I wish Brianna CAME with a manual like this...

*~*~Dear Becky and Brian~*~*

I can't thank you enough for being willing to take care of Brianna while we are on our trip. When you called us months ago and made the offer, we were a little dumbfounded - how could anyone be so generous?? Then we realized - it's just the way you roll. You're just the bestest nicest type of people on the planet, and you'll get major blessings for this. Or at least stronger arms from lifting both your chunker and our chunker around.
To make your time with our Brianna-banana a little easier (cuz as much as I hope and pray to the contrary, I know she'll have moments of serious poopiness - literally and figuratively) I am presenting here a Brianna-manual. I hope you don't take this as condescending...as if you couldn't do this on your own, and don't already do a fabulous job with a tyke nearly the same age as Brianna... nonono, take this more as... I'm supernervous Brianna will drive you up the wall as she demolishes your home and exterminates your patience. So here are a few tips/tricks/norms for our munchkin...with a disclaimer: she normally deviates from her norms. She constantly changes her consistent patterns. So this is based off her most recent behavior. Like from yesterday. Let's begin with everyone's favorite thing for her to do:
SLEEP - Brianna usually wakes up around 7am. Big improvement from the former 6am arising. If you hear her before 6am crying - it's a fake-wake. Do not go get her or make any loud noises, and she'll fall back asleep within 5 minutes. If it goes on longer than 5 minutes, let your paranoid mind run wild about what could be wrong. That's what I do. She takes her nap around noon. It lasts 2-3 hours. Again - she almost always wakes up mid-nap and cries/screams for anywhere from 10-90 seconds. When she wakes up for rEaL, she's usually happy and jabbering. That's how I know she's totally rested and done. Brianna goes to bed around 8pm (which means starting the bedtime routine around 7 - she likes to play in the bathtub for a long time, so I bring a book). As far as routine... I TELL her she's going to have a nap or go to sleep for the night. She goes around the house saying "nite-nite" to everyone and everything. We say our prayers - she's good at folding her arms and bowing her head. For 10 seconds max. She sleeps with her white blanket - fluffy in the middle, silky on the edges. If you lose this blanket, the world is OVER. She wants to keep it with her ALL the time - I try not to let her. Especially outside - it gets dirty. She associates the blanket with SLEEP and comfort. You can also hold her/rock her and sing "I am a Child of God." She knows that's her bedtime song, so she usually gets sad hearing it. We rarely get through the first verse before she cries and arches her head back to be laid down.
EATING - Brianna is like a garbage disposal. That's an exaggeration - but really, she'll eat just about anything in any form. You know me - I don't give her junk food. So she's not used to sugary or fried crap. I could make a list of all her favorites... but really, she'll eat anything if she's hungry. If she's NOT hungry, you can't bribe her to eat. I try. She's stubborn. I don't know where she gets that from. I've packed a bunch of snacks for her - because she'll empty your cupboards fast. She's a big snacker. I probably give her something to eat every hour, during waking hours. She tends to eat really sloooow and get distracted. Sorry. Maybe I should be enforcing better meal-oriented eating habits. She's decent with using her special toddler-size fork and spoon - I'll pack those. The only thing she can't have is FRESH CITRUS. I think the acid hurts her bum on the way out. You'll be dealing with a very unhappy girl with a red bum. So oranges, pineapple, their juices... big no-no. Tiny amounts are ok. Speaking of liquids... Brianna won't drink milk. I've tried. If you can change that, I'll pay you. So she takes 2 calcium/vitamin D chewy vitamins each day. And she just drinks water and very diluted juice. And smoothies.
PLAYING - Brianna isn't the best at sharing. Good luck. I think she follows pretty typical toddler behavior in this area. She just needs to be distracted with another toy or activity. If she does something totally out of line - hitting, blatant disobedience, dangerous behavior... chose an arbitrary corner of your house to sit her in for a thirty second time out. Please explain to her as clearly as possible what she did wrong. I really feel like she understands what people say. And give her a big hug and kiss afterwards, even if she pushes you away. Speaking of hugs and kisses... Brianna requires at least 42 of them each day. And being regularly tickled and wrestled. She occasionally asks for a "ooo-vee" which means her movie - the only one she usually watches is her "Your Baby Can Read" series. Which - by the way - doesn't really work. She can't read. She mostly likes the animals on the screen and the instructions to do things (touch your toes, raise your arms, etc). We will bring those, and a couple of her favorite books. And her bathtime Nemo-colors book. And crayons - she loves to color, but tends to break her coloring tools.
DIAPER - We're working on potty training, but you don't have to. I'm not even bringing her mini potty, but I'll bring the toilet attachment. It saves you from having to wipe a bottom. She usually goes #2 within two hours of having breakfast (which is around 7:45 am - I try to delay it - I've heard this helps them sleep in longer, and it worked for us!) Then she typically has two more #2's during the day. It's not on any normal pattern, because it just depends on how much she eats, which varies everyday. It's always a very loose consistency - don't be worried. She'll tell you when she's about to do it, and after she's done it. She'll also inform you when she's tooted ("ah tooo-did!") which can preempt a poo. She doesn't say anything when she goes #1 - unless it was a LOT, then she'll say "ah wettt." We just went to Costco and purchased a big case of size 4's that we're bringing for her and Dean to share. Not literally, like sharing one diaper.... that'd be gross. Speaking of sharing - she's not sick and hasn't been for months. Maybe a year. She's pretty resilient. So don't worry about her sharing with Dean. She tends to steal sippy cups. Though we are bringing her special ones that she knows are hers.
CHURCH - She gets really excited about it. She loves Nursery at home, so she should do fine. Just tell her that's where she's going.Hopefully your ward is 9-noon. Otherwise you'll have to try to adjust her nap somehow. She needs to wear nylons, or the underwear bottoms that go with her dress, or she can get bored and pull her diaper off. That's always fun.
SWIMMING- I know you have a pool, so watch out - she has NO fear. Also, she gets tired pretty quick after running around in the sun and playing in water. She might need some book-time or movie-time afterwards. I'm guessing that's the same as Dean.
TALKING - I'm glad we're going to be there with you guys for a day, so we can tell you what she's saying if you don't understand. She tends to get frustrated when she speaks and no one can tell what she's trying to communicate. She doesn't do r's or l's very well. Have her say "ravioli" - it comes out like "ah-ee-ooo-ee." If you don't get what she's saying, try to change the subject. If she's crying, ASK her "what do you want?" very clearly, making eye contact. She will usually calm down and tell you. Often the answer is "fooood" or "bank-eht" (blanket) or "ow-side" (outside) or "ooo-vee" (movie) or "toy." When she's in the right mood, she really likes "performing." Ask her all the animal sounds, facial expressions (mad, sad, surprised, happy), ask her to sing, cough, scream, laugh - those are all pretty funny. Ask her to say her alphabet - sometimes she can get all the way through (with a jumbled-up "nenenoooP" in the middle). She can count to about 19, minus a few numbers she feels are unnecessary. Like 4 and 12. If she doesn't want something, she will say "ahh done." If she's not responded to quickly, this can escalate to "AHHHH DONE! AHHH DUUUUUHHHNE!"

If anyone's wondering why I'm putting this all on the blog...it's doubling as a monthly update (which I haven't been doing very well)! So that was her 19.5 month update. My main request is that she's alive when we come back. Anything extra is bonus. We'll be leaving you with enough cash to cover carpet cleaning.
LOVE you guys MUCHO! Again.... can't thank you enough. See you tonight!