For the Fun of It.

I think he was imagining himself in 9th grade and pretending the chair was a tree.

Practicing?

Maybe.

Catching up.

Ok, its been a while (again) since I posted anything about the little one.  I keep thinking that I am busy, that I will do it tomorrow, then tomorrow turns into two months, and still there is nothing.  So, here goes:

Grayson turned 10 months old yesterday.  Yikes!  I can’t believe how fast this has all gone.  I think he is in the upper 17 pound range at this point.  Wearing size 3 diapers when he isn’t in his cloth.  He crawls at lightning speed around the whole house, scales over us like he is going to climb Mount Everest before he turns 16, and is cruising along the bed, cupboards, chairs, and between our pant legs like he was born to do so.  Among other things, he has started waving, enjoys playing peek-a-boo, tilts his head from side to side just so he can get you to mimic him, and has started to place things in cups (or the bathtub).  He is still not saying ‘da da’ or ‘ma ma’ like his doctor would like him to, but he squeals and hollers all of the time.

I love that he goes to bed at 7:30 without a fight, takes his naps like a man, and sleeps until morning.  That is our saving grace.

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This past weekend my grandparents, Graysons great grandparents, were in town and we were lucky enough (since I am not working) to be able to see them for the three days they were here.  I know that they enjoyed being able to spend that time with him, and I enjoyed being able to visit and talk with them.  All in all, it was a whole lot of fun.  Great grandpa Mitchell even got to babysit the little buggar for 15 minutes when I took Dean to pick up his car!  True to form, Grayson was entertaining and happy for him.  Such a little sport.

We are very lucky that his content attitude is still going strong.  He has become slightly more clingy – getting a little bit of separation anxiety – but we were prepared for that from his Doctor at our last visit there.  Hopefully it doesn’t get any worse (it really is not bad right now) because I love that he is so easy to take care of and that he doesn’t seem to know a stranger.

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We went on our first trip to the grocery store this week without his pumpkin seat.  We had to switch him out of it as he was getting a little too tall.  And, though it was nice to be able to carry him around, he was getting a tad bit heavy in that thing too!  I was worried that he would climb out of the cart, or throw a little fit because he was constrained, but he did wonderfully.  The trip took forever and he kept it together the whole time.  (we pretty much had to get everything – the last time that I went to the store was at least 5 weeks ago, yikes)

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Pretty much, our little babe is all boy.  He enjoys playing with his toys for approximately 20 minutes a day, and the rest of the time he is on the move.  Moving, exploring, moving, banging pan lids, chasing the dog, screeching, climbing, trying to eat dirt, trying to eat chalk, trying to eat my face, smiling, laughing, and having fun.  Just the way I want it.

Happily Birthday!

Today marks the end of my favorite person’s 29th year and the start of her (gasp!) 30th. I have been blessed to know her for 11 of those years and married to her for 7. She is the mother of my son and the best part of me. She hides an extreme intelligence and humor behind her humility and cares for people more than they will ever know. In short, she is the cornerstone of our family and if any of you enjoy our company, it’s probably because of her.

Happy Birthday Jennifer!

Update

Ok, so Grayson went to the Pedi yesterday for his 9 month wellness exam.  Everything looked good.  He weighs 17 pounds, 6 ounces (5th percentile), is 28 inches tall (50th percentile) and his head is 18.5 inches around (80th percentile).   As far as the facial swelling from last week, it has gone down, and his doctor informed me that the mumps test takes 3-4 weeks, and not the one week that the nurse had mentioned at the time.  So, we will be waiting for a while.  He did not think that it was mumps because his amylase and lipase levels were normal, plus of course, he doesn’t have much outside/stranger contact.  So, overall, everything is going beautifully, and we are all looking forward to next week!

Two Hours Later…

It only took two hours to get this two minute video up.  Certainly there is a more efficient way to do this….

But trust me, it was well worth it.  Ok, fine, see for yourself.

Scary Stuff.

Our little boy woke up with a super puffy chin, firm to the touch, just in front of his ear. No fever. We went to his pediatrician and got some tests done, and now I am in the wait mode. I refuse to be overly worried, that is, until they give me something to worry about. I never thought I would have hoped that my babe had an ear infection as much as I did this morning on the way to see the doctor.

He is in high spirits though, and does not seem as bothered as I do at this new addition to his face. What are the differentials you ask? Well, it could be a clogged salivary duct that will just have to work itself out, with some encouragement from me and Grayson’s willingness to eat the crystal coating off of some Sour Pat.ch Kids. An abundance of lemon slices, and lemonade are on his dietary list as well. All of this is in hopes that stimulating salivary secretions will unplug the duct if that is indeed what is causing this. Other possibilities include the mumps- which I cannot say I am that familiar with, though I have NO IDEA how he would have come across that virus. You know, with him being at home and rarely going into the public and all. And of course, unlikely but possible is … well, I won’t even talk about that.

Here is a pic of our little one from this morning.

And then another from just about 10 minutes ago. The swelling is worsening, quickly.

And no, they do not suspect a bug bite or allergic reaction, or anything of that nature.

Humph.

I’m no good at keeping this thing up.  I wrote a post when Grayson turned 8 months old and was just waiting to post it until I got the pic I wanted loaded.  And, here it is two weeks later, still not posted.  Leave it to me…

Grayson is changing so quickly these past two days.  He decided that he was going to stand up in his crib on his own, then he started getting his second bottom tooth, which explains his fussiness, and this morning he started crawling across the floor.  A real crawl this time, he appears to be done with his army training.  I was surprised because he hasn’t shown an interest in it, and there he was staring at Diesel from across the room, then he decided he wanted to be over there, and crawled the whole way.  No faultering…  Strange.

Really, he is a monkey.  Yesterday he decided to stand up using the dresser- then promptly fell and hit his eye on the little knobbies.  I do believe that he will get many, many bruises in the next couple of months.  Especially if he keeps scaling over us like an eighteen year old boy jumps over a four foot fence.  Geesh.

Well, here is a pic of our crazy boy.  This is his good side:

Late Night Visitor

As a new(er) father, I am still surprised at all the little secrets that older parents haven’t let me in on. This is especially true when it comes to many of the childhood myths.

A few nights ago, we had a late night visitor. And trust me, nothing is more disturbing than going to check on your child and finding a sprightly woman in tights and wings standing over his crib. No one had ever told me that the 25¢ you get under your pillow when you lose a tooth is really just getting your parents’ deposit back.

Growing.

Our little boy is getting so big.  I just told Dave last night that I think Grayson will be getting himself into a sitting position all by his lonesome pretty soon.  Then I walked into his room this morning and low and behold, he was sitting.  All by himself.  What a big boy!

He is also getting both of his bottom teeth.  We were looking at his gum’s yesterday and his right tooth is breaking through, and you can see that on the left side his gum’s are more transparent, so that tooth is on it’s way in too.  Luckily, they are not interrupting his sleep, though he is a little more fussy when he is awake than usual.  I am sure that it doesn’t help his fussiness that we all have a mild cold again.  Nothing big, but a little bit of a scratchy throat and drippy nose.  No doubt Graysons faucet is caused by a cold and his teeth.  But, he is taking it like a champ.  That’s my boy.

Here are a couple of pics from Mother’s Day.  He was sporting the shoes that his Great Grandma Steele bought him for Christmas.  He really liked them.  He told me so.

Hmm.  What else is new?  He is starting to feed himself those little air puffs that you can buy at the store.  He really likes to do that.  He is also eating a lot of new food, and though I make most of it, he will only eat peas from a jar.  I’ll take what I can get.

A ‘Go Getter’

Baby G has been trying to pull himself up onto things for about four days now.  He hasn’t even tried to put himself into a sitting position on his own, but I guess he is just skipping that step and going for the gold.  Actually, he isn’t even crawling yet.  He doesn’t quite know that he can prop himself up on his arms either.  He is still doing his army crawl on bended elbows.  Despite all of those steps he hasn’t gotten to, he has been seen doing things like this:

(excuse the poor quality- my hand was over the flash.  oops!)

While I am posting pictures, here is one with Grayson sporting his new cloth diaper cover.  Jungle Print.  He’s a wild child…  He’s got Jungle Fever!