Christmas!

Well I've slacked again, but at least it wasn't two months since my last post!  What an amazing Christmas we had this year with our little man!  Although he really couldn't have cared less about opening presents, he sure enjoyed the tree.  I was pleasantly surprised that he didn't bother it all that much either.  The look on his face each time I'd plug it in, was priceless.  It was like he was seeing the most amazing thing in the world each and every time. 

We had a very busy holiday, but were lucky to be able to see almost all of the extended family.  That doesn't happen very often, so it was nice to spend time with them, even if it was a quick visit.  I could ramble more, but I'll let the pictures do the talking.  G is a very lucky, spoiled (in a good way) little boy.  He has so many people that love him, it just amazes me how much people care about him!  We owe a lot everyone for his wonderful Christmas.  Even though he didn't really care to open his gifts, he sure has enjoyed playing with them!

 Finding our Christmas tree!

 The tree is up and decorated!

 Stockings (Griffin now has a matching stocking, but we didn't have it yet.)

 I had Matthew cut a piece from the bottom of the tree to make an ornament for G!

Daddy and G with the tree :o)

What is this?!

Opening his first present!

 

 

 Grandpa Gary and me playing with my new train.

 

 

So much love for this little guy!

The bells made pretty sounds!

 

Talk about a bowl of fun!

Up next, the big first birthday!  I'll save that for another post though :o)

Oh I'm Terrible!

Oh I feel like a terrible mommy.  Well ok, not a terrible mommy, but definitely a terrible blogger!  I cannot believe I haven't posted in 2 MONTHS!

Well A LOT has happened in those two months.  G is walking EVERYWHERE.  In fact, most days he tries to run, not walk.  It's so incredible to see how much he's grown in the past year.  We're in the process of planning his first birthday party, and I absolutely cannot believe that it's almost here.  This has been the fastest, most wonderful year I can ever remember.

I could gush on and on, but pictures are way more fun, so I'll let them do the talking instead of me :o)

 

He is such a goof!

Halloween jammies!

Love this little guy!

Cutest little lion ever on Halloween!

Hehe...he's so gangsta :o)

So happy!

 Such a daredevil already...

I just want to squeeze him all the time!

There are a lot more pictures, I could add, but since it's late I'll save it for another day.  Hopefully it won't be two months away this time!

 

 

 

41 Weeks!

Wow, I am soooooo behind!  I just realized it's been at least two weeks since I updated.  It's amazing how busy life gets sometimes. 

Little man keeps growing and changing.  It never ceases to amaze me just how quickly he changes.  He does so many new things, and they almost seem to come out of the blue at times.  He's a master crawler and enjoys his new found mobility.  The dog on the other hand does not enjoy it... .  We have decided that he did take his first steps a week or so ago.  He stood up, took 2-3 steps forward and then fell over.  As soon as he fell over, he got right back up, took steps forward and fell again.  That's the best we've gotten out of him, but like all new skills, he will do it once or twice, then not attempt it again for 2-3 weeks, then all of a sudden he will have the skill mastered.  So if history is to repeat itself, he should be walking very soon!  I think I will actually be happy when he starts walking.  It's exhausting following him around so that I can keep him from banging his head on the floor after he pulls up on the furniture and then lets go.  It's all fun and games until he hits his head on the floor.  Then he doesn't like it so much. 

We've had our first experience with bumps and bruises due to all of his new "talents."  Last weekend he was standing up at our back door.  The door has a big window that takes up about 80%  of the door.  He likes to stand at the door and look outside, while banging on the window.  I was sitting behind him, but the dog was insisting her ball be thrown.  So, of course, in the 1-2 seconds it took for me to turn around and throw her ball, G fell over, and face planted right onto the window ledge of the door.  He had a LOVELY bruise below his eye.  I felt like the worst mom ever.  He cried, I cried, Sophie whined, it was quite the sight!  Thankfully he forgot about it quickly.  I think it bothered me more than him.  He was a little leery of the door for a while though :o)  A few days later he was crawling across the kitchen floor, and was wearing a bib.  He got caught up in the bib and went head first into the hardwood floor.  That resulted in a wonderful black and blue goose egg on his forehead.  The poor kid looked like he'd been through quite the ordeal.  Thankfully he brushes things off quickly, but boy does he let you know, at the time, that he's in pain.  He's quite the drama king sometimes!

He still has absolutely ZERO teeth.  It's so funny to me how differently babies develop.  Some babies get teeth so early, while others aren't until about a year old.  I have a feeling his aren't coming any time soon.  I'm sure he'll get about 6 at once since it's taking so long for them to come through.  I just haven't decided if that's going to be a good thing or a bad thing.  On the one hand he'll get the pain out of the way all at once, on the other he may be in so much pain that he's just unbearable to be around...I guess we'll have to wait and see. 

Hopefully I can get better about updating more on time, but I'm not making any promises.  We should have lots of pictures to share soon with Halloween coming up and his 9 month portraits will be back next month hopefully!  Here are a few from the past two weeks though :o)

Someone has discovered the stairs...time for a baby gate!

Halloween jammies!

Baby's first shiner :o(

A favorite past time, watching out the back door.

Face to face with a lion at the zoo!  He loved it!

Such a goofball!

 

Playing with Daddy's computer

Too cute :o)

Peek-a-boo!

So happy in the jumperoo!

 

First Trip to the Orchard!

I really meant to get this post done earlier, but like always got tired and distracted.  Last Saturday we spent the afternoon at an apple orchard.  G really enjoyed spending the time outside and all the new sights and sounds. 

He's too little to play in the the play area they have there, but he definitely enjoyed watching the kids who were playing.  It was an absolutely beautiful day.  The weather was sunny and warm, a perfect fall day!  We also got some adorable shots of G!  (Imagine that...hehe)

 

 

 

 

 

Haha!

 

 

 

 

 

 

39 Weeks and 9 Months!

I know I'm beginning to sound like a broken record here, but I honestly cannot believe that G is 9 months old already!  These 9 months have gone even faster than the 9 months I was pregnant, and I thought THOSE months flew!  I supposed I should just get used to it, but wow...what an exciting 9 months it's been! 

This week has seen him become more and more proficient at crawling.  He's gotten very quick too!  It's also amazing how well he crawls across the hardwood floor.  You'd never know the floor was slick!  He speeds across the room like he's in a race.  He's so darn cute when he does it too.  As soon as he reaches his destination he stops and smiles the biggest smile, so proud of himself.  He has one proud mama too!  The babysitter told me the other day that he likes to do laps around her house.  He will go from her living room, through the kitchen, into the computer room and back, basically a big oval.  He's so excited to be able to move and follow the other kids!

He's also starting to babble A LOT!  It's so sweet to listen to him, especially when we're in the car.  He entertains himself by babbling as we drive down the road.  It's very entertaining to his parents as well!  I have started to notice a pattern to his babbling sometimes.  He will start saying "bababababababa" and if I offer it, he will usually eat a bottle after that, so I'm really wondering if he's not just babbling but actually trying to say "baba" which is what we call his bottles.  There are times where it sounds like he says "mama" and "dada".  I'm hesitant to say that he's said his first words, but sometimes it's really hard to ignore what it sounds like just came out of his mouth.  It's a lot harder than I ever thought to determine a baby's first word! 

The ear infection is gone.  YEA!  After one dose of meds he was acting much better.  Giving him the meds is a whole other story though.  It's not easy, that's for sure!  It takes two of us.  Matthew has to hold his arms down, while I use the syringe to squirt the medicine down his throat.  Needless to say he doesn't care for us at that point in time...Thankfully we only have 1-2 more doses left!

Friday was his 9 month well-baby check up.  His pediatrician said we looks perfect!  His weight has dropped off a little, but considering how active and mobile he is, the dr. said that was totally expected.  He can almost always tell at the 9 month appt if a baby is mobile yet or not, based on whether the weight is continuing to increase, stay steady, or drops off a bit.  He's a little on the small side right now, but I can't say that disappoints me.  It's MUCH easier to carry around a smaller baby.  haha!  He's always been smaller (6.10# at birth, 18" at birth) so I would've been really surprised if he shot up to the 80th or 90th percentile.  The doctor isn't at all concerned with his growth, even though he's smaller he's still growing and is happy and healthy.  He's amazed at how happy G is all the time.  The doctor just smiles and laughs at how easy going and happy G is.  He was surprised to hear about the reaction we discovered to sweet potatoes, but definitely agreed to keep them out of G's diet.  He did say he'd had one other patient with a similiar reaction, so it is possible.  He also advised waiting a year or so before we introduce carrots.  He hated to eliminate them from G's diet completely because most kids love carrots (one of the few veggies they will actually eat) but he did think it was best to wait a little while before we let him try them.  I did finally have a video to show him of the way G coughs all the time.  He listened to G's lungs again and all was clear, but he did find it a little odd that he coughs as hard and as deep as he does.  He said it had to be related to the reflux and trying to clear the throat, even when it seems he does it without refluxing.  G should eventually out grow it, but we will continue to monitor and check it to ensure it's not turning into something else. 

Even though I'm sure he tells most of his patients' parents they're doing everything right, and a great job, it sure does feel wonderful to hear that.  You always hear people say that as a parent you will second guess almost every decision you ever make regarding your child, well it's hard to truly understand that feeling until you've been there.  I think the fact that I'm around kids daily, helps make me a little more confident in the choices I've made for G, but there are definitely times when I wonder if we're doing what's best for him.  Hearing his pediatrician tell us we have a perfectly happy, healthy baby was, again, wonderful validation for our parenting skills.  I certainly appreciated it!

Once again, my post has gotten lengthy, it's just so hard to NOT brag about the little guy!  :o)  Here are the pictures though.  Best part!

Just a little yoga to relieve my stress :o)

 

Peek-a-boo!

 

Nothing sweeter than a sleeping baby

 

Haha!

 

Can you tell what his new favorite skill is???

 

Oh the faces he makes!

 

Darn!  She caught me!

 

9 Months Old!

 

 

 

 

38 Weeks

Well this week was met with several firsts, like many of the others...haha!  G officially started crawling!  He'd been able to scoot a little bit, and had been pushing himself backwards for a little over a week, but could never get very far going forward.  Wednesday evening he started inching forward, and with each forward movement he'd become more and more confident.  He's now moving both knees forward and really crawling.  It's been so awesome to watch him figure all these things out!  He really seems to be mastering one thing right after another.  He's now working really hard on standing all by himself.  He's able to stand for a second or two before he falls over.  I have a feeling in another month or so we are going to have a walker...which is a little frightening to think about!

This week we also dealt with our first major baby illness.  G has had a terrible cold all week long.  He was terribly congested, but his nose was running like crazy at the same time.  The only thing to do for him was use the bulb to suck out his nose, but he hates it, and in turn would throw a fit and cry, making even more gunk.  It really seemed pretty counter productive, but he just looked and sounded so pitiful sniffling, that I had to do something.  Friday afternoon I picked him up from the sitter, and he was lying down for a 3rd nap for the day.  (NOT his usual by any means...) when she brought him to me, he felt kind of warm and was just not his normal self.  When we got home I took his temp and he had a fever of 101.2, our first official fever :o(  Thankfully one of the local hospitals has an "after hours" peds unit, so I called our pediatrician to see if we could get an appt with the after hrs. doctor.  Before I had the chance to mention it, the nurse I was talking to told me the after hrs clinic had an 6appt at 6:30 if we wanted to go, to which I immediately said yes.  Thankfully the after hours clinic is associated with the same hospital as our pediatrician, so all of his records were available through their computer system...makes things SO easy!    I called Matthew and let him know we had an appt at 6:30, then rocked with G until Matthew got home.  We haven't had good snuggle/cuddle time like that in a long time, so I really enjoyed it, I just didn't like that it was due to him being sick. 

We got to the after hours office, and thankfully his temp was back to normal, but I immediately had a fear that they wouldn't find anything wrong, and we'd be those "crazy" first time parents who brought their baby in for sniffles.  As soon as she looked in his ears it was very obvious that his fever was for a good reason...an ear infection.  He's definitely taking after his mommy.  We were given a prescription for antibiotics, and were on our way to the pharmacy. 

To say that G is not a fan of his medicine is a bit of an understatement.  It takes both of us to get the meds down him.  One to hold him down, the other to give him the meds.  It's not a pretty sight, that's for sure, and a good portion of the dose ends up dripping down his chin.  I just hope he's getting enough to get rid of the infection.  He's definitely feeling better, acting like his normal self, and his cold symptoms are improving as well.  I wouldn't be surprised if there was a sinus infection going on as well, but that's pretty hard to diagnose in an infant since they can't tell you if there is pressure in their sinuses or not.  Since he's had two full days of meds now, and the runny nose is starting to improve, I'd say the antibiotics are helping with that as well.  I'm just glad to have my happy little guy back! 

Hopefully this week is much better! 

Here's a video of our little crawling machine!

Cheeeeeeeeese!!!

Time for some football!

Reading my book

Trying to get Chester's tongue.  He wouldn't let me have it, and I was MAD!

Late Again...36 & 37 Weeks

Oh so many things have changed in the last two weeks!  I am just amazed at how much Griffin is doing now!  It seems as though I blink my eyes and he's doing something new!  The last two weeks have seen him starting to try to crawl.  He's not quite there yet, but he sure is trying hard!  He's so funny.  He has the arm movements down and it really looks like he's going to take off across the floor.  Then he gets to the point where he's stretched as far as he can go without falling.  His legs just don't want to cooperate yet, so he decides to either back up and go a different direction or sit back up. 

Going from lying on his belly to sitting is another new trick he's learned in the last few days.  A few weeks ago, he greeted the babysitter after a nap by sitting up in the pack-n-play, but he hadn't done it since.  This week, he was playing on the floor one afternoon, and decided he was tired of lying down, so he pushes up onto all fours, and then manuvers onto his rear.  I was surprised to see it, but he acted like he'd been doing for ages.  The next morning, he did it 3 or 4 times before we left for the day, and he's been enjoying this new ability ever since.  Now that he could sit up whenever he wanted, he decided to start applying this to his time in bed.  Friday morning around 5:30, he decided to sit up in his crib and then proceeded to try and pull himself up.  Thankfully I checked his baby monitor at just this time, and stopped him before he was successful.  He got to spend a little time in bed with me, so I could keep track of him without worrying he was going to topple head first onto the floor.  At that point, lowering his crib mattress became priority one for the weekend.  I also received a text from the babysitter Friday morning.  She told me that G had just gone from hands and knees to hands and feet and then proceeded to fully stand up with out any support at all.  He did pull up, he STOOD up.  Since there was nothing around for him to grab on to, he fell over immediately, but she wanted me to know just in case we hadn't lowered his crib yet.  We were planning to do it sometime this weekend, but that text meant that it HAD to be done before he went to bed that night.  Now that he's fairly mobile, he enjoys wiggling all over his crib and sitting up, just because he can, before he finally gives up and falls asleep. 

This week was the local high school's homecoming, so G got to go to his first football game!  He thoroughly enjoyed listening to and dancing to the band music!  We were there until a little into the 2nd quarter, then it was time to get a little guy to bed.  Unforunately we hadn't had time to put the mattress down before we left, so that meant we had to put it down before he could go to bed.  Let me tell you, crib manufacturers do NOT make it easy to lower a crib mattress!  It took both of us almost 45 min to get the stupid thing lowered and secured before we could finally put G to bed.  Needless to say it was WAAAAAAY after his regular bedtime by the time he finally went to sleep.  He, of course, wouldn't go to sleep quickly either.  He had a totally new view of his room, so he had to inspect it from every angle :o)

Finally, our last major event from this week was Griffin's first haircut!  I so badly wanted to wait until he was closer to his first birthday, but the poor kid was getting so shaggy, and his hair was in his eyes a lot of the time.  Not to mention it would tickle his ears, and make him quite upset.  He looked like such a big boy sitting in the chair with the cape around him!  It's amazing how much older he looked as soon as it was finished.  He looked like such a little boy, not a baby!  He did so much better than I expected him to!  He sat on her booster seat all by himself, even wore the cape for quite a while (it didn't last the whole time) and was in pretty good spirits throughout most of the cut.  He started getting fussy towards the end, but I mixed up a bottle and fed him while she finished up.  Then Matthew fed him the rest once he was out of the chair.  He looked so cute!  We made sure to save some and put it in his keepsake box at home.  It's still hard to believe he's had his first haircut already!  My baby is growing bigger and bigger every day.

And of course I can't end a blog post without pictures, here they are!

A beautiful Saturday morning at Starbucks, before we visited the baby tigers at the zoo!

 

Ready to celebrate Metamora Homecoming.  Decked out in my Redbird colors!

 

Right before my haircut...Mr. Shaggy

 

What is that...

 

I'm trying really hard to be brave, Mommy!

 

Not so sure about this...

 

All done!  Such a handsome little guy!