Happy New Year

Brady is ready for 2008

Snowman showdown

This week I tried to take care of Brady by myself, since daycare is closed for the holidays and Irene has to get a jump on tax season. Irene told me to have some activities planned for each day, so I tried, but there is always a 20 minute gap unaccounted for that you have to improvise.
Yesterday, because the weather was nice and the snow is "high snowball quality", we decided to go out and make Brady's first snowman. It's his size, so he kept seemingly staring him down like he was in a street fight with the snowman. Brady would bob and weave around him, finding places to put snow on his face or head. Ultimately though, the showdown ended when it started to rain. Snowman melted, Brady didn't. Brady won.

Did you hear what he said to me?

Body blow
jab to the nose


The stare down

After the stare down, Brady shows his secret stash of snow he's going to stuff in his opponents face.

Christmas, part 2

Brady solidified his #1 present-receiver status in the evening by raking in even more stuff from the aunts and uncles.

And his favorite present of all presents? Seems to be his Patriots hat. He basically has worn it non-stop, except for sleeping at night, since he got it. Looks like all those nights of reading the Patriots' History to him in womb is starting to pay off.

Early Christmas leader

Early results are in and, as expected, the odds-on favorite to get the most stuff in the Chin family this Christmas season is off to a huge lead. Not quite as dominant as the New England Patriots (because others in the household actually got good stuff too), Brady still seems unstoppable at this point in time. We hired a reporting crew to follow him around to see how he does it....

Like all great ones, Brady starts his preparation with a little superstitious behavior. At precisely 7:30pm ET, he donned his hat and coat to go sprinkle reindeer food in the front yard.

Then he came inside to have his personal assistant write a memo to Santa for him, to make sure he knew what Brady wanted for Christmas (as if he doesn't know already).

Then he sets up the cookies, milk, and memo near the tree so Santa can eat, read, and drop-off presents all in one pass. By the way, I never understood how Santa could fit down a chimney being the size he is. And I'm definitely not sure how he's fitting through the vent in our wall that acts as a chimney for our gas fireplace. Maybe he's got new technology these days though....

Predictably, Brady ran to the first present that he could ride and make noise with

And then he surprised us with his present to us that he made in Daycare.

And he was very helpful with unwrapping all of the other presents too.
pizza kit



Here Brady shows that reading is overrated and what really counts is in the big wrapped box.

Sticking with the riding theme, Brady hoped this digital picture frame did more than just lay there on the floor, but it didn't....what a crappy present.
A bathtub sink!
Okay, books ain't so bad afterall

Ho Ho Ho!

We are now 1 and 1 on taking Brady to visit Santa Claus. Last year he didn't mind that he was sitting on the lap of a giant old man wearing a big red suit. This year, not so much. However, from looking through my old scrap book, this seems to be something that could be passed down genetically. Of course, I'm no doctor.... Happy Holidays everyone!

Me at 4 years old

Hanging out with Cleo

Cleo came over for a visit one night and her and Brady were like two peas in a pod

Kids are fun!

Brady is at that fun age where he learns something new every day (good or bad) and can repeat them on command but doesn't necessarily understand the imlications of combining some actions together.

For instance, dancing to music and climbing on to the couch are both celebratory accomplishments when done alone, but when he climbs on top of the couch and begins to dance then he gets a stern "No, sit down please!" I'm sure this confuses him terribly.

For the past couple of weeks we've been teaching Brady body parts by asking him things like "where are my eyes?, where is my nose, where are my toes, etc." He loves this and for each question he touches his little finger to the proper area, yells out the body part, and celebrates.

The other day Brady also learned that his finger can fit in his nose. Although he hasn't stuck it in there often, he did do it once when Irene was carrying him up the stairs. Being the opportunistic person I am, I yelled out from the bottom of the stairs "Brady, where is Mommy's mouth?!" to which he pulled his index finger out of his nose and tried to unsuccessfully touch Irene's mouth. There was no celebration since he was unsuccessful. However I got a good chuckle out of it.

I'm sure this confused Brady as well. What a fun age!

Monkey-see, Monkey-Do -- Wii!!!

It was actually quite funny watching Brady play the Wii when the kids left.