using a spoon has a learning curve

We gave G his spoon and yogurt the other night. Mainly it was because I was starving and wanted to finish fixing our dinner and G was being difficult to feed. But oh man, he loooved it! Not only did he eat all of his yogurt - wait, the bowl was empty but no, not half of it made it into his mouth - but then he ate a bowl of applesauce as well. I think we may be on to something. If he can feed himself maybe he'll eat it?

Gosh he's so adorable.

Even when his whole bib, neck, shirt, hair, and feet were covered in yogurt.

He'll eventually get the whole "tilt the spoon to get it in your mouth" thing....

just like daddy

Please notice that he has his own slippers on....but daddy's are better.

super fun new skills and loads of poo

There is so much poo in our lives right now! I swear.....if Mable reverts to pre-house-broken.....

Ok, so I'm exaggerating. Baxter is doing great. Only a few piddles (that word makes me laugh...I must be 13) and two poo's. And the poo's were on Matt's watch. It has been an adjustment. I mean, watching G is enough work for like 5 people. And now we need to remember to take Baxter out every time he wakes up or lays down or takes a drink or... really all.the.time. If he wasn't so stinking cute bouncing around the yard and accidentally rolling himself over it might get annoying.

Enough about the poo. You probably didn't even want to know all of that anyway.

What fun new skills am I talking about you may wonder? Who else dominates this blog? Surely not Matt or me...

Graham's brain must have grown since my 15 month update post. Seriously, he has blown us away the last 2 weeks!

His comprehension of our words must have just clicked. He understands pretty much everything we're saying which is terrifying! I got him some new books recently (at Matt's request) and G loves them. One is a "my first words" book with large pictures of every day household items. So the other night we were looking at it and I began asking him to show me certain things. I mean, he pointed to the fence when I asked him where it was. When have we ever shown him a fence? Let alone a white picket one....totally cool. And when Matt asked him to show him the TV, G pointed to it in the book and then got up and went over to ours and pointed to it. He knows practically every item in the book. Wow!

He's also finally calling me "mama" and it's unquestionably the most adorable and tender thing in the whole world. He also will point to Daddy, Pop, Mimi, aunt Laura, Coco...me...pretty much any of his family members when we ask him where they are. It's so sweet.

He is also very generous with giving noggin, hugs, and kisses. Kisses are a little trickier if he has his paci in. I think that's now noggin was born. If he has his paci in and you ask for a kiss, he just "leans in." But he'll give practically anything noggin. Coco, Elmo, his "yuh-yuh" (lovey)... My mom says that watching him go in to Coco's face for a noggin is so funny! I just think finally getting kisses when I ask for them is so sweet! He's even sweet to the twins. The other day, whenever they would fuss or cry, he would go over to them and gently pick up their paci and put it in their mouth. And he'll give them a kiss if we ask him. I had no idea that he would be so gentle and sweet to them!

We've also had some major breakthroughs with his eating. He has decided that he likes bagels and cream cheese, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, popcorn, and rice cakes. I wish I could report that there was a veggie in this new list...but no such luck. One time I got him to eat a few carrots out of my chicken soup but I don't want to count it if it was just 2 pieces. So we're still mixing veggie purees into his yogurt. Poor kid.

One more development. G slept through the night, in his crib. And he did it all on his own! One more....he did it two nights in a row! Like I said in his 15 month update - he was been sleeping until like 4-5 in his crib and then waking and joining us in our bed/room until like 8:30ish. Well, in the last 2 weeks G and I have been fighting colds and he was waking up many many times unable to breathe. I don't think I'll ever not be sad when a baby of mine has a cold. The stuffy nose is soooo sad! Anyway, last week one night I woke up at like 5 and realized that we were still alone in our bed. I went in and made sure that G was still breathing... And what do you know...he slept until 7:30. I was totally shocked and didn't expect it to happen again. And then he did it again the next night. Cool huh?! Didn't happen a third night but he did sleep until 5:30 which is awesome. I'm not expecting this to be a permanent skill by any means. And I honestly don't mind getting up with him. Seriously don't. Especially if it's just once, many times does get a wee bit annoying. I just wanted to document that it happened. This is a blog/baby book after all, haha!

Oh, and one last fun thing. You know those wire maze things that twist and turn and there are shapes on each one that you move along the maze? I am probably not describing it correctly. Anyway, I sometimes take him to work (at that baby boutique) with me and they have this huuge maze thing. And he recently decided that he gets it and loves it. I didn't know that he would know how to move the the beads along the line but he did it, and very methodically. I was blown away.

So that's it for now. Just wanted to get these documented before I forgot. He's just going to learn new fun things each and every day from here on out anyway!

Meet Mr. Baxter

We got a puppy today. And yes, we just might be crazy. But who cares, this is quite possibly the most adorable little puppy face that I've ever snuggled. He came complete with the new puppy smell and everything. I'm soaking it up before it's gone.

G doesn't really know what to do with Baxter. If we ask him where the puppy is, he'll run to the gate and point and such. But when we have him out playing G could care less. Shelties are herding dogs, so when G ran through the house, Baxter was bouncing behind him. And let me tell you, a puppy bouncing around the house or yard will bring tears to the eyes. It's just that adorable.

Someone check on us in a few days or something to make sure we're not still wallowing in puppy cuteness.

Even Matt (who claims to not be a huge pet person) is loving on Baxter. Major milestones people...

bubble-head

The first hair cut

Matt said we had to. He said that people would probably quit referring to G as a girl. And yes, people do.

Graham did not like the cape that he had to wear.

But the sweet girl clipped very quickly. She's a professional toddler stylist after all.

Also, I stuffed his mouth with bunny grahams.

We were dancing all over the place just to get him to look at me. He's probably wondering if I've lost it at this point...

He even got to sit in a go-cart during the cut. All 15 mins of it.

The place has little tvs for each stand for the kids to pick out a dvd to watch.

I wonder if they cut adult hair?

Looks pretty cute!

15 Months and 10 Weeks

We had a family trip to the doctor recently. Have I mentioned how much I loove my doctor? Well I do. When we go, we all go. It was Graham's 15 month appointment and my first prenatal visit all in one. I'll start with the little inch worm since G's updates are more fun and lengthy.

I'm officially 10 weeks with a due date of August.... some time in the second half of the month. My dad's bday is the 18th, so it would be fun if the little squirt came then but who knows. We got to see and hear the heartbeat and watch it wiggle around and such. The tech said that the baby is just a wee bit bigger than an inch. Amazing. Oh, and I read that it's growing finger and toe nails this week. Seriously cool! Everything looks good. I've been very lucky to have only experienced very mild first trimester yuckiness. And aside from major food cravings and insane mood swings (sorry Matt and Graham!) I think everything is going along just fine. Someone might want to check on Matt and G though to make sure I'm not being too crazy...

On to Graham. He is blowing us away every day. His personality keeps us in stitches and I am just loving these new phases of his. Of course, we have our moments (sometimes afternoons or full days) where we're just missing each other and at each other's throats. Yes, I'm the adult and should probably maintain my head...but it's so hard! I know that I fail him every day with my impatience and selfishness. But we've come so far recently with his communication skills that I think he's not as frustrated as he could be.

One day recently his signing just took off. It's been such a smoother road since then! He signs for "more", "all done", "please", and we're working on "eat" and "drink". He is also saying tons of new words. His total list of words is: bird, dog, coco (my parent's dog), mama, dad, "Guh" which what he calls Matt's dad Grandaddy, "bue-ber" = blueberries, "bunun" = banana, "appu" = apple, "go-go" = lets go, "quack" for a duck. I'm sure there are a couple more that I can't think of right now.

He is giving kisses, high-fives, and noggin.

He knows what Matt means when he asks him is he wants to play "ani-match" which is a game on his iPhone. And he knows how to push the buttons to play the game.

He loves to put anything (read: small bags, necklaces, strings, anything that will hang really) on his wrist and then come to us and wave. He gets mad if we don't say "bye bye, see you later".

He brings us our slippers if he sees that we don't have them on. Especially if Matt has been gone, G will go get them when he walks in the door as if he knows that Matt will stay home if he has those shoes on.

He loves to throw trash in the trash can and put his dirty clothes in the basket. We're starting to show him how to clean up his toys. So far though it's just been him dumping out all his bins.

He LOVES to read and will bring us every book from his shelf as we read to him. Also, he wants us to sit in certain places when we read either in his room or the den. Can we say "creature of habit??"

We realized recently that when he would walk around the house saying "yuh-yuh-yuh" that he wasn't whining. That is what he calls his lovey. It's sweet really. I wasn't a fan of the word lovey anyway.... And now that we know that is what he is referring to, we can tell him where it is and he'll go get it.

Oh, and he does the car sound (sort of like motorboat) with his mouth as he rolls his cars around. He even lays down on his belly to roll the cars. I mean, wow, I sure didn't teach him....it's amazing what boys just know!

He is all out running. All. over. the. place. So fun.

He is taking one 2-3 hour nap in the afternoon which is awesome. And bedtime is even going great! He goes to sleep around 9 like a light (adding a pillow and a blanket to his bed was the best idea ever...). He lays down, grabs "yuh-yuh", rolls to his side and is out. He wakes up around 5 to nurse and join us in our bed (or the pack and play in our room) where he sleeps until 8:30-9. I love it! I'm a night person and really like the sleeping until 8:30 thing that he has going on these days. Of course there are nights that don't go as anticipated (like when he was apparently cutting a molar last week and woke up like 5 times...) but for the most part he is sleeping wonderfully. And we wouldn't trade waking up with him next to us for the world! That first morning smile melts me...

And last week we had a MAJOR breakthrough. He went into the gym nursery with not a tear! He loved it and didn't want to leave when I went to pick him up! I was totally thrilled. So thrilled in fact that I tried the nursery again on Sunday. One step too far. He refused to let go of my leg. So no church nursery yet... but it's ok, the cry room at our church is super nice. I'm just hoping that the gym nursery sticks. I have so missed my exercise!

Ok, so there's an update on the cub. Now for his stats:

Height: 29.5 in. (8th percentile)

Weight: 19 lbs, 12 oz. (2nd percentile)

Head Circumference: 18.5 in. (40th percentile)

So he's still holding steady to that upward curve at the bottom of the charts..... one of these days we'll get to turn his car seat around to face the front. Sorry little guy!

The older he gets and the more he learns the more I realize the huge task and blessing mingled together that is parenthood. We pray for our own patience and selflessness... and that God will be working on his heart at even this young age. What immeasurable joys and lessons we experience through little Graham. We love him so and treasure these moments with just him!