End of the Year 2014

Tonight for our Christmas Punch Calendar activity we did an end of the year list and asked each kid some questions.  Brennan had the most entertaining responses (yes I spelled Mommy wrong).

I hope I can remember to do this survey again next year.  I think it will be entertaining to see how their responses change and to read them the ones from the previous years as they age.

Also tonight, we did a coloring activity, it was easy to see which one was Brennan's he's still very much a scribbler but he never passes up a chance to color, although his favorite thing is cutting with scissors.  He never passes up a chance to cut up anything he colors.

I won't say it's been an easy year with Brennan.  He is a far different child than Sara. I think my expectations suffer a little based on what I thought raising a child was like based on my previous experience with Sara.  Sara made it easy peasy with her more laid back, easy to go along and get along attitude.  Brennan can be a real challenge at times and I've struggled off and on.    I wish I could say it's been all roses but I can't.

The latest and greatest difficulty is trantruming.  He's discovered it and is good at it.  Putting on a sweater or jacket of any kind sends him into an all out rage, he even held his breath and passed out once just because I put his sweater on.  He starts telling me early in the morning, before breakfast and before we even get dressed that he's not going to wear a jacket and will continue to tell me that he's not going to wear a jacket all day long, to the point where I've told him I don't talk about jackets any more.   Inevitably when we go outside and the cold wind is blowing he complains about being freezing.   I'm not sure how this is going to resolve, but I'm assuming either he will get frostbite or grow out of it.  His personality can be very intense and unrelenting.

Also. lately we have a real potty mouth.  I'm not sure how much of it he learned from Sara or Dan and I.  One night I was reading him a book and he leaned into my ear like he was going to say something nice and said, " Mom, kiss my butt crack".  He thinks saying butt crack, poop, stinky, and words like that are hilarious as well as burping and farting. It's become an every day occurrence.  I told Dan I feel like he acts like a mini-frat boy, Dan says he thinks it's just normal boy behavior.  I'm not really sure if it's normal or not or how worried we should be about it at this point. Once again, something I wasn't really prepared for. 

I'm hopeful that in 2015 he'll learn to sleep better, stop tantruming and holding his breath, and he'll mature a little and not be as difficult, I have my doubts though that it will happen right away.

He is cute and he can be quite nice at times and that makes up for it to some extent.

I'm glad I finally got him in a pre-school. that gives both of us a break and him a new outlook during the week.  He really enjoys it and that makes me happy that he's happy there.  I just hope he does not tell the preschool teacher to kiss his butt crack. 

This is his very first school picture:

Also, here is a cute selfie the other day :