Live. Laugh. Love.

Brycen is full of life and loves to laugh. He is so incredibly happy and laughs all day. It doesn't matter, if Daddy is sharing a funny story about his day with Mommy, as soon as Mommy laughs-Brycen doesn't want to feel left out so he laughs too! Brycen loves all facial expressions, all games, and will seriously, laugh at just about everything. He especially loves watching either Mommy or Daddy talk on the phone. We are not sure exactly what it is that he finds so funny about it, but sure enough, every time Daddy calls Mommy to say that he is headed home, Brycen can be heard laughing in the background. Yesterday, Mommy was on the phone talking to a nurse after Brycen had an unfortunate encounter with gravity and fell off the bed and the nurse said that she knew he was okay because he was laughing in the background. Haha. He is a trooper! And...that will never happen again...Mommy feels horrible. The nurse reassured Mommy that every baby falls off the bed at least once and that babies are built to withstand the bumps and bruises. Mommy also called the pediatrician just to make sure and the doctor replied, "Welcome to parenthood". For Brycen's and Mommy's health sake though, Brycen will not be falling off again! That was too scary...Brycen did cry for about 10 minutes but then he smiled and moved on. Mommy and Daddy are SO glad that he is okay!

Brycen laughing with Daddy. So much for Mommy being able to listen to the evening news on T.V. :)

Usually while Brycen is sleeping, Mommy tries to get her workout done. She works out with one of those dancing videos and has fun. However, Brycen woke up from his nap early yesterday and Mommy was only half way done with the workout so she put Brycen in his bouncer toy to see how he would do while she finished doing the workout. Forget playing with the toys! Brycen found watching Mommy dancing around, pretty humorous and couldn't stop laughing. So, maybe working out is possible while the baby is awake...but Mommy's not sure if the laughing is very encouraging for her self esteem...haha.

Brycen is playing with Daddy in this video; doesn't he just have the cutest little laugh?

Brycen successfully knows where all the mirrors are in the house and if the person that is holding him is about to pass one, he gets so excited. Yesterday, Mommy put Brycen in front of the mirror so that he would be entertained while she made the bed. However, as she was making the bed, something got in her eye that forced her to walk over to the mirror and stand really close to try to see what it was/get it out. Just then, Brycen about had a cow so Mommy rushed to his side to see what was the matter, it all soon became apparent as Brycen became immediately happy again as soon as he was able to relocate his friend in the mirror.

The following video is a sad attempt to catch Brycen's reaction when he locates himself in the mirror. The rocking chair he is sitting in sits directly across a mirror. Funny story: So, Brycen loves to sit in the rocking chair and rock himself, so one evening, Mommy was multi-tasking and was watching Brycen as he rocked himself on the chair while she was folding laundry on the floor in front of him (blocking the mirror-this was the first day the mirror was put there). Well, Brycen seemed pretty content and Mommy didn't want to spoil the fun by picking him up so she quickly picked up the piles of folded laundry to carry into the next room. While she was gone, she suddenly heard Brycen get really excited, stop, get really excited, laugh, stop, etc. So, she peeked in (she didn't want to ruin his fun by distracting him) and discovered Brycen locating himself in the mirror (the sudden excitement, laughing) then looking away, then locating himself in the mirror again, etc. In the following video, he first looks at the camera, then looks down, then finds himself in the mirror (laughs, gets excited, etc.) and then does it again. His reaction is not as big as usual (but that's what happens when Mommy pulls out the camera) but hopefully this gives everyone an idea.

As social as Brycen is and since he loves his friend in the mirror and loves almost any person that will smile at him; you would never guess, but Brycen is terrified of other kids. He can handle 50 adults but not one child. Brycen enjoys watching the other kids play but as soon as they invade his bubble, or try to touch him, or try to communicate with him; he has a break down. Last night, we were at our weekly neighborhood dinner and there are quite a few little girls that love to scream and run around. Well since it has been colder these days and getting dark so early, we moved the usual outdoor dinner into someone's very, very small apartment. The girls were playing with one of the other dads that happened to be right by us and were screaming in excitement and Brycen couldn't take it and cried. After Mommy explained to all that Brycen is terrified of kids, all the adults laughed and one of the other mothers said (impersonating Brycen), "Mommy, they're screaming at me!" Later that night, Bryce also commented, "I don't blame you Brycen,I would be scared of those kids too!" haha. As Brycen becomes more mobile and can play a little better, hopefully, we will be able to start attending a playgroup so that Brycen will no longer be scared of his own kind. :)