Brantley: 14 Months

Brantley,

We can’t give highlights of this month of your life without including bike rides. We take a bike ride with you almost every day and you absolutely love it! You get so excited when we put your helmet on and you love to wave to people as they pass by, tilt your head back so you can see your Daddy, and point to anything you see that strikes you as interesting

Sometimes you wake up early in the mornings and we can hear you singing in your crib through the monitor. It might be the sweetest sound we’ve ever heard.

As much as I would love to say we always enjoy lots of cuddles throughout each day, reading books in your rocker, lots of hugs and kisses, etc. but let’s be honest… you really don’t like to be held much. You’d rather crawl around on your own, crawl up the steps on your own, and if could, you’d probably crawl into your crib on your own. But we wouldn’t dare let that happen because the only time you’ll let us hold you is before bed and we take advantage of those precious moments whenever we can.

You don’t let that “beautiful” moment last too long though. You always pinch to back of my arm while I gently rock you and sing our favorite song and when that fails to make me laugh, you pop your head up off my shoulder with the most mischievous smile and try to take my glasses off. You must think it’s the most hilarious thing in the world.

You toss and turn before bed, but by the time you fall asleep you’re always in the craziest position. More often than not, you sleep with one foot sticking out of the crib and the other propped up high on the crib rails.

You’re finally babbling with repeated syllables “mamma, dadada, papapa.”

You’re new favorite toy is a ball and hammer toy that has a xylophone under it… and you’re getting pretty accurate hitting that ball, too!

You also like to play with two toys by putting one into another one. Apparently it was a mind blowing discovery because you’re constantly trying to find one object that will fit into another one.

You said your first word!!! You’d been babbling “mama, dada, papa” for a few weeks but without any real meaning or obvious reference to a person until one day when we pulled into Mimi and Papa’s driveway. The moment I opened your door your eyes lit up and you said, “Papa!” Papa beat us to it.

We love you, Bug.

Love, Mama