Anybody that knows Patrick knows there has been an obsession over the iphone coming out. There has been speculation and following of rumors. There have been MANY reports back to me when new info came out, ’cause you know, I can’t read! And then, as the day crept towards us when Patrick would be put out of his bliss/misery of waiting, there were the all important plans to be made. What store should we go to? One of the Apples stores or one of the AT&T stores? What time should we get there? Would there be a line? Would they run out?

In the end, Patrick went to one of the Apple stores with a friend of his and came out victorious by 7:00. I’m sure he will blog about it so I won’t completely steal his thunder, but below is a picture of the boy and his new toy. It’s like a little Apple ad.

Yesterday morning was Brenden’s first time to see Patrick since he (Patrick) got home from his trip. When Patrick went in and got Brenden out of bed, he said that Brenden looked at him funny for a few minutes and then started clapping and giggling. But sadly, their night visit didn’t go so well.

Brenden didn’t believe me when I told him that I heard the garage door going up and that it was daddy coming home. But after several moments of hesitations and looks back at me, he did go to the door to wait for him. When Patrick came in, Brenden was excited. But Brenden did not want to be held by Patrick and soon turned cranky. Patrick tickled and rough housed with him to try to get him in a better mood and it was starting to work, until the fall. Brenden went to stand up, but fell forward instead, cutting his open mouth on the lip of his toy drum.

And here’s where Patrick and I discover we don’t handle our child bleeding very well. We couldn’t see where exactly the blood was coming from and Brenden wasn’t letting us look at his mouth while he screamed and screamed. And the blood wasn’t stopping. So we decided to take him to the emergency room. While I was gathering a diaper, a bottle and the paper I was working on that was due the next day to prepare for the long emergency room wait, Brenden did finally stop crying and the bleeding slowed down. As we were debating whether or not we should still go to the emergency room he started to twitch, which helped us make up our mind in a hurry.

We ended up going to our urgent care place rather than the emergency room because once we got in the car it seemed like maybe we’d overreacted. But since we couldn’t see the injury and it was in his mouth where food (if he would eat anything besides cheeries and gerber tomato chip thingys) would irritate it.

The doctor, who had no trouble getting inside Brenden’s now wide-open-with-a-smile mouth, said it was a very superficial cut and that he would be fine. So it all ended ok, but it sure had us scared for a bit. And poor Patrick felt like he had broken the baby.

Today my friend Kelli and I took Brenden to the Dallas Arboretum. Kelli is a photographer and wanted to do some practice shots of Brenden in a pretty setting so we went and enjoyed the morning. It was so pretty and peaceful. Brenden had fun walking barefoot in the grass and getting his feet dipped into two different fountains. Here are some of the pictures I took.

After we got home from there, Brenden took a great big nap. When he woke up, I spent about 15 minutes airing up and filling with water a small pool I bought for him several weeks ago and had yet to use. He really wasn’t that impressed, he would have preferred it if I’d let him wander in the grass.

We had a rough afternoon of defiante baby getting into absolutely everything while in demolition man mode and then laughing when I told him no. So we went out for a little ride and both came home in better moods. And Brenden played a little hockey before turning in for an early night of rest.

Brenden has been very entertaining these last few weeks. He just keeps showing more and more personality and learning more and more things. Like how to climb into and onto different things:

He’s still working on how to get down from the table and will scream until someone comes to help him.

He’s also finally caught on to the idea of banging on pots and pans being fun. It used to just make him flinch when I tried to demonstrate. So now he plays while I make dinner:

On Monday he went into his room and got his hockey stick and the little ball that came with it, put the ball down on the ground and hit it with the stick. He’s never connected those two things until that moment. Too bad his Dad didn’t get to see that!
Wednesday while Brenden napped, my Mom and I worked on taking cleaning up the yard so the anal retentive homeowners association would be happy. I was finishing up hand edging our sidewalks (our edger seems to be broken) when Brenden woke up. My Mom brought him outside with a toy broom she had gotten him and he helped clean up. He also liked the super huge rake. He had a lot of fun until he got hot, tired and cranky. I wish I’d gotten a picture of him “helping”.

Last night he worked for half an hour to eat macaroni and cheese with a spoon from a bowl. His mean mother didn’t realize how mean it was to give him a spoon for macoroni until he tried to use it the first time. I then promptly took the spoon away and tried to get him to eat with his fingers but he was having none of that. He wanted to get that stuff on the spoon. He was so determined. He did manage it a few times, but the noodles would just slip off again. Poor guy.

He’s still continuing his love of the phone and even occassionally talking to people on the real phone. Patrick, who is away for work this week, and I have been doing video chats on the computer and Brenden will run to the phone on the fax machine to try to talk to Patrick who he can see on the computer. He’s so confused by that one, but he gets a big smile on his face when he sees his Daddy!

He is really in to taking my sunglasses of my face or the top of my head and putting them on his face. Somehow this has also become a love of taking my headbands off to do the same. When I came home from school one day this week, I found him wearing my Mom’s headband!

And finally, a cute shot my Mom took of Brenden and Shadow:

This weekend was rather busy and we had Brenden all over the place. Here he is catching some quiet time on his new toy (actually, boxes with doors to our bookshelves that we bought on Sunday so Brenden wouldn’t eat any more of our books).

I’ve been reading up on the pools available for us to use in town and today Brenden and I went to test out a small splash park. He wasn’t sure what to think of all the loud crazy bigger kids running around or the big sprays of water, but the nice little one was good.

Brenden has started pointing and mimicing much more. He wants to have words, but just doesn’t know them yet, which is starting to frustrate him.

I started summer school on Monday and it has been hard on Brenden. Summer school is Monday-Thursday, so instead of just leaving the house two days a week, I’m leaving four. He does not care for it. Yesterday my Dad and I both told Brenden not to do something and he took off crying down the hall with hurt little feelings. I feel bad for him, but luckily summer school only lasts a month and then I’m off until the end of Aug.

with the sidewalk. Though to be truthful it was more like a trip, fall, and roll onto the head. As you can see in the pictures, despite a big stawberry on the head, he was fine.

We watched some interesting movies this weekend. We had started Man of the Year with Robin Williams and Laura Linney while we were on our cruise. One day it was shown over and over on this one channel and when we were in the room for Brenden’s nap time we caught part. Then when we went to bed we caught some more, but we couldn’t stay awake to see how it ended. So we put it on netflix and finally saw the rest. It was pretty good. The premise is that a Jon Stewart type comedian ends up running for president and winning but it was a glitch in some software that allowed him to win. The political commentary was great, but the movie seemed like it couldn’t decide if it wanted to be a comedy or a drama and there were a few things that didn’t get set up very well.

We also watched Elizabethtown with Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst. It apparently bombed when it was in theaters, but I really liked it a lot. Orlando Blooms character is having a pretty rough time and the way he plays it reminds me of Christian Bale in American Psycho. There are some parts that are kind of akward. Kirsten Dunst character is a little looney. The message of the story is that even though painful things happen in life, if you allow yourself to see them, wonderful things also happen.

This weekend Brenden decided that it was absolutely hysterical if I told him no. Don’t play with wires. Ha ha Mama. Don’t get all your clothes out of the dresser and try to pull the dresser over on yourself. Ha ha ha. Don’t stand up in your chair. This one actually turned into a game before I realized it. I’d tell him no.He wouldn’t sit down. I’d go put him on his butt. He’d laugh and then stand back up. So I took the chair away. Ha!

We went to see our friend’s new baby on Saturday and Brenden was very intrigued. That is the first time he’s been around a baby that was any more than maybe a month or so younger than he is. He kept stopping to look at the baby. He seemed to think the baby was pretty cool until I went to hold him. That was not so cool.

We also got to spend some time with Brenden’s great grandmother which was very nice. Brenden especially liked the idea that most things in her house seemed breakable and were at his level!

One night this weekend the silly boy decided it would be fun to climb on Daddy’s back. And it was even more fun than he originally thought, so he had to keep doing it! And laughing.

Today he learned how to put his fake coins into his piggy bank. He got it for his birthday and up until now has not been able to figure out how to get the coins turned the right direction to fit in the slot. I’ve been sticking them in the slot where they sort of catch and letting him push them the rest of the way in. But today he figured it all out and was doing it over and over. He was so engrossed in doing it that he even ignored the ringing telephone, something he never does!