to push stuff around for hours.

He also can’t get enough of computers and phones. Cell phones are probably his favorite. He likes to beep at my mom’s phone since it chirps so often. As I’ve already blogged about, you have to watch the boy because he likes to dial actual numbers: he called Uncle Bryon from my parents’ house, he dialed 9-1-1 and brought cops to our door, and many others I’m sure I don’t even know about.

Brady loves attention. He’ll do anything that makes others laugh. His latest thing is to “fall down” to get you to laugh. He went through a long phase where he would fake cough to make people laugh; I don’t know how that didn’t hurt his throat, but he did it all the time.

At 15 months, Brady is a little sponge, soaking up new things each day. He’s getting into a hitting, throwing, stubborn phase that brings with it all kinds of tiring yet funny moments. Like how he gets mad and throws something, but it doesn’t go far enough or do enough damage so he has to pick it up and throw it again and again. Or how he tried to throw his crib at me, yes his crib, when he got mad. Or how I told him to brush his teeth and because he had just been “helping” me brush my hair, he thought that meant to put the toothbrush (and toothpaste) in his hair. It amazes me what he learns on his own. I can’t wait to see the new habits, likes, and dislikes Brady will develop over the next year and beyond.