The Rutledge Family: Happy 2nd Birthday Brooks!

Happy birthday Brooks! I cannot believe how quickly the first two years of your life have flown by. You are such a constant source of entertainment and joy. You are sweet by nature and mean by necessity. Each morning when you open your door and poke your little head out of your room, you offer us the sweetest grin on the face of the planet. You always wake up in a great mood (such a contrast to your brother who STILL wakes up crying or screaming most of the time).

You love your family fiercely - always meeting your mommy in the evenings by running full force with open arms. Your best bud is your brother Will, with whom you are constantly fighting with for toys. Most times it's you who tries to steal his toys! Sometimes though, in a brief moment of weakness, you will sweetly offer your toy if your brother cries hard enough. Your favorite person in the whole world though is your "Pappi". You've just recently started calling him "Pappi" rather than "Poppa", which is what everyone else calls him. Last night, you hurt your foot while falling out of your dinner chair at home and you cried "Car. Go. Pappi!" Bless your little heart, you just wanted your pappi to make it feel better.

You are extremely tough. I know most people say that about their little boys, but I've had two boys so far, and you are far and away tougher than your brother Will. You burned your little hand on the fireplace one day this winter and only whimpered. In fact, we only realized it was a second degree burn (complete with HUGE blisters) about 8 hours later when giving you a bath. The blisters are long gone, but you still have a pretty sizeable scar on your hand :( You also broke a glass shadow box (that happened to contain your great-grandfather's folded American Flag that was presented to his wife at his military funeral :/ ) with YOUR HEAD while jumping on the bed at your great-grandmother's house during a birthday party. There was broken glass everywhere and blood all over your head. You never cried or whimpered. It took one of your older cousins to come tell me that you were bleeding for me to even know you had done it!

You are a great eater, and you are always willing to try whatever anyone offers you. Even if you don't like it on the first try, you will try and try until you finally get it down. You love all types of foods - casseroles, breakfast foods, veggies, fruits, meats and pizzas. You drink milk - whole or almond milk and water. You will drink juice if I offer it to you, which is not often based on what it does to your diapers (yuck!) You also ask for tea, which is ironic since I don't make tea at home. This is a good indication that you're getting tea at your grandparent's ;)

You have finally started talking more. For a while I was beginning to think that you would grow up grunting and pointing. You still try to get away with that sometimes, but once you figure out that I can't understand you, you will use your words. Within the last month, you have started putting two or three words together to form short sentences. It's still tough to understand you, because your versions of the words are not always similar to the word you mean. In fact this weekend, we were visiting with your Gram and you grabbed her hand and said "Mok." You kept pulling and tugging and she had no idea what you were trying to say, but I said "He wants milk." When she asked you "Do you want milk?" You nodded your head and started walking towards the kitchen. So it seems I may be the only one who understands you right now. My favorite words that you say are "Momokykle" for motorcycle and "Tannasee" for Tennessee.

You absolutely loathe having your diaper changed or changing your clothes. You will run, hide, cry and do everything imaginable to avoid the dreaded diaper change. You weigh nearly 30lbs, so when you decide to throw yourself around, or "dead-man" on the floor, I have a hard time dealing with you. You are also obsessed with taking your diaper off, talking about your boy parts and watching your brother use the toilet. You are probably ready to start potty training, which is something I will be working on with you as soon as it warms up a little more and we can stay outside to avoid ruining Mommy's floors :)

You are sleeping in a toddler bed and usually go to bed between 7:30 and 8:30 PM, depending on when Mommy can get home from work, have a little play time with you, get you and your brother fed and bathed and then put to bed. You have never ever cried when we put you down, even as an infant you prefered to put yourself to sleep, but now that you're in your big boy bed, you do like to come out into the hall, and then run back to bed when we come after you. We go through the same scenario every.single.night. We took your "papi" (paci) away a couple of months ago and you did just fine. You never cried; you took it like a champ!

You are such a wonderfully curious, happy and energetic little boy. You love to climb, jump, run and play all day long. Every now and then you will catch a case of the giggles and my heart melts into your dirt covered little hand. I imagine that you'll grow up to be the little boy who never meets a stranger, and who will make friends easily in school. You will want to play every sport known to man and if you keep those blonde curls and dimples, you won't have any trouble finding a little girl to scribble your name all over her notebooks. I'm not going to lie, you wear me out each and every day with your endless amounts of near-death acrobatic stunts, but when you smile that little smile and blow me a sticky kiss, I feel like I could just eat you with a spoon. God knew exactly what our family needed two years ago when he gave you to us and I thank Him for you every single day.