Anti-nap

Every day Bradley takes a siesta from about 12:30 to 2:30 (PM).  A couple times in the last few weeks he has also done the complete opposite - waking up for an hour or two around 3 AM.  So what the word for this?  After consulting several internet resources, I could not find an antonym for siesta.  Therefore, I get to make one up.  (Immortality is mine!)  Since this anti-nap includes a lot of screaming, I hereby coin the term "screamesta".  This also begins my campaign for 2006 word of the year.

More Biking

Today we hit the Prairie Duneland Trail in Indiana. It is a nice flat paved trail that starts in Chesterton. It was cool and cloudy, but we enjoyed ourselves anyway.

It was nice to see you, but I really must be going...

We were visiting Grandma & Grandpa in Indiana this weekend. After we finished lunch on Sunday, Bradley grabbed his shoes and convinced Grandpa to put them on. Then, he picked up his milk cup and retrieved daddy's shoes. He waved goodbye to both grandparents and then headed for the door. He did all of this without any prompting or encouraging from mom and dad. We were planning on leaving after lunch, but not that quickly. I think he has learned our trick of getting into the car at nap time. He started to close his eyes as soon as we got to the car. It wasn't until we were on the highway that he was completely out.

Dining Out

Bradley had his first kiddie meal at a restaurant tonight. He had chicken strips, fries, and milk at Applebees.

Too Skinny

Brad's been getting his fill of fast food lately. In the last couple weeks he had McDonald's and Taco Bell at school. Last Saturday, he ate 5 chicken nuggets from Wendy's (only 99 cents!) and today he ate a lot of mommy's quesadilla at Baja Fresh.

Bradley's Book Club

Bradley has taken quite the interest in books lately. His favorite is Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do you See. He will read it forwards, backwards, upside down, right side up, in the crib, on the floor, and even in the dark. Each page has a different animal pictured on it. However, the page with the brown bear is usually stuck shut, so Bradley never sees it.

Baby Signs

Bradley has really improved his use of sign language this week. I am really glad about that. It must be more than 9 months that we have been teaching him. Here are a few of his favorites:
More
All done
Milk
Upstairs - this one isn't in the book, we just came up with it on our own.
Get that away from me - this is probably Brad's most favorite sign.
Dirty diaper - he hasn't quite mastered this one. He gave us the sign for the first time yesterday. Today he made the sign just before he made a dirty diaper. He made it again after the diaper was dirty. However, he made the sign again about 10 minutes later when the diaper was fine. We'll keep working on it.
Go outside - this is another custom sign. Bradley forms this sign by picking up his shoes (or yours) and then throwing them at your feet.

All Wright!

The family all saddled up and participated in the Wright Ride on Saturday. We only did the 10 mile option. That was more than enough. Bradley slept for the first half and was very well behaved on the second half.

Splash Park

We went to Ty Warner Park on Saturday for a birthday party. Bradley had fun both in the water and in the sand.

Paperboy

As many of you know, Bradley was in the Post Tribune on August 1st. Here is a copy of the actual article (Page B1, baby!). Higher quality pictures are at the newspaper website.