April already!

This month started off with a switch in daycare providers. This has been brewing for quite sometime I suspect, although we were not told that we would need to be looking else where. Long story short, the private sitter took on a new born which meant less time for Berik, which meant, Berik and others to stay inside more and more so newborn baby's needs could be met, which equals disaster with Mr. Busy Body. Plus there was no structured activity like coloring or singing time.. etc... so it was time to for a change. Almost as quickly as I began to look for another daycare, "the mood" changed at the sitters house and we wanted Berik out of there. Our church has a wonderful daycare but I worried about class size, competition and him being put in with so many other kids at once. Also we were paying $270.00 monthly with meals included and would now be paying $430.00 plus meals. So you know this knocked me through a loop, however, the day she told my husband that we might ought to have Berik "tested" we suddenly found the extra money to switch him the next day! Tested for what????? For being 2? and wanting to be busy? The first couple of days were tests for both him and the teachers, however, after about day 3 he was literally running to get inside to his new class! He loved it!! 8 boys and 2 girls, poor girls! The teachers say he quickly fell into the routines and is thriving!! His speech has picked up up 100% and we are SO VERY PLEASED!! They go out 2x a day for play and they have covered areas to play outside as well as a regular playground and he eats 2 snacks and lunch in the lunchroom, so this guarantee's that at least 5 times a day he gets to get out of his regular room. Well worth the $ !!!

One evening we went to the Walker County Fair, here in Huntsville and we had a great BBQ meal with some friends. After dinner we went on the giant super slide. It was soooo much fun but due to sooooo many stairs up to the top, I elected to only do it once. We looked at all the fair animals but he was mainly interested in the cows. He mooed and mooed over and over. If you say what does the baby cow say, he will softly say, moooo but ask about the BIG COW and you'll get MOOOOOO. He will do this now with all the animals he knows and it is a good game to play in the car.
As always my friend Tracy and I like to get pics in the bluebonnet flowers with the kids. When it was just her and one son and no Berik it was easy, but now with son #2 and Berik and some additional friends it was quite hectic this year and this is really the only good pic we got. The flowers are so pretty but they only come out for a couple of weeks and they they are gone so you have to hurry!
I think we were still exhausted from last month's activities so we didn't do so much this month. We did take a boat ride in our newly acquired boat, that basically is being housed here in our back yard. No money has been exchanged but it's previous owner bought himself a new pontoon boat and found it a must, that Berik, not Jaimie, but that Berik have a boat. With that said , thank you Bob and Berik is enjoying his boat! See Daddy teaching Berik how to drive a boat? Bad habits daddy! Daddy has been teaching Berik to drive a car/truck also for sometime now. I am sure that when B is in his teens and steals the car to haul the boat to joy ride in, that Jaimie will remember that he taught him so well. :) Berik spends alot and I mean alot!!!! of time telling Jaimie, Berik drive..Berik drive..and when he is in his car seat he spends the other part of his time saying, "drive daddy drive". Pretty cute but can also but pretty annoying when you are trying to have a 'grown up' conversation.
Although B is a momma's boy he loves Daddy and loves to wear his work boots. He moves pretty slow in them as they are heavy! He continues to wear every pair of shoes he can find around the house. He is Mr. Independent and as if he didn't know that a friend of mine brought him over this shirt so he could proudly boast about it! He is proud of his Dora Dora Boots, boots if you will, and would wear them all the time if he could Ever since he turned 2 he is some kind of ... "me, me, me , mine, mine, mine and no, no, no! Daddy tried to teach him the right way to play with his dump truck, (also a gift from Bob & Judy) but who know if he really ever got it because he continues to hold the controller upside down and pulls it to him using the wire. ? Whatever.. he is having fun with it. I guess that about does it for the most boring month we have had in while. Sorry I just can't remember if there was anything exciting and have misplaced my notes for this month. You'll take care. Gena, Jaimie and Berik

March Mania

Every since we have gotten back with Berik, I have tried to find a special day/date to have him baptized. Would it be our
Gotcha day? our court date? his birthday? Finally, as I was going through some papers I came across my stepdaughter, Jessi's, baptism certificate that was dated March 30th and that set everything into motion. We would celebrate Berik's birthday (March 27) on Sat March 29th and have his baptism on Sunday March 30th. Both kids would have the same baptism day. So most of the month was spent gearing up for back to back celebrations. Berik is very busy and is getting more vocal by the minute. He is growing and progressing so much everyday that I can hardly keep up. Each time someone sneezes, he says, "bess you" minus the "l" but close! He is stuck on counting his way or no way. Sometimes he will count with you but will not say one. If you say, say one, he says 2 and if you say 3, he says 4, when you say 5, he says 5 and then when you say 6, he says 7,8 and then you say 9 and he says 10 and claps and says yeah! Other times you say one and he says, two buckle yo shu and 3,4 hu the do (shut the door). One day in the car, he started saying i wanna pa de don,over and over, which translates into, I want to party down! No one knows where that one came from but it was good for his birthday month. Well by now you should get it, that he is on his own agenda and we pretty much just go with the flow and laugh! His fine motor skills are great, see for yourself. If you turn your back he will empty a thing of wipes in a flash. He is really into shoes and goes around saying, shoe on, shoe off, over and over again. He brings you shoes constantly and puts them or more like, forces them on your feet . He walks around in any shoes he can find and them when he isn't wearing them, he busies himself with taking out the shoestrings, which is really convenient when you are in a hurry :). Berik was more into the Easter baskets for daycare, then he was last month for Valentines day. He looked so funny in his Easter bunny glasses and he managed not to break them! Look at the haul he made from daycare. Mommy and daddy helped him out and ate a lot of the candy. We wouldn't want him to have cavities now would we? See,all for the good of Berik. This year, I wouldn't give up until I had the perfect Easter outfit for him. Not wanting to pay full price I turned to e-bay, bid on two and won them both! Oops! What to do now? So we wore one for Palm Sunday and one for Easter Sunday. I plan to re-sell them next year on e-bay. We will see how that goes. With my luck no-one will want them. He netted bunches of eggs while hunting them with his Sunday school class. Other than that, we ate with my parents and enjoyed a beautiful day at home. Then it was back to gearing up for the weekend to come. Family and friends came from near and far to help us celebrate. We had a fun birthday party at the park with hot dogs,baked beans, chips, etc. Berik had a lot of fun riding on my nephew's shoulders and playing with the other kids. His puppy dog cake was really cool and it was homemade for only $18.00. Can't beat that price with a stick! He got more than his fair share of gifts and I thought the present opening would never end. Thanks to all for everything! The next day we had his Baptism. The church had it set up for early in the service , as he is kind of squirmy. He sat in my lap and listened intently at one point to the choir. Just as they finished , he YELLED at the top of his lungs, YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND CLAPPED!! At that point the congregation began to laugh and clap along with him. Then it was his turn and needless to say he was quite excited but did good and he literally leaped out of my arms and into the arms of the preacher. All in all a really great experience! Afterwards we headed over to my parents and had brunch and special times with family and friends. I had his cross cake made for $20.oo, again a steal! Thanks to Gert for making both cakes. The were really good too! Berik got more gifts too, many thanks ! This pretty much concluded the month for us as we were wiped out of energy and $.

February---finally

This is actually in January but I wanted it on here. He is having a blast but look how much he has to duck to go through.



I don't know where to start with this one as it is June now and I am so far behind. Berik continues to strive to be independant. He does well at chow time with his fork and glass.
I mean , my fork and glass. He wants whatever we have, especially me. That's probably because he knows I will give in for a moment of peace and quiet. It was suggested that we try veggie burgers and we did but couldn't find the recommended brand and B didn't like the ones we got. We will try again and we are still trying to remember the bread sticks when we are at the store. Thanks , Sara for the suggestions. Another thing I failed to mention in my last post is that Berik has all of his teeth in. Yes, all of them and he isn't 2 yet. He sure uses them too to crunch up, shred up and rip up usually food but sometimes I think we may have a puppy in the house.
Valentines day sure got here in a hurry and that meant shopping for Valentines goodies for the 3 girls at daycare. Right now Berik is in private care and the other children are all girls. They exchange gifts or "have parties" 4x a year, Valentines, Easter, Halloween, and Christmas. I do enjoy making up the bags and usually Berik is excited but this time he couldn't have cared less. I couldn't even get him to hardly sit by the bags much less hold his Valentine puppy. Berik loves to get and open mail. He got an early Valentines gift from his Godmother, Elizabeth. Thanks!

He is still into lining up things, his trucks, magnets, food, etc.. the daycare lady says each morning he lines the playroom window sill with trucks.









Just by chance I figure he got these in order from smallest to largest.

Other than my birthday this month, which I have no idea what I did, there just wasn't alot going on except getting ready for Berik's baptism and birthday in March. I am into taking all of these cute pictures of him sleeping and will leave you those.

Berik uses his head!!

January 2008

Well little does the Huntsville newspaper staff know but I do have the cutest kid ever!! See for yourself.. I entered Berik in a cute kid contest and nope he didn't get it but hey I know he's the cutest! Each year they have a contest and put the entries in the local paper. I won't do it again as his was in the crease of the paper with this big line across his face and the print/color was all smeared. Oh well, lesson learned. I hope they enjoyed my $20.00 donation.
Berik continues to use his head in many ways.. for balance..

and to carry things..







and most of all so he doesn't have to stand while playing at the refrigerator with his magnets.
Berik is learning more and more each day and continues to get better at talking, however, babbling along is still his favorite. He loves to count and make animal sounds. Occasionally, Berik will sit ever so quietly in his car seat and soak up the world around him. One day Jaimie and I were talking and made mention that someone we knew was a "cow", to which Berik responded Mooooooooo... We just cracked up laughing.Neither of us took into account that he was listening to us and when he busted out with a big ol' Moooooo it was hilarious!! From here forward we will have to watch what we say, that's for sure. He can say big words clearly like butterfly, but won't say milk or even try to say it. He is definitely on his own agenda. One day he turns to me and says, I need to go poo poo..ok , really? Well, run, run to the potty, poor thing he turns around to run and trips over a box. That kind of ruined the moment but I encouraged him to go ahead and get up and go. We did, he made it to the potty but no poo. He made the sounds effects for me but no go. Well.. that was exciting but false alarm. We continue to go each evening before bath time and tt is always successful. I guess at just under 2 I am glad that he is even interested.
He still likes to eat, 24/7. He is not fat but he is big. We haven't weighed him lately but he was at 34 last we checked, in Dec. He had his first drumstick the other day and loved it but we had to finally take it away as he was trying to eat bone and all. He went crazy over it like a dog almost, which meant he wouldn't touch anything else on his plate until we took it away.
He also helps himself to the refrigerator whenever he can get away with it, which I don't like, but I did sneak a pic of him trying to get some milk, so at least it was a healthy choice! Meal by meal the battle over the veggies increases. He will eat yellows most anytime but green is usually where he puts on the brakes. He will eat green beans if he is in the mood but he used to eat more greens. He definitely lets you know that a certain veggie is intruding upon his plate by taking it in his hand, flinging it over on to your plate while at the same time
making a very convincing choking/throw up sound and gesture, completed with body/head movements. He to date has not completed his warning but one day we are fearful that he may very well follow through. Needless to say, when we eat at a restaurant we don't usually push the issue. So I guess in a sense he is winning this one. Any one out there with some ideas? It is so good that I have tried to get it on video but haven't been able to yet. Not that you wanted to see it really anyhow but it is very believable.
Speaking of pushing it! He loves to push bedtime now. You know last month he was simply wonderful and easy and now he has discovered, in its entirety, the LIGHT SWITCH! Let the fun begin. I could move his bed but then I would have to move other furniture in his not so big room, which would cause me to have to move pictures etc.. so I will battle this one out. No fear of being thrown up on, just a little crying. The routine, same as usual, gets the elephant, his water, and heads to bed. Books and then kisses goodnight and a few minutes later... the DISCO lights begin! Click, on, click off, on, off , on, off. He hears you coming..if it is daddy, when the door opens, he makes a diving leap into the sleeping position leaving the light however it was, sometimes off, sometimes on. If it is me.. well you watch and see..

So as you can see Mommy is the.. oh well it's just mommy! Berik still likes to ride on his little tikes truck, but is he so big that the wheel just would fall off? Or did the factory ( daddy ) not put it together good enough? Daddy votes that B is just too much for the truck and would like to see it retire in someone else's house. B watches intently as daddy fixing his tire as if daddy really had time before work but he did it anyway. He loves to push around his tonka truck that he got from Santa but I really watch out for that one as it is made out of metal and hurts when he runs it into your legs. He continues to play with vehicles which seem to be the toy of choice at the moment but he also loves his blocks too! And .. last but not least by far.. you remember when I said Berik uses his head.. well on Jan 31st he used it alright, to get a potty seat stuck on. Yuck!! I know but he already had it on his head by the time we noticed and Jaimie whipped out the camera to capture the action. At first it was funny, as he wore it for a hat a bit before slipping it over his head. He continued to play as J and I were both busy we figured out that it was fairly new and I had just cleaned it so we just let him. Well when he tried to get it off he became hysterically because it wasn't coming off. I laughed (mean mommy) but it was funny , until Jaimie and I tried and it wasn't budging. He was crying hysterically and we tried pinning his ears back and forward and turning the seat and then smeared Vaseline all over his head and still nothing. We finally had to unscrew the bottom piece, and cut off all the rest with a knife and then bust the plastic piece to finally gain his freedom. Poor Berik his ears were fire engine red and then bruised and stayed that way for several days after. Way to go Berik, way to use your head!!!! My two cousins had both sent gifts cards a while back and I had used the first one for the seat and I used the second one for the replacement seat. So both cousins gave us the exact same thing, how exciting! not. But just a few minutes later he was smiling again. Stay tuned for Feb. as slowly I will get caught up. Gena

December , Yes December posting in March :)

What did we do in December? Well, it is now March and I'm obviously not getting any quicker or younger so I will try to do my best to drum up something! The first thing we did was go to the Huntsville annual Christmas parade. We met up with some friends got parked/situated and the first thing down the street was some jazzed up motorcycle club adorned in their Christmas garb and right behind them the fire trucks with their horns/sirens blaring. Not loud and exciting to Berik, rather loud and scary to the point of tears. We figured they were killing his ears as they could be sensitive due to the ear tubes. I put my hands over his ears and held them tightly waiting for all to pass and wouldn't you know they stopped right in front of us. Still blaring the sirens and throwing Christmas candy Berik was not thrilled. Finally, it started moving again and Berik settled down, enjoying the school marching band, the acrobats, the colorful floats and finally got the hang of telling daddy where the candy was that he wanted by yelling and pointing to it on the ground, while he hung out safely in the bed of the truck. Finally Santa came and Berik waved because Santa was but really could have not cared less. His friend Matthew (4) liked it though and was thrilled to get extra candy from Berik. We took the rest home and let Berik rummage through it and then tossed it. Gratefully he doesn't understand candy yet!!!
We did plenty of shopping with Berik but finally left him with a babysitter and for the first time we went out of the city limits together, Jaimie and I, without him. I probably called the babysitter enough to drive her crazy because I was just worried. Everything turned out fine and he was only up about l hour before he went to bed so really we just paid her to watch him sleep, yet I still worried. Silly me, I have my parents right here in town and plenty of friends in case something happened but still, now I am trying to decide whether it is more stressful to shop with him or without?
Berik is so easy to put to bed it is ridiculous! He lets you know by grabbing up his elephant, Mr. Blue, and then he comes and pulls you to his room and throws his arms up in the air for you to put him in the crib. He gets in, you say nite nite and that usually it. On the sad side he doesn't much liked to be rocked once you get to his room. He is growing up so fast :) and :( .
We continue to have the best Friday nights with Berik. After dinner everyone that is in our house, friend or family, falls victim to or gets in on whatever we decide to do, whether its playing blocks, trucks, or kicking the balls all over the house, as we usually don't watch any TV which is great!!, but during the week we do have it on and by the time you slide in a bath and bedtime story etc and trying to get ready for the next day there is usually no time for 100% play! He continues to like this particular set of stacking toys and had the best time putting them on daddy's head. His fine motor skills and getting better and better in a hurry! He can now put my car key all the way into the door lock, can almost get the lock turned and then open the car door. He can climb up in his car seat and almost buckle himself in, as he still has a hard time with the 5 point harness. His talking is still mostly babble but has called my mother, Nana, Mimi and now Mammy. Her name that we call her, to him, is Grammy but he usually just calls her whatever he wants.
Because I have Berik I now "QUALIFY" to go to children's church Christmas eve service starting at 5:30pm, yeah!! This is the service that I like the most with the little kids performing the Christmas skits etc.. This years was about stars in heaven and the kids did really good except one little girl started crying when she fell off her step after she was elbowed by another star who didn't have enough room..lol! It was quite funny really. I can just see Berik now, pushing someone down or yelling over the music! Only time will tell. We had Christmas with my parents at my house, in the morning and in the afternoon at their house. My brother and his family came in the next day and we had Christmas all over again! The best thing besides the obvious, Berik, was that we were not FREEZING COLD like we were last year! Berik loved that Santa brought him a big tonka truck and exclaimed , " WOWWWWW" when he saw it in front of the tree. He was pretty good about opening his presents but by day two he wanted to open all of his and all of everyone else's too. He did not mess with the tree except once, when he took off one of my shiny ornaments and proceeded to smash it beyond repair and that's why my favorites were at the top of the tree
.He is getting better with the cats as you can see here, he is "petting the kitty nicely" while the Sam thinks he has found a new bed inside of a wreath meant for outside.
Jessi (16), my stepdaughter, came for a week. We had a good time with her, shopping, going to the movies and to a friends house on New Years eve to play a few games and eat! Berik is all about Jessi and she is good with him, as well she should be used to it because she has 3 siblings at home, all under the age of 5. She got everything she wanted for Christmas and then some and we just enjoy her so much it is always sad to send her home to Alabama.
The only other significant thing is this month marks the end of the bottle. We had decided to keep him on it for one year from the day we got him into our custody and we pretty much kept that promise. It was absolutely no problem, quick and easy. One day we just put them all up the cabinet and stopped cold turkey and he didn't care at all. These photos are from a visit with a special friend Bob. He gave Berik a remote control car and B had such a good time he was whooped on the way home and crashed out in the car seat. So sweetly sleeping! That's all for December. I am sure there was something more or at least a tad exciting but as it is March that's the best I could do. I am really trying to catch up as this is serving as my journal and hopefully when he gets older he will enjoying reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it! Until Jan post you'll take care! Gena

November 2007

So far, so good for the ears!!!!! No more infections but now he has Bronchitis, ugh!! Poor baby he was sick for a whole week. Here is a picture of Sam watching over Berik as he naps on the couch. We have another cat named Bandita but you'll never see her and Berik together as she makes it a point to be where he isn't. Berik is pretty good to Sam but there is always brief pull of the ol' tail waiting and Bandita doesn't want any part of that.
Berik continues to amaze me with the things he does and says. He continues to try and help me, help him, get dressed and sometimes dresses himself :). Here is pic of B lining up his blocks as he lines up a lot of things, magnets, food, his trucks etc. He is messy at times dumping out the whole toy basket but at other times he insists that everything is lined up. His vocabulary is picking up and he can say some things that I would think are more difficult, like butterfly but can't or won't say milk. He calls all liquids juice so then the guessing begins as to what he wants. I think he is on his own agenda :) . In the morning, if he gets into the kitchen first, he helps himself to whatever he wants for breakfast, this day it happened to be a sugar cone which I didn't think was great but I should have gotten there sooner and no, that's not all he had for breakfast. The other day while I was attempting to tidy up the house, I turned to see Berik completely up in his highchair. What? How did you get up there? After all it is still on the tallest setting. So, naturally I grabbed the camera and got him down and asked him to do it again, and he did. He also "has to" buckle up the highchair straps after each meal and although they aren't always correct he does get the job done. For the first few times I had not seen him clip the buckle and I thought Jaimie was doing it and I found it quite annoying but now that I realize it is my darling sweet baby, then it's ok right?
Speaking of darling and sweet, I think we are hitting the terrible two's early. When he is not being good, which is most of the time really, he shreds stuff like magazines, video covers, books (which we keep out of his reach the best we can) and styrofoam cups which don't stand a chance. I finally just gave in one evening and let him destroy a cup and of course I took pics. He is easy for the most part but at times he is quit challenging, as he runs from you instead of coming to you, sits when you need him to stand and squeals!!!!!!!!!!!!!! oh my does he squeal, so shrill it practically pierces your ears. When this doesn't work then he cries or stomps his feet. All my friends and family tell me it's just a phase and I hope they are right because I don't much like this. Just look at him at nap time, uh I think he is saying something like..."#!@&^*^ I don't need a nap@&^%$*^*" and then once he winds down he is so peaceful and sweet and wakes up the most smiley happy baby! Maybe he will pass through the terrible twos before he actually is 2?
Every year, for the past 13 yrs now, I have taken pictures for my friend Tracy, of her kid, (now kids), for their Christmas card. This year we went to the Huntsville State Park for a nice background/scenery. Not really planning on pictures of us we just kind of threw on something that had fall colors in it and left the house. Go figure that our pictures turned out pretty good but I just couldn't stand it that Berik's white socks he had on with brown boots showed, and that I had on a 3/4 sleeve shirt and they had on long sleeves so I decided not to go with this set of pics for our Christmas card. Due to busy lives, it was a couple of weeks later, when Tracy came over to our house one morning to take our pics and it was the most overcast, windy, ugly day ever but we went for it anyway and just picked out the best of the those. Note to self... next year plan way ahead, as this was stressful for me or just send picture of Berik and be done with it..as I am sure my friends really don't care what Jaimie or I look like anyhow! :)
Thanksgiving day was at our house and my parents came over, as they live here in town. We had really good grub and had some really cute pics of Berik and Mimi and Papaw but who knows where those went? We can't seem to find them anywhere. Finally, I qualified to have Thanksgiving at my house because I have a little one, but in the past I have always had to go to someone else's house. Berik initially balked at the turkey but eventually ate everything on his plate. We let him down from the table early as we were still stuffing it in. Mistake! Berik found my cell phone and somehow managed to put it on speaker phone and dial up Jaimies work. About the second time the lady said , "Wynne unit, control picket, officer so and so speaking" we figured it out and rushed over to get it but he hung up on her. Oops!! About a week later my cousin called me to ask me if I had text messaged her? Uh? No. Well guess who? Yep he had my cell phone again and had texted her, wmmw. Ok, note to self put cell phone totally out of sight. Out of sight, out of mind? We will see.
Last but not least, I think of things for, You know your a momma when... but when I don't write them down like all momma's, I forget. Here are three that stand out in my mind that I haven't forgotten yet...
You know you're a momma when.....

..you drop your baby off at daycare and you find yourself still listening to and singing along with the nursery rhyme CD all the way to work...

while tying your own shoes you attempt to double knot them..

you can turn the nightlight off and on with your toes because of course your hands are full..

I am sure there are more stuck in my little ol' brain just waiting to bust out but for now that's all folks. Until Dec. post, you'll take care!! Gena

PS- If you look close at the picture of Berik where he has dressed himself you will see that the wall it chewed and clawed up. This was the present we got, when we got back from Kaz from our boxer, Harley, who apparently wasn't too pleased that we were out of country. :)