I Am Brooke

Favorite Movie: Robots

Favorite Book: Silly Sally

Favorite TV Show: Thomas the Train

Favorite Toy: Toy Story dolls, Daddy car and Baby car, and Baby Bluebird

Favorite Food: Raisins and Ice Pops (not at the same time)

Other cool things about me: I can run very fast and jump very high and far, I can count to twelve perfectly and am working on the teens, I know my colors (most of the time), I love chasing after bubbles, I am about to be a big sister!

Brooke continues to daze and amaze us every day with all she knows.  She now likes to count everything.  We count scoops of coffee, crayons, hair bows, forks, cups, and everything in between.  She is very good at counting.  She also knows things that we don’t know how in the world she can know.  Yesterday she gave Daddy his hat and called it his “baseball hat”.  It was a baseball cap, but we have never called it by any name other than hat.  And we rarely mention the word baseball at all.  So, how she knew that particular kind of hat was a baseball hat?  Your guess is as good as ours.  Also, Brooke’s new bathing suit arrived in the mail.  She wanted to wear it.  She was telling me all about how she was going to put it on and go swimming at the beach.  She has never been to a beach, but she knew all about it.  And then she told me that she would walk on the boardwalk.  Again, we have never talked to her about a boardwalk.  Dora doesn’t go to a boardwalk.  How does she know about them?  I have no idea!   Every day is an adventure where we don’t know what we will discover about the things that Brooke knows.

I think Brooke may be suffering from OCD.  This is how she insists on organzing her fridge phonics magnets each day.

Some of you may remember the run-in Brooke had with some fire-ants about a year ago. In case you missed it, you can read about it here. It now seems that a year has done little to repair the damage done to this child. Every time she sees a single ant, she will run away and scream. Any piece of dirt that might resemble an ant in any way is also cause to run and scream. Now that she is a little older, I try to reason with her and tell her that she just should not touch the ants. Hopefully in another year logic will prevail and we will not be forced to set up an intervention. Besides, I am afraid that ant therapy would involve being surrounded by bunches of ants, and I would not want that either.

At Christmas we took Brooke to the mall to see Santa.  She was very excited about seeing him and jumped right up onto his lap for her picture.  Unfortunately, there was an old, feeble-minded woman behind the camera who waited too long to take a shot of Brooke and Santa.  Even Santa was whispering “take the picture”.  By the time they got around to trying to get Brooke’s picture, she was anxious and started crying.  She eventually got over her Santa fear a couple of weeks later at a Santa breakfast, but we were uncertain about taking her back to see the Easter Bunny.   We attempted last night, and I had my own camera in tow in case there was another dumb person behind the camera.  Luckily, we both got off shots within Brooke’s comfort zone and there were no Easter Bunny meltdowns.

Brooke has always enjoyed watching the Daniel Cook mini-show on the Disney Channel.  This morning we were having cereal in the living room and watching Daniel Cook.  Brooke pointed to him and told me his name was Daniel Cook and then told me “I like boy”.  What??  Terror struck through my heart like a lightning bolt.  When did we need to start worrying about boys at age 2?  I just told Brooke, “Well, we’ll see what your Daddy has to say about that.”

For some reason, Brooke has started telling me “happy birthday” several times a day.  I act surprised and tell her thank you but remind her that today is not my birthday.  I explain that the next birthday will be her brother’s, then mine, then hers, then Bella’s, then Daddy’s.  Now when she tells me “happy birthday” and I remind her that today is not my birthday, she tells me that today is her brother’s birthday.  So far she has been wrong, but one of these days soon she is going to be right.  I just hope we have a few more weeks.  She has told me that her brother will be born on Monday.  Maybe Brooke knows something we don’t.

Yesterday Brooke went to our church Easter Egg hunt. Last year she was too too young and too slow to get any of her own eggs and had to rely on the kindness of an older boy to share his eggs with her. This year she took off into the field and got quite a dozen or so eggs of her own and even shared a couple of eggs with a baby when I suggested it to her. She had a great time gathering eggs…and a better time enjoying the candy contents. Brooke also got to make some fun crafts and chase after a bunch of bubbles (one of her favorite activities).

Brooke has started introducing me to different objects in her life.  Bug, this is my friend, Mama.  Wall, this is my friend, Mama.  Shoe, this is my friend, Mama.  You get the idea.  Perhaps Brooke needs a few more friends, but for now my heart smiles every time she introduces me as her friend.  I know that one day she will grow up and this relationship will change, and I hope that during those times I can remember these sweet days as one of her first friends.

Has anyone seen the Dora the Explorer episode where Dora and Boots follow this weird “hick-boom-aaah” sound only to find out at the end that it is Benny the Bull making the noise?  Benny has the hiccups, when he makes a hiccup he falls over on his butt, and when he falls over he moans “aaah”.  Hence the “hick-boom-aaah” sound.  We have seen this episode many times, but it seems to have tickled Brooke’s funny bone in the past few days.  Yesterdays she started mimicking Benny saying “hick”, falling on her butt and saying “boom”, and then moaning “aaah”.