These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

Besides his magical shirt of "sleep" (quotes added to indicate that sleep may or may not occur in the presence of said shirt), Bry has started to form some interesting attachments to objects you or I might overlook as being somewhat pedestrian, shall we say. Among the objects that Bry currently covets are Steve's collection of Nalgene bottles, my bottle of prenatal vitamins that acts as a highly fun "shaker" (and yes, I'm always watching him when he's doing his shaking thing), his toothbrush, an orange bib, and of course, anything that we try to take away from him.

Bry's highchair is positioned to overlook Steve's plastic water bottles, which are housed in a wine rack (classy!) on a shelf in our kitchen. During at least half of his meals, Bry will pause mid-chow, point his arm towards the shelf (he doesn't quite get the finger pointing thing yet), and make an enthusiastic "eehhhhh!" sound while really leaning his whole body into the gesture. I hand him one of the bottles and he beams back at me like I'm the world's most charming, wonderful mother (he's right). He then proceeds to flip the cap off and on about 900 times. If I'm feeling especially generous, I'll hand him some object to place inside the bottle and excitedly tell him to "Trap it!" which means shove the object in the bottle and flip the cap closed. This is very funny, although I'm imagining some of the humor is getting lost in my verbal description.

However, my "Mommy of the Year" award (and any "Daddy of the Year" points that Steve has racked up) is quickly recalled if I dare to pry Bry's toothbrush out of his hand after the obligatory brushing has been completed. He looooves the toothbrush. Loves to chew on it and polish the bathroom floor with it. And then stick it back into his mouth for more brushing. In theory, those actions shouldn't be any more disgusting than him picking up any of his toys from the floor and shoving them in his mouth, which he does all. day. long. But whoever said that logic played into parenting? I get grossed out by the often hairy toothbrush (usually Casey's hair), and try to insist that the toothbrush is to be used only in the bathroom. Turns out Bry does not agree with this assessment and howls and writhes whenever Steve or I confiscate it. We're still working on a solution to this problem that involves neither screaming, nor early tooth decay from hiding every toothbrush in the house. Feel free to insert advice here.

Perhaps most amusing is Bry's newfound attachment to one particular bib in his arsenal of drool-soaker-uppers. I've mentioned before about how he likes to take all of his bibs out of the drawer and strew them about. But for some reason he's particularly fond of his orange "Friday" bib, which is part of a series of - you guessed it - days of the week bibs. Maybe he already understands the concept of TGIF and is expressing his toddler thoughts in metaphor. Steve has a theory that orange is his favorite color, since he also seems to favor the orange diamond from his shapes puzzle. Through more enthusiastic grunts and body leans, I learned of Bry's particular love of the orange bib. I was putting on his pajamas one evening when he started motioning towards his clothes hamper. I carried him over to it and handed him the bib that was sitting on top, given his aforementioned general bib love. But Bry discarded it (threw it back in the hamper actually - nice!) and then leaned over to pluck the orange bib from its hiding spot under several other dirty items of clothing. At bedtime that evening, he insisted on holding the bib while nursing and then played with it for a good 5-10 minutes in his crib, putting it over his face and then peeking out from behind it, undoing the velcro, throwing it about his crib, etc. The whole thing was quite amusing, and several days later, he's still favoring the orange bib.

Silly me, I thought that kids got attached to things like blankets and stuffed animals. Or maybe other kids do. Perhaps Bry's just asserting his eclectic taste a little early.