A Whole Year

Dearest Grayson,

Yesterday we celebrated your first birthday.  One whole year with you as a part of our family.  How quickly the time has gone.  It is very surreal to think back to a little over a year ago and realize that you were not with us yet.   To think about how much our lives have changed because you are a part of us. You are such an important part of our family and I can hardly imagine a time when you were not here.  You remind me so much of your daddy.  Your sweet, easy-going personality.  Your precious smile and that adorable giggle.

We are going to have to combine this with your 11 month post, since I haven't had a chance to post that yet.  Bad mommy.  We have been busy, so hopefully you will forgive me.  Your 11th month start out with a bang.  Literally and figuratively.  You got tubes in your ears at the beginning of the year.  You had basically had an ear infection from Labor Day until the time your tubes were put in, so it was definitely time.  That and the fact that you failed your booth hearing test so bad that they had to do a special nerve conduction hearing test called an AER while you were under anethesia.  Luckily you passed that with flying colors and we definitely think you are hearing better now that you have your tubes in.  You still aren't saying any words yet, but you can say the ba, da, ga sound.  You also are GREAT at imitating.  If I make a clicking sound with my tongue, you will smile really big and start clicking with your tongue.  This one is your daddy's favorite.  If he blows raspberries with his lips you will immediately follow suit.  The funny part of this is that you can be half way across the house  and daddy will motorboat his lips and you will hear him do it and start to repeat it.  Such a smart boy!

I digress though.  The reason I mention that you started off your year was a bang, was because you also go to experience your first time with stitches.  That's right.  Stitches before you were even a year old.  The whole family was in the playroom and we were all conducting a rousing rendition of the Nutcracker suite with your older brother.  You were standing at the bookshelf yanking all of the books the shelf, your favorite pass time, and you slipped and hit your eyebrow right on the sharp edge of the bookshelf.  Needless to say, you split it right open and the blood started gushing.  We took you to the emergency room and you got three stitches right above your eyebrow.  You were the bravest little baby and you did not even shed a single tear the entire procedure.  Everyone was so impressed.  So now you have a little red scar above your eyebrow that gives you some definite street cred.

When I mentioned that you were pulling things off the shelf when you busted your eyebrow, I should also mention that one of your nicknames is Captain Destructo.  You can tear a room up faster than you can say Grayson stop it.  You love pulling things off shelves, dumping baskets over, and generally wreaking havoc.  You are like a stealth bomber.  You are very quiet and very fast and you are into EVERYTHING!  You love dipping your hands in the toilet, regardless of whether your brother has remembered to flush or not.  You can unwind a roll of toilet paper faster than anyone I have ever seen.  You love to play in the pantry and tear things up.  Your favorite thing to do, much to your daddy's chagrin, is push all of the buttons on his tv equipment and remotes. 

You are an expert crawler and started taking your first steps a few weeks before your first birthday.  You certainly aren't walking full-time by any means, but you can take four to five steps in a row.  You love to play and are way more into toys then your brother ever was/is.  You are a great independent player and you can entertain yourself very, very well.  You love your brother and it is cute to see the two of you together.  Perron is VERY big into tackling you which you tolerate pretty well right now, but I keep warning Perron that it won't be long before you are bigger than him.  At your one year check-up yesterday, you weighed 22 lbs 11 ozs (50th percentile) and were 30 inches tall (55th percentile).  You wear a size 5 diaper and you wear size 12-18 month clothes.  You just got your first big boy pair of tennis shoes and you are wearing a size five shoe.  So big!  You have four top teeth and two bottom teeth, with one more on the way very soon.  You sleep through the night, but have gone through a stretch where you are waking up way to early. 

You got RSV for the first time since your hospitalization.  You handled it really well.  It was a really difficult time because mommy got appendicitis and had to have her appendix out.  Add to that, both you and your brother having RSV, with your brother's case being pretty severe, and it has made for some very difficult couple of weeks.  Luckily we are all on the mend and you only have a residual cough. 

This first year milestone has been a little hard on mommy.  I am very aware that a lot of these milestones we are celebrating with you will be the last time they are celebrated in our house.  It just feels like it is going by way to fast.  With each day that passes, I realize that the baby phase is slipping a little further away.  That is a bit of a tough pill to swallow.  However, we are so proud of the little boy you are becoming.  I know that your sweet disposition will serve you well in life and I can not wait to see you grow and change over this next year.  While I might miss certain parts of the baby phase, I know there are so many exciting things for you just around the corner.

You are a light and a gift to this family.  Our lives forever changes on the day that you were born and we would not have it any other way!

We love yo u to the moon and back,

Mommy and Daddy

10 months

Dearest Grayson,

10 months old.  It is so hard to believe that last Christmas you were in my belly and this Christmas you were crawling all over the family room getting into everything and playing with all your presents.  What a difference a year makes!

This month has been a very busy month for you.  You are now officially crawling, not just your version of crawling.  You are fast as lightning and as quite as a stealth bomber.  I will frequently come into the playroom expecting you to be in there and end up finding you hiding in your brother's closet getting into all of his pull-ups or yanking all of his books out of his baskets.  We have had to start closing all the doors in between the family room and playroom to keep you somewhat contained.  Cammy said that she put you in the playroom one afternoon and came to unload the dishwasher.  Next thing she knew she felt someone pulling at her pants leg and looked down to find you smiling up at her.  See...you are very sneaky.  Let's just say I have caught you eating dryer lent out of the trash can in the laundry room on more than one occasion.  I know, sign me up for mother of the year.  I definitely think it is time to get the baby gate up.

Not only are you crawling, but you are pulling up on EVERYTHING.  You even have gotten brave enough to start testing out standing by yourself and the proud little look on your face melts my heart.  I have a feeling it will not be very long until you are walking.  YIKES!  You love getting in to things that you know that you are not supposed to be in.  We have decorative tin outlet covers and light switch covers in the family room.  One day I caught you pulled up on the console table with the outlet plug cover pulled out and you had managed to bend back the tin plate and were reaching for the live wires behind the outlet.  Needless to say, that outlet plate got changed to a hard plastic cover very quickly.  You still love to pull the outlet plug cover off though.  I will tell you know and you will stop and look at me and then reach again and then I say no again.  And so it goes until I pick you up and move you.  You then screech and fuss and get angry with me and two seconds later crawl over to do it all over again.

Speaking of screeching and fussing.  You have become VERY opinionated in the past couple of weeks.  You are still sweet as sugar, but man, watch out if we do something you don't like.  You will definitely let us know about it.  You will throw yourself around on the floor and fuss and cry.  Quite melodramatic.  We might be in trouble come your toddler years.

You have learned how to clap and you have learned how to do the touchdown motion.  both are so cute.  You still aren't talking a ton, but over the weekend you did start babbling just a little bit.  We have a speech therapy evaluation for you at the end of the month.  i am hoping I will be able to cancel that appointment.

You are eating great and are almost fully transitioned to table food.  You love lunchmeat and fruit.  You have had grapes, blueberries, strawberries and mandrain oranges.  You will eat pasta, chicken, ground beef.  Basically anything we eat.  You love goldfish, cherrios, waffles, french toast sticks, mum mums, and yogurt melts.  If you are in your high chair you expect to be being fed none stock.  If not, see paragraph about expressing your opinion above. 

I took you to the doctor for an ear recheck last week and you had gained over a pound since your 9  month check up!  You now weigh over 21 pounds.  So big!  Speaking of ears, your poor little ears have been giving you fits.  You have had four ear infections since Labor Day and your time for tubes has come.  We are taking you for your ENT consult next week.  Hopefully the tubes will help you feel better, although honestly it is so hard to tell you have ear infections because you just don't fuss and cry that much.  such a sweet baby!

We love you to the moon and back.  More than all the stars in the sky.  More than all the sand on the beach and more thank all the water in the ocean.

Love

Mommy and Daddy

9 months

Dearest Grayson,

I just got an email from a service I subscribe to that tracks milestones and baby's developments and it just said 9 months and two weeks in the email title, so I figured I better get on your monthly post before your 9th month flies by.  We are knee deep in the Christmas season and it is hard to believe that this time last year I was still pregnant with you!  It really seems like you have fit into our family so seamlessly that I can not imagine you not being here.

You are getting so big.  I took you on Friday for your nine month check-up, and you are in the 60th percentile for height and the 40th percentile for weight.  You are 28 and 3/4 inches long and you weigh 19 lbs 15.4 ounces.  You have slowed down in your weight gain some, but you are still wearing clothes this holiday season that your big brother wore when he was 15 to 16 months old.  You still wear a size 4 diaper and fit nicely into your 12 month pajamas.

You are eating baby food and we have started integrating table food into your diet over the past two or 3 weeks.  I can tell that you are a little more finicky then Perron was, but you still we pretty much eat whatever I put in front of you.  You love french toast sticks for breakfast, are pretty keen on lunchmeat, and will go through some yougurt melts like it is nobody's business.  We will continue to increase the amount of table foods that you are eating and will slowly start moving you off baby food. 

You are cutting your four top teeth all at one time.  Poor baby!  The two side teeth have already broken through the gums, but the two middle teeth are just bulging underneath the gums and haven't come through yet.  It looks very painful and if you bite down on something wrong or something hits your gums you just cry and cry.

You are quite the mobile little thing.  You can officially crawl a real crawl for a few steps, but you much prefer to drag yourself around "zombie" style as we call it.  You lay on your tummy and use one of your arms to pull yourself while your feet push behind you.  It really is an effective form of transportation and there have been many times we have heard you shrieking and laughing as you are dragging yourself down the hallway out of the playroom.  We have also caught you trying to eat trash out of the laundry room trash can.  Probably a signal that the baby gates need to go up.

You have also started pulling up  on things.  We learned this the hard way one morning after you woke up from morning nap.  You somehow manage to pull yourself up in your crib and then proceeded to fall out head first onto the hardwoods.  Needless to say, there was a lot of crying on both of our parts and your crib was lowered down as low as it could go.

I know that I say this every month, but you really are the sweetest, happiest baby.  Your aunt sarah called you a "trick" baby over Thanksgiving and that term has definitely stuck.  A trick baby is a baby that is so good that it would trick you into having a hundred more because you would think they were so easy.  It really is true.  You have the sweetest spirit and are always ready to share a smile and a giggle with anyone who will look your way.  You bring joy to the lives of everyone who knows you.

So as we celebrate your first Christmas season with us, we look forward to a lifetime of more memories.  We have truly been blessed!

Love

Mommy and Daddy

8 months

Dearest Grayson,

8 months.  8 months!  How are you already 8 months old?  This month has been a busy, busy month for you.  You have completely mastered sitting up and are an old pro at it.  I honestly can't really remember working with you that much at it.  I just kind of decided one day last month that you could sit up and within the next week or so, you were acting like that is what you had always done.  Sitting up has been followed very closely by crawling.  Not true hands and knees crawling.  More like an army crawl pull and scoot.  You love to get out of your sitting position and onto all fours, but when you really want to get somewhere you do your scoot.  You lay on your tummy and you pull yourself with your arms and then push yourself with your legs.  You are super fast like this too.  You have to develop that kind of speed so you can get to your brother's toys before he yanks them from you.

Speaking of brother, I am not 100% sure he is as thrilled with your new mobility as we are.  There is a lot of yelling Grayson that's mine or don't touch that or give that back or MOMMY!  Hopefully he will get used to this sharing thing soon because I don't see you giving up your desire to have his toys in your mouth.  As I mention, you can move completely out of a sitting position into a crawling position and you are just starting to move from a crawling position into a sitting position.  I have a feeling that by the time I am writing your nine month post you will be full blown, real deal crawling.  How did that happen so fast!?!

As I mention in your last both, I was guessing your second tooth would pop through by the time that I was writing your eight month post and I was right.  You have two tiny little precious bottom teeth poking through.  You are doing okay with your eating.  You tolerate pretty much any baby food I give you, although you had some very strong thoughts about a certain beef, carrots, and corn jar that i gave you.  You are starting to get a little less sensitive to the texture of non-pureed food and can not eat yogurt melts and puff without gagging...usually.  Next month we will start introducing some table foods and see how you do.  Your older brother was and is champion eater of the world, so you have big shoes to fill in that department.

You are still our growing little boy, but I think you have started to slow down just a little bit.  You are in size four diapers, size 6-12 month clothes, and size 12 month pjs (and anything else Carter's makes).  I am guessing that you are getting pretty close to the 20 pound mark.

You still are not babbling or making any sounds yet, but you are by no means quiet.  You love to shriek and squeal.  You remain the happiest baby ever and are very rarely with out a smile on your face and a giggle on your breath.  You are sweeter than sunshine and we love you so very very much!

Love

Mommy and Daddy

7 months

Dearest Grayson,

This month has been a busy month for you.  You have learned to sit up by yourself, gotten your first tooth, and had your second round of ear infections.  The ear infection part was no fun...neither was the teething really.

You can now sit unassisted for a pretty decent period of time and play with toys.  You sometimes have a tendency to throw yourself backwards so I have to be on the look out, but you are generally pretty sturdy and steady.  I must say that you look like such a big boy sitting up.  You still are not crawling, but now that you have mastered sitting, I have a feeling that won't be far behind.  You still using rolling as your primary way of traveling, but you can scooch pretty good to.  You love toys and they will motivate you to move to find a way to get to them.

You have broken one of your bottom middle teeth through and the tooth next to it is right under the surface.  I have a feeling it will be close behind and by the time I post your next month update it will have made your appearance.  You don't love teething and it makes you a little fussy and not sleep great.

Speaking of sleep, your teething and ear infections have done a number on your sleep.  You have been waking up two to three times a night and your mommy and daddy are TIRED!  You also have not been napping very well at all.  Luckily your ears are feeling a little better and you actually slept through the night last night which was a HUGE treat for your mommy and daddy.  Hopefully this trend will continue and we will be able to get you back on track soon.  You have had two ear infections in the past six weeks, so I have a feeling that tubes might be in your future.  Both mommy and daddy had bad ears growing up, so I am not all that surprised.  We we will see how that goes.

You are getting to be such a big boy.  When I took you to the doctor's on Friday for your ears you weighed in at just over 19 pounds.  You are officially bigger than your brother was at a year.  That is incredible to believe.  You are still in 6-12 month clothes, but probably won't be for long.  You are in a size three diaper, but I will be buying a size four box the next time I buy them.  You are eating more baby food, but honestly we haven't gotten you on a very good schedule with it.  You always have a jar of food at dinnertime, but during the day it is hit or miss.  I am really going to work on getting you on a better schedule.  I have tried some little table food with you, but you are not a fan at all.  If I put a puff in your mouth, you stick your tongue out and hold it there until it fall off.  If one does actually make it into your mouth long enough to start dissolving you gag and act like we are poisoning you.  What a stinker!  Hopefully this is just a temporary blip and not a textural aversion to food you are developing.  Only time will tell.

You aren't making any official sounds yet, but lord do you talk all the time.  You squawk, squeal and screech non-stop.  You love to laugh and smile and are always so so so happy.  You love your big brother and could watch him all day.

You are such a light in our lives and our family.  We love you to the moon and back!

Mommy and Daddy

6 months!

Dearest Grayson,

I figured that I better get on your six month post since I just got an email from Baby Center on my 6 month and 3 week old.  You poor second children!  Better late than never.  So what have you been up to this month.

For starters we took you to your six month well baby check up and you weighed 17 lbs 11 ozs and were 26 and 3/4 inches  tall.  As a disclaimer, you had just eaten an 8 oz bottle, so your weight might have been a little inflated.  Regardless, those stats put you squarely in the 50th percentile for weight and height.  It is so hard for me to imagine that you are able to be as big as your big brother was at a year.  Definitely two very different babies...in more than just body type alone.  You are wearing size three diapers.  You wear size 6-12 month clothes and 9 month onesies and sleepers.

You continue to be the sweetest, happiest baby that ever lived.  You love to play with toys more than anything.  They are a huge source of motivation for you.  If I put a toy a little beyond your reach you will try and skooch as hard as you can to get to it.  You push your bottom up in the air and scoot on your shoulder and head trying to move for it.  You are a very proficient roller and I will find you on the opposite side of the room if you I put you down in the playroom and walk away.  You are staring to be able to sit-up for brief periods of time unassisted.  I can not believe how quickly you are growing up!

You are still doing great with eating.  I am lazy (seems to be a common theme) and you are still only eating one meal of solids a day, but Cammie and I keep saying we are going to add a second mid-day meal in there for you.  Maybe this week.  You have eaten apples, pears, carrots, squash, sweet potatoes and peas.  While you are not as enthusiastic of an eater as your brother was, you still do very well and haven't refused anything yet.  You sit up in your high chair and make a big, huge mess!

Your night time sleeping continues to be pretty good.  You are usually asleep by 7:30 and then you wake up somewhere in the 5 or 6 o'clock hour to eat and then go back down for another 30-45 minutes or so.  Your napping has regressed a little and you seem to be suffering from short nap syndrome where you want to wake up after 45 or 50 minutes.  I am working with a sleep lady who I used with your brother to try and see if we can work out a solution.

You got your first cold since your hospitalization and unfortunately it didn't treat your lungs very well.  It has been almost a month since you got what was in reality a very mild cold and you are still coughing and wheezing.  It makes me very nervous for how we are going to handle the fall and winter cold and flu season.  I spoke with Dr. M and she said that if you got RSV or any RSV-acting virus that there would most likely be no way that we could avoid hospitalization based on the way you handled this cold.  Needless to say, I wasn't thrilled to hear that news, but we will continue to pray for the best and be prepared for the worst.

You love to squeal and shriek.  We call you our little baby pterodactyl.  You have just started imitating us and it is so funny.  Your big brother loves for us to cheer and yell "whoo" when he is playing sports in the back yard.  This weekend, as soon as I would yell whoo you would immediately mimic me and yell back.  It was precious!  You are such a smart boy.  You love your big brother so much and nothing make you happier than to watch him run around like a crazy person.  It is a sure fire way to calm you down if you are fussy or over-tired.

You are starting to get a little bit of stranger anxiety if people try picking you up or holding you before you are comfortable with them.  However, you are still so sweet and will give your smiles and giggles to anyone who looks your way.  Everyone always comments on how you have the sweetest little smile.

You are acting like you might be getting some teeth in, but you never will let me get a close enough look.  I think I might be able to see two bottom teeth underneath the gums, but nothing is close to breaking through the surface yet.

You continue to be such a blessing to our family and such an absolute joy and delight in our lives.  I can not tell you how much your daddy and I have enjoyed you.  You have been so easy and sweet and an absolute delight to be around.  We love you and can't imagine our lives before you were in it.

Love you to the moon and back,

Mommy

Three Years Old

Perron,

My sweet, wild, precious first born.  How could it be that you are three years old.  i feel like just yesterday, I was laying on a table waiting for you to be born.  How far you have come from that little 3 lb 13 oz boy. 

You are one of the smartest little boys I know.  You have such a passion for music.  You love classical music and you spend almost all of your days with a plastic straw, your ba-ton (spelled like you used to pronounce it), in your hand.  You stand on a little plastic bathroom step stool that you call your compodium and you conduct like crazy.  Your three favorite conductors are Franz-Wesler Most, Allen Gilbert and Gustavo Dudamel.  You will tell that information to anyone who will listen.  Gammaw and Gampaw record classical music concerts and you love to go to their house and conduct to them.  You love Rhapsody in Blue, Radezsky's March, Songs from the Nutcracker, Rodeo, Mafiesto Waltz, just to name a few.  You can't understand why other three year olds aren't interested in conducting or who your favorite conductor's are.  You can  name every instrument in the orchestra and if you aren't conducting you can usually be found playing some kind of instrument around the house.  It is cute, but it is mind-blowing how incredibly intelligent you are that you can comprehend all of this at such a young age. 

You love puzzles and are VERY good at them.  You can easily blow through 24 piece puzzles without any help.  You have a Chuggington Puzzle that you were given for your birthday that has over fifty puzzles and you can easily do that without any help.  You love to read and there are several books that you can "read" back to us.  You can read Where the Wild Things Are and The Very Hungry Captepillar to name a couple.  It is always so cute to hear you read the stories because you read them back exactly the way you hear them read to you, same intonation and inflection.  Some of your favorites are The Bernstein Bears, Little Critter, Dora books, and Curious George.

I hate to admit that you are a bit of a technology junkie.  You LOVE LOVE LOVE to play on the iPad and would play all day long if I let you.  One of your favorite things to do is to get on YouTube and look up videos of your favorite conductors.  In fact, as you sit here next to me on the couch you are watching a video of Franz Wesler Most.  You also love looking at pictures on Facebook.  I love that you are already a little Facebook stalker at the age of three.  You know exactly how to get into the app, go to my profile, and find the pictures.  You also have several little games that you like to play.  Not surprisingly your favorite game is a musical instrument game.  You also love your Curious George Application, your matching game, and a game about shapes.  To go with your iPad addiction you also have a love affair with cable television.  Nick JR is your favorite channel and some of your favorite shows are The Fresh Beat Band, Dora, Diego, Wow Wow Wubbzy, and Team Umi-zoomi.  I must admit that since your little brother was born you probably watch a little more TV than you should.

Speaking of brothers.  You are such a good big brother.  You love Grayson so much and I can already see the bond forming between you too.   It is so sweet to see it develop.  You love to tickle him and grab at him.  I occasionally have to remind you to be gentle, but for the most part you are very good with him.  You constantly ask to hold him and will sit with your legs spread apart with him sitting in between.  It is getting harder for you to hold him though because his is already over half your size.

That is right.  You are still littler than a minute.  At your three year old check up you weighed 29 lbs 12 ozs and were 37.5inches tall.  You wear anything from 12-18 month shorts all the way up to 24 month shorts depending on the brand.  You are in 2T shirts and are about to move up to 3T shirts.  You are potty trained and have been since about May.  You still sleep in pull-ups for nap time and night time.

You unfortunately not a great sleeper, which is hard on mommy and daddy.  You still take one nap a day that last anywhere from an hour and a half to 3 hours depending.  Most days you are up well before the sun rises (before 6am).  We moved you to a big boy bed in January and you certainly have taken advantage of the freedom that affords.  In the past four to six weeks you have stopped sleeping through the night.  I will frequently find you standing nose to nose with me at my bedside at 4am.  Hopefully this is just a phase and you will grow out of it quickly because mommy and daddy are TIRED!

But the  most important thing of all of this is how much we love you.  You are the sweetest, funniest, most loving child.  You light up this household and our lives more than you could every imagine.  Your energy and zeal for life are contagious and we are so blessed to be your parents.  You have taught me so much about what true, unconditional love is, so much about myself and the kind of person I want to be.  You have tested me in ways I could have never imagined, but you have also shown me a kind of love I could never have imagined before you are born.  You are one of the best things I have ever done!

We love you!

Mommy and Daddy