Bradley the Artist and Eleanor the Imp

I finally let Bradley paint the other day. It was a HIT.

I get to get dirty??

Discovering tools of the trade

We are learning colors! "Boo" seems to be our favorite so far.

Art!

 The artist at work

I like to analyze Bradley's art.

Exploring the pathos of clean up time

He calls this one "Snack Time Joy"

 He's less and less into the painting and more and more into playing with the little sponges and getting paint on his hands.

This is what painting time typically looks like these days

Eleanor now hangs out in her high chair while Bradley is painting or playing with playdough. This seemed like a good idea until she started hollering to get at whatever he currently is working with.

Eleanor is on the move these days! Look at this face and tell me that the impish look doesn't strike fear into the core of your being!

This video is from a couple weeks ago but I love it because she's playing on her own and then sees me and is SO HAPPY. And then does her little scootch thing to get over to me. Adorable adorable.

I told a friend the other day that I know I'm biased since she's my child, but I'm a little obsessed with Eleanor these days. She is such a smiley little doll. I love dressing her in cute clothes, I love dancing with her and listening to her giggle when I dip her or when I give her a big hug, and I ADORE how she waves her hands about when she wants something desperately. We call it the princess wave. It generally works. She's just too darn cute.

Eleanor is such a different kid than Bradley. We are just nuts about both of them but they are so different. For instance, Eleanor allows her hands to be guided to the interesting parts of the touchy feely books we have while Bradley would jerk his hands away if I deigned to try such a thing. And while Bradley was constantly falling down and shaking us off when we tried to help him when he was pulling himself up, Eleanor barely ever falls down and is constantly looking for a person to hold onto while she's standing and playing. They're both particular, but in completely different ways.

Demonstrating her impressive ability to grab items off the floor without having to give up her standing position

Proud of the mess she is making

Eleanor also has a thing for drinking out of cups. She's been doing this for a month or two now. Looks like I'm going to be two for two for kids that never use a sippy cup.

She prefers my cup too. Little cups are for babies.

Eleanor's obsession with the cats is growing. This morning she was a little sad when she woke up and then she saw Sookie and was all smiles. Instantly. It warms my cat crazy heart that my daughter has inherited this part of myself. Bradley likes the cats okay but was never like this.

Our cats all deserve medals for the loves they tolerate on a regular basis.

Bradley is sometimes neglected because I'm paying too much attention to Eleanor, but that's generally a good thing as far as he's concerned because he can get into mischief while my attention is on the adorable baby girl. The other day it was finally warm and the snow was melting so I decided to take the kids out to the park.

Poor Eleanor. It was sunny and Bradley's old truck hat is the only sunhat that fits her right now.

Someone was thrilled to get to stand up on her own outside!

Can't ... get ... enough. She was so happy to be playing outside.

I was having a great time taking pictures of Eleanor while Bradley played nearby us until I realized that perhaps he was playing a little too quietly. Sure enough, he had found a big pile of mud and was having a blast grabbing chunks and throwing them and then wiping off his dirty hands on his shirt. The kid was SO dirty. And SO happy. I had a lot of trouble getting him inside even for snack.

Mud

So much mud. So much happy.

We cleaned up when we went inside for snack and came out briefly for a second round which lasted about 10 minutes because Bradley quickly got covered in mud once again. I see my future, and it involves a lot of mud and laundry.

Playing outside together. Eleanor is happiest when she's out of the dumb baby stroller and playing like big Bradley!

Proper incentives for doing new things is growing increasingly important with Bradley. There are only a few incentives that work for him right now: food, tv shows, his pacifier, or a bath. I guess going outside counts too. I can get him to do many things if one of these items is an immediate reward. I've been reading a parenting book where they talk about how for some children words of praise from the parent serve as an incentive for the child. Um, not for sweet Bradley. At least not yet. But my system is working really well so far!

Gazing back at the outdoors. I felt so bad for Bradley this winter when he would yell "out out!" and we couldn't go out because it was ten degrees. We're very happy that it's warming up.

Some behaviors I still don't really know what to do about. For instance - Bradley has started sticking objects in his ears. Great.

He thinks it's hilarious and I don't want to make it too forbidden or the stinker will do it every time my back is turned. So I try to downplay it.

However, we had a parents as teachers educator here this past week who did a hearing test on little Bradley that involved sticking little ear buds in his ears for the test. Bradley was SO into this. So much for keeping things out of his ears.

This is the expression of fascinated focus. He loves being a patient. This is the expression on his face whenever we go to the doctor's office and they examine him. Such a cutie.

Bradley has also picked up on the power of trading for what he wants and tries to make it work to his advantage on a regular basis. He knows he gets in trouble if he steals one of Eleanor's toys so he'll bring over a clearly inferior toy, thrust it at her, and then grab the toy she had happily been playing with prior to that. It generally works okay with Eleanor but it doesn't go over as well with his friends at playgroup and at church.

Here is an example of excellent sharing on Bradley's part. Note how nice he is even when Eleanor bashes the toy he just gave her into his hand.

And here is less exemplary sharing.

Bradley is entering into a rebellious phase. I know this because we were driving in the car a few days ago and he had his finger in his nose, digging for gold. He had managed to give himself a nose bleed in this manner the previous week (sigh) so I've been on a finger out of nose campaign and I firmly told him to get that finger out of his nose. He did, and then gave me a funny look, and slowly took his finger and gently placed it back in his nose. He left it there for the next ten minutes (I know because I timed it) and stared at me as I kept looking back and failing in my efforts to keep from laughing.

He's also still going strong on post bath nudie time. This little bum gets pinched a LOT.

We also need to do some work training Bradley in his big brother responsibilities. For instance, we met our friend Olivia at the library the other day and Bradley had to block - that - out! when she tried to come say hi to Eleanor in her stroller when we were leaving. However, when we were at an indoor play place the previous week he did not supervise Eleanor at all and another little boy we were there with kissed her full on the mouth. Come on, big brother. Can't let toys distract you from sister duty.

"Watching over" Eleanor at the library. He knows he's not allowed in the baby area. But serious leaning is okay, right?

Sweet boy checking in on Eleanor while she stands up so big

Sometimes Eleanor does not need Bradley to watch over her as closely as he does. Sometimes he may be considered a pest.

Eleanor is going to be SO tough. Watch how long it takes her to get upset with Bradley in this video.

Lately we've moved the kids so they can sit by each other while eating. Bradley had been insisting this was necessary for some time. Both love it.

The kids are doing great, we had a bout of the flu while Nathan was on his last trip but we're all better now. Bradley, you threw up ON me and I still love you. Actually, I was really worried about you and didn't mind the throw up at all except it meant I had to clean myself up as well as you before we could snuggle and make you feel better. Remember this when you have teenage angst.

I also made you play dough and took pictures of you being hilarious. Not knowing that I would be up the whole next night with the throw up flu myself. We need to stop being sick whenever Nathan leaves for a work trip.

Home made play dough!

Stinker. FYI, Wooden spoons provide great entertainment.

Markers color the paper, markers also color the boy.

We are much happier when Daddy is home. He is such a good daddy, Eleanor lights up whenever he's around and Bradley tells me to "go way" at bedtime because it's Daddy time! Play time with Daddy is also a different beast. The toddler is pushing around the infant on a toy car with minimal interference ...

And for our final video of the day, here are Bradley and Eleanor cracking each other up. I just hope these two stay such great buds as they grow older. It's amazing to watch.

Oh, and one last Bradley story! He has been picking up words like crazy lately. I was driving the other day and heard Bradley repeating something over and over in the backseat and realized he was saying "green light go! green light go!" over and over. I've been explaining to him why we have to stop while driving, stopping is offensive to young Bradley. Red light stop, green light go. We really like green light go.

I was also getting things together to leave the house the other day and said "keys, check!" and heard a number of "keys check keys check" from my little mimic. I really need to stop calling the cats morons in front of him.

And we've discovered that our "shy" little boy (much sarcasm) is okay with play places at fast food restaurants. We went for a rare dinner out at Chick fil a the other week and I decided to let Bradley try out the play place after he was done eating since Daddy and Eleanor were still eating. He was the youngest child in there by far and I ended up having to climb up into the structure to drag him out. I love the Midwest, he was playing with a bunch of four through six year olds and they were all saying "watch out for the baby!" as they raced through the play structure. One appointed herself his guardian. He loved it and when I would check on him he would tell me to "go way" much to the older children's delight. We're generally very nice to Mommy and don't tell her to go away but I can't really blame the kid when he's in the best - place - ever! and Mommy is looking like she's planning on ending the fun.

The kids are so much fun, all we need to do is stop being sick and we'll be all set!