Monkey see, monkey do.  That's the best way to describe Mr Brady these days.  He is a little sponge watching and copying every move.  This works to Mom and Dad's advantage after dinner helping us get him to wipe his hands and his mouth with his face wipes.  He imitates words we say (like turtle, doggie, baby) or motions we make (tossing a ball, sitting in a chair).  While he is keen to watch and learn, he also is very independent exploring new toys or objects comfortably on his own.  He's loving his time at the Little Gym, learning how to swing on rings, walk a balance beam, learn how to do a forward roll, or play with the parachute (an old fav from gym class).

Developmentally he just got his two upper molars and has broken the third row of teeth from the upper front.  This brings the total to 14, and he's only 14 months old!  6 more teeth to go until he has all his baby teeth.  Unfortunately all these teeth have lead to a couple incidents of biting at day care.  You do not cross Brady and steal his blankie or he will bite you.  They try to curb this by explaining to him that it hurts his friends.  While he may bite he's immediately sorry and will lean in for a hug.  Another really sweet thing he does is give kisses.  He used to open mouth kiss, now it's closed mouth and given with a hi, good morning, or good bye.

Since he has done so well with his sign language, we bought him a couple baby signing time DVDs.  He really enjoys those and will communicate by signing "baby" when he wants to watch them.  It's hard to pick out his signs sometimes, but it's really amazing to speak to him and see him sign back.  For instance today it was raining (odd for TX in July).  When Mom held him to look outside and said it was wet out, he did the sign for rain.  Very cool.  A couple of the videos have songs and he loves dancing this one called the "diaper dance".

He enjoys his bedtime and morning routines, and instead of fighting us to get dressed he holds his arms up to go into his sleeves and feet up to go into his shorts.  He giggles a lot too and loves to be tickled by his Mom under his arms, on his feet or belly, and on his neck.  Another new parenting mistake - diaper rashes are not just for babies, in fact he gets them more now that he's on a variety of foods than as a newborn.  He's also a lot messier and dirtier eating, playing, and coloring at school or at home.  We do a lot of laundry and there's only 3 of us!

Brady loves throwing tennis balls.  Mom tried to teach him how to catch, and for some reason he really wanted to do this from his rocking chair (she admired his sense of challenge).  He didn't catch too many, but had a great time swatting at them and playing with his Mom.

 Helping Mom sweep

A little less "helpful" with the laundry

Why washers and dryers have child locks