Christmassy weekend!

Well it appears we no longer have a fear of Santa.  The guy in red gives out candy canes and to Grant any Grampa-looking guy that gives out candy is OK in his books. :)  We've been watching quite a few holiday shows too that would familiarize him with Santa and Rudolph.

Last week we were making a quick trip through a local mall here when Grant spotted the Santa house set up for pictures.  Last year he was terrified of him and so I thought we'd just cruise around to the front of the house so he could see Santa from a distance.  There was a family there taking their picture and when they left Grant kind of loitered near the entrance.  The Santa asked if he could have a candy cane and said it was fine, thinking that he'd probably be a bit too scared to get it.  Grant did a quick hit and run and we were off with the candy cane.  I let him try it in the car (big mistake on the messy front). 

Grant has also learnt how to say "Ho Ho Ho" in a deep Santa voice!

On Friday we had our PEPS Christmas party and Grant got really excited when he saw Santa and kept dancing around saying "SANTA.. CANDY CANE".  He happily hopped on Santa's lap and then followed him around trying to give him presents (other kid's toys). 

On Saturday we went on the Santa train again.  We did this last year and Grant loved the train ride but was a little suspicious of Santa.  This year he could hardly wait to get to him.  He of course LOVED the train ride and when it was our turn with Santa he ran over and hopped on his lap.  We were on the last train of the day so Santa came on the journey back with us and handed out candy canes.  When we were leaving Grant even ended giving Santa a big hug which was a surprise to us all.  The Christmas train was great.  We all sang carols and it was a perfect way to get you in the Christmas spirit. Grant's brother Henry slept the entire trip.  I'm sure next year Grant will coach him on the best ways to be cute and get extra candy canes if only to steal them from him. :)

This evening (Sunday) we let Grant open his presents from us and from his cousins in New Zealand.  We'll be in Nebraska over Christmas and tomorrow night is going to be spent packing and getting some early rest for our ridiculously early flight.  Grant seems to love musical instruments and never lets us out of costco without going through the piano and guitar aisle.  He was THRILLED with his own little piano.  I had a headache after about 10 minutes of listening to him and his dad belt out Christmas tunes really loudly into the microphone with background sounds of syncopated drumbeats and synthesized dogs.  Grant also received some great New Zealand Children's books from Peter's sister - He has already demanded they be read!!  Bryan was also kind enough to leave him a gift - A Wiggles book and handy carry along song player - he loves it!

I'm sure we'll blog more from NE but Merry Christmas early!

All of our December photos to date are here...

-misty

..and sometimes it's all exactly how you imagined it.

Today I made cookies for no other reason than it's Christmas time and I can't seem to let this holiday go by without baking something. I was able to mix up the entire batter while Grant had his lunch and Henry napped. The planets must have been completely aligned for it all to work out with both naps and feedings. The cookies had just cooled down in time to test them when Grant was waking from his nap. I gave him two small cookies and a small glass of milk and we sat quietly at the table while he enjoyed his post nap snack. Our little guy of very few (understandable) words looked up at me with a chocolate chip goatee and gave me a very approving "MMMMMMM". It didn't matter that the house wasn't as tidy as it could have been and that I was still in my pajamas with uncombed hair. In my naive pre-parenting days it was a moment like this that made me excited about being a mom. After doing it for two years it's definitely a lot more work than I could have imagined but it was nice to just live in the moment and accept the compliment for what it was.

-misty

As I typed this I caught Grant almost upending the plate of cookies from the counter onto his head.

Henry's Passport Photo

Well we were finally able to get Henry's passport photo taken - now we just need to take him down to the post office to file all of the paper work!  Who knows when that will be!

 

So here is Henry as he will be for the next 5 years on his Passport - Don't mess with him - He's tough!

back to normal & we've created a Christmas monster...

So things all seem to be doing better for Grant. He's back up to his normal tricks and tantrums and the only thing that seems to be remaining is that he keeps squinting up his eyes like he's got a headache. We've got a Sleep EEG scheduled for Thursday and a results follow-up with the neurologist on Friday. The Sleep EEG should be fun. Grant isn't allowed to sleep more than 4 hours the night before and no naps. It's not like we're getting loads of sleep with Henry around anyway but geez. But if it rules out any other issues I'll happily comply.

December 1st was yesterday and we woke up to see a blanket of snow in our yard. I had no idea that Grant even knew what snow was but he was incredibly happy to see it. He was standing at our sliding glass door and clapping and yelling "SNOOOWWW". Peter took him out later in the day to play around in it and he loved it and threw a good old Grant sized tantrum when he learned he had to come in.

This year we also bought Grant an Advent Calendar. It's wooden and looks like a small Victorian house with little doors and compartments for treats for every day leading up to Christmas. We didn't really do this in my family but it was a big part of Christmas for Peter and one he wanted to do with the boys. We took it out the night before and decided we'd only put the treat in for the next morning because we weren't sure he was going to GET that you could only have one treat every day. When he woke up that morning it was the first thing he saw, even before the snow and kept saying "HOUSE" and pointing to it. We'd decided we would let him open the day's door after breakfast so Peter could be here with him when he did it. We may have made a mistake in putting his favorite treat in the world in day #1. Mini M&M's. He got to have some of these over Halloween as a special treat and since then anytime he sees them in the store he asks for them. He calls them "red,blue,green,blue" which is a lot longer than M&M's but it seems to have stuck. So we had to spend all day long telling him we only got into the house one time a day - after breakfast.... all day long.

They also had the little Rudolph and Santa Christmas TV shows with the felt stop animation that I loved as a kid and we bought them thinking he might like them. Because I came down with something (yes, Henry is the only man standing not hit by this virus) he spent a good part of the day watching Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. When he wasn't watching it he was asking for it... all day long.

This morning Grant woke us up at 5am. I heard him saying something over and over and since we're both still on hyper-alert from his seizure I went in to check on him. In a flash he'd jumped out of his bed, ran past me out his door and down the hallway and stood in front of his Advent Calendar and asked for his "house". When we told him that we had to wait til after breakfast he asked to eat and when we told him it was too early he then requested "Red Ball" while rubbing his nose. He repeated this process til it was time for breakfast, time for the calendar and time for Rudolph.

Tis the season!

Merrily yours,
-misty :)

OH!! and we had some photos taken of Henry a couple of days after he was born. Here's a slide show of them: http://www.emilyweaverbrownphoto.com/dampier/

...scared.

This morning Grant woke up at 11am which is extremely late to his normal 6am wake up time. We assumed that he just needed to catch up on rest from the past few days and let him sleep. He ate a normal sized breakfast and then requested his favorite Wiggles DVD again. We were happy to see him somewhat on the mend. I was taking care of feeding and changing Henry and I heard Peter say that Grant seemed to still be sick as he was lying on the kitchen floor and kind of whining. Five minutes later Peter yelled in to me that he was having a seizure and to call 911. I came out to see my little boy lying on the ground, with a blue-ish face, convulsing and fighting to breathe. It was the scariest thing I've ever had to face and I'm not quite sure how I was even coherent enough to make the 911 call as all I could see myself doing was looking at Grant willing him to wake up out of this state. Fortunately the ambulance was here in less than 2 minutes (I'm so glad we moved to a more urban neighborhood). By the time they were up looking at Grant the convulsing had stopped and he'd moved on to sort of a deep sleep. They took him to the hospital with Pete and I stayed home with Henry. I felt so completely helpless being at home I wasn't quite sure what to do other than research everything online that I could about febrile seizures while Henry napped. Our niece, Arabella, in New Zealand and some friends from Nebraska had a daughter who also suffered from one each. Fortunately neither of them has had any recurrences. While I found that it's fairly common in toddlers, when it's happening and when you're waiting for hospital results none of that matters. It's damn scary. Peter was his usual calm self though I'm sure he felt as panicked as I was inside. Thankfully, Grant was pretty lethargic while in the hospital so getting the CAT scan done was easy and involved no sedation. Peter said it was hard seeing them do it though. The scan showed nothing of concern but they'd like us to get him checked by a pediatric neurologist just to make sure. We got to take Grant home around 3pm this afternoon and while parts of his personality were starting to show through there are still things that aren't quite right. He seems quite clumsy and a little out of it at times. I'm assuming that's pretty normal for the first 24-48 hours as your body goes through quite a shock. It was hard putting him to bed tonight as we both felt like we wanted to observe his every move to make sure it wasn't going to happen again.

On top of everything else, Peter has gone to bed looking absolutely pale and feeling horrible. I think he's managed to catch the virus that started it all with Grant.

I'm hoping tomorrow is a better day for us all.

-Misty

Sick Boy

Tough night last night.  Misty's parents went home on Saturday morning after helping us out all week with Grant and Henry (Grant had a fantastic time going to parades and parks!!) - Last night however Grant got sick (some vomiting bug going around) so we were up most of the night with him.  Must have done about 8 loads of laundry trying to keep up with new bed sheets for him!!  Luckily around 2am it seemed to stop though you can tell he is not feeling his best still.

Some new Henry photos uploaded here.

Also Grant out with Grandma and Grandma at the Bellevue Christmas Street show here

Couple of ones below - "Classic Grant" and "Grant meets Henry"

Hospital Photos

Here is the link to the photos taken in the hospital by the automated do-whop:

https://birthprint.com/ecommerce/dispatch?x=X196d3aed58efda7de85dfe5811ba04f52

mum's post

Well, we're home from the hospital and it's weird how much you forget and how much you remember from the first time around.

We apparently have a bit of a reputation for Henry's birth and it was listed on our chart as "spontaneous delivery". After the contractions got to be pretty uncomfortable we called for an epidural and I was able to sleep through the rest of the labor. They came in when I was 5 centimeters dilated and told us it could be somewhat fast and it could be time to push within 30 minutes and to call if I felt any pressure. The nurses then went on break. 10 minutes later I started feeling pressure so we called the back-up nurse in. She told me that it would probably be somewhat soon and to call if I felt anymore. I thought it was a little strange she didn't actually check me but thought she was the nurse and I was only doing this for the second time so what did I know. 5 minutes later I had a lot more pressure and it wasn't going away so we called the same back up in to check again. I finally at one point just said "Something is happening now. Can you just check me because I feel like he's coming out." She lifted my leg (because it was dead from the epidural) and I heard and saw shocked expressions from both her and Peter. She yelled out to the nursing station and within minutes we had about 8 nurses in doing stuff. Apparently his head was already out and his shoulders were starting to come out as well. I saw Pete's face in shock as he said "he's out.. he's right there" and I started laughing and the rest of him came out. The regular nurses and the doctor showed up about 10 minutes after all the hoopla. Now the only problem is Peter keeps saying "I'm never going to let anyone tell me childbirth is hard after THAT". The rest of our stay at the hospital nurses kept coming in for their shift saying "we heard about your delivery!" We heard our share of jokes about Pete bringing in a catchers mitt for the next baby. :)

So that's how little Henry was born. Since his birth at every turn we've been trying to recall if things were like this when Grant was born. Did he sleep this much? Did we pick him up every time he made a peep? Was Grant EVER anywhere near that small? It's amazing how much they grow in 2 yrs.

On the ride home we had the same conversation we did when we left the hospital with Grant. Excited anticipation mixed with nervous energy probably best described our journey to and from the hospital. When we left with Grant I remember Pete saying something like.. "wow.. I feel like they just let us go without giving us the manual.. I can't believe they're letting us both just walk out of here with him.. we have no idea what we're doing." You would think 2 years would have given us a little more knowledge and confidence but in ways it felt much the same. Who in the world let US have 2 kids?! There are times I feel like I can barely cope with Grant!

Grant was very excited about seeing us and "baby" but quickly turned very nervous and scared when we put Henry in his old crib. He started to quiver his bottom lip and touch my face and say something like "Grant mommy's baby" He looked genuinely hurt. It broke my heart. We assured him he was always going to be our baby and when he woke from his nap he's been Mr. Big Brother ever since. He's very concerned when the baby is crying or has spit out his pacifier or needs looking after. :) I think we'll all be ok.

Gramma and Grampa arrive tonight so Grant's about to get on the spoiled grandbaby train anyway. :)

Mum of 2,
-misty

More Henry photos

Uploaded all the photos from yesterday and today now:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dampier/sets/72157603213963959/

At the hospital - and now- HENRY is HERE!

So its 11pm and we're at the Hospital - Here is a quick breakdown of today so far....

• Wed afternoon - Hospital says to call in at 3pm Thur for a time slot to come in
• Thur AM - Hospital calls to say come in a 1.30pm
• 12.30pm Sarah comes round to look after Grant (Thanks Sarah!!!)
• 1pm - We head to the hospital
• 1.30pm - Arrive and Misty gets settled in
• 3pm - Doc arrives and the Oxytocin begins (induction drug)
• 9pm - Doc breaks Misty's water
• 10.30pm - Misty decides Epidural would be a mighty fine idea ASAP ASAP ASAP
• 11.30pm - Misty tries to nap.... The magic of the epidural!
• 11.31pm - Peter tried to nap....
• 11.45pm - Nurses will be in for the "every 15 mins" blood pressure check - Nap will be short lived!
• 1.10am - Gone from 50% to 80% dilated in less than an hour - could be less than 30 mins away!!
• 1.46am - HENRY IS HERE! PERFECT! 7.5lbs, 20.5" long - Self Delivered - One minute he was just there!!!!

the day my heart stopped and I died laughing all within 3 seconds

I'm sure every parent has an arsenal of "funny things my kid did" stories but this cracked me up.

Today Grant was 2 hours late going down for his nap due to a busy morning. On top of that we have a contractor in doing some work in Henry's room which is right next to Grant's room. Grant ended up talking to himself and playing around in his room for the first HOUR of his nap. The last thing I heard on the baby monitor was a small crash followed by "UH-OH". I didn't get up and rush to see what had happened as "UH-OH" is the most overused phrase in the kid's vocabulary. We've tried explaining to him numerous times that if you intentionally throw green beans on the floor that you don't say "UH-OH" as if it's an accident but the lesson hasn't sunk in yet. So fast fwd to 2 hours after the "UH-OH"and I realize his naptime is going to affect his bedtime if I don't go and wake him up. I went to his room and when I opened the door my heart stopped. He was no where to be found. He's got a baby gate on his door so I know he couldn't have gotten out but it was alarming to just not see him there. So I start saying "GRANT!" louder as I'm opening the baby gate to look for him and I hear a muffled little "mrmmph" from somewhere and then suddenly I see Grant's little head with carpet imprints on his face crawl out from under his bed. He'd obviously dropped something between his bed and wall AGAIN and went to look for it an got tired and fell asleep once he was down there. He was obviously disoriented when he woke up which made it all even funnier. Maybe NOW he'll learn not to drop things down between the bed and the wall - probably not.

-misty

Our 2 yr old...

Wow, it's been a busy summer. We've been so busy entertaining guests and trying to take advantage of the great weather that I hardly realized we hadn't updated this in months. This summer Grant got to spend loads of time with his family when my entire family came to WA at the end of July. We drove up and did the Olympic loop and had a great time. This is a picture of Grant, "Rampa", Timmy "TEEH" and Taylor "TAYY" at Marymere Falls. Grant loved being in the backpack with Grampa. It was great having everyone here and Grant loved all the attention.

A week later Granny who has now been named either "Gigi" or "Gaggy" (though we think she prefers the former, arrived with her friend Brian. They were with us for 3+ weeks and we traveled up to Victoria, B.C. Grant loved the ferry ride and overall was a really good traveler on both trips. After a long day of traveling around we stopped alongside a lake so Grant could have some fun paddling in the water and throwing rocks. Amazingly he kept mostly dry!

A week after Granny and Brian returned to New Zealand we celebrated Grant's 2nd birthday. It was fun to see him actually "get" the whole present thing. He is a very lucky little boy and received some really fun gifts that he really loves. That afternoon we went to the circus. Grant was his normal squirmy self but he really seemed to like it. I, on the other hand am not sure how I feel about the circus and found myself flinching with every whip crack near an animal. I'm not sure why that was surprising to me but I certainly didn't think much of it when I was booking the tickets. It's been a long time since I've been to a circus.

We also took Grant to the Puyallup State fair for a late birthday present. He had a great time and LOVED going down the huge slide with Peter. He's still talking about driving his own little car and going down the slide.

And he also started a little preschool program that runs for and hour and a half every tuesday and thursday. His little friend Kyle is in his class and he has really taken to it. He LOVES it. They have a big mirror in the room that's one sided glass and linked to an observation room. So while I could go and get something done in the 90 minutes he's there it's way too much fun to stay and see how he interacts when I'm not around.

Which brings us to the present milestone. Grant got his first "big boy" bed on Saturday. We decided to just put him directly into a Twin bed rather than mess with the toddler bed. We started talking to him about it during the week and telling him he was going to get a big boy bed with a big boy pillow. He seemed to be quite excited, mostly by the pillow. He was so, so excited while watching Peter put the bed together but that night he seemed a tiny big scared when we put him down for bed. He slept through the night with no problem and hasn't looked back. His bedtime routine has always been reading 2 bedtime books and then Peter lifts him into bed and we tuck him in. 3 nights with his new bed he started to walk over to Peter to be put in bed and then hesitated and turned around and walked over to crawl into bed himself.

This parenting thing is very weird. You push them along and cheer on every new milestone and when they show an inkling of independence you're suddenly struck with a bit of sadness at the fact that they don't need you anymore.

Wow, so that's inspired me enough to keep up with the blog more often. So much has happened since July, I really need to be better about updating. :)

-misty

EEGs.. cute :)

This morning I was cleaning up the sitting room while Grant was dorking around in the kitchen. He recently had a growth spurt and loves the fact that he can reach more stuff on the counter - which has been a real pain remembering to push EVERYTHING out to the back. I heard him babbling and then he walked around the corner with what I thought was a ping pong ball and was carrying it very carefully out in front of him. He was very happy and looked at me and said "EEG!". I then realized the ping pong ball wasn't round but indeed very egg-shaped. I carefully and quickly rushed over to him and grabbed the "EEG" out of his hand and noticed a Grant-sized thumb hole poked in the top. In the kitchen I found an entire carton of "EEG's" overturned on the floor. Obviously they were left within reach. He then decided he wanted to help out with the clean up effort and I had to keep distracting him by sending him off to look for his own broom. All in all I would have thought the mess would have been a lot worse than it was and it still cracks me up thinking of him proudly walking out with his little egg in his hand. :)

-misty

A Day Out With Thomas the Tank Engine

We took Grant to Snoqualmie today for a special event The Northwest Railway Museum runs called A Day out with Thomas & Friends. It's a short train ride aboard Thomas the Tank engine along with tons of other Thomas themed kid fun. We got there early and happened to see Thomas just coming back from the ride scheduled before ours. Grant was so excited he was shaking and yelling TAH-AS!!!! (his verison of Thomas). For the first time he really seemed to take notice of all the trains and pointed them out to us as we walked to the event. It was a really cute event and I think we'll book tickets again next year. Here are some pics of Grant watching Thomas pull in and some other shots from the day. The last pic is Grant holding up an 11ft log on it's side.. with his FINGERS! :)

new baby updates & fun with Grant...

So we've been discussing names ever since we found out we're having a boy. We're in a kind of a weird position with names. We are going back to New Zealand for Peter's parental leave and in order to book the new baby's ticket the airline requires you to have a name. This can be before or after the baby is born but they give first preference for seats with a bassinets to those booked early. So we've basically got to choose the name early and stick with it. Which isn't a problem because we're really happy with the name we've chosen. In November we'll welcome Henry William Dampier to the world. I loved the name Henry and Peter at first wasn't sure until he said "What about Henry William Dampier?" and that was it. It was perfect. Just to make absolutely sure we decided to try it for a week and see how we felt and every day we just became more sure of the name. The only thing is it now seems to confuse Grant when we keep referring to the baby as Henry. Today in the car he was saying "Daddy, Mommy, Grant" and we kept adding Henry! and he'd stop in confusion. We've got a few months to practice. :)

Grant's little social calendar has certainly kept us busy. We've started Waterbabies again and last week we went to Sesame Street Live with our PEPS group. Grant was his normal reserved self and had to observe everything going on before he could decide he could have a good time. He then spent the rest of the show hopping off our laps to the ground so he could dance and realizing when he was dancing he couldn't see the Sesame Street characters so back up on the laps he'd go. It was good fun though.

It's been pretty hot for the Seattle area lately. We took out Grant's baby pool the morning of the 4th of July so he could have a dip that afternoon. Since Grant goes to bed at 6pm we knew he'd be in slumberland long before any fireworks occured. We decided to take Grant to the Zoo in the morning. The biggest hit at the zoo were the Penguins or "PEENS" as Grant calls them, the butterflies and the birds. The butterfly and bird things were structures you walked through so they were right there. He stopped in the middle of the butterfly tent and laid down on the ground to observe a butterfly on the path up close. He also seemed to eat half his body weight in popcorn that morning.


Friday was really hot and I decided it was a great day for an ice cream cone. In Grant's pool he'd been putting a ball on top of a cup and walking around licking it and saying Ice Creaaaam so I thought it might be fun to give him a real one - it was bath night anyway. These pics are from Grants first Ice Cream cone. As you can see it was very much enjoyed.

My entire family is coming to visit in a few weeks. I can't wait for Grant to see them and vice versa. It's going to be a full house and SO much fun!

-misty

news! news! news!

We had our ultrasound today and were very excited to learn we're having another boy!! I thought I would be slightly disappointed but the minute I saw he was a boy (seconds before the doc announced it) I was really excited about having another little boy. I think I realized afterwards that I was hoping for a girl for all the girl stuff (mary janes, dresses, pink stuff) but I'm really excited and looking forward to all the boy stuff x2 (except the bugs - Grant has already brought me a few too many Grant handled, half dead ants). This baby also appears to be as active as Grant was in the womb. Lord help us. So bring on the pirate parties, rough and tumble little boys, and other boy type craziness - we've got stockpiles of band-aids in every size and we're as ready as we'll ever be. :)

Oh! the rest of the ultrasound covering the health issues all showed to be really good with no concerns. :)

-misty

grant's first time in a bouncy castle...

Grant and I went the the Bellevue Strawberry Festival at a park near our house this weekend. I'm not quite sure I understand the significance of the Bellevue Strawberry Festival when the strawberries at the festival were all from California.. but whatevs. In addition to the CA strawberries they had food booths, craft fair type things and small ride type things for kids. We threw Grant and his little friend in a bouncy castle to see if they'd like it. They both started out unsure but really got into it by the time they had 20 seconds left. Both cried when they realized they weren't going back in. :)

Pete's in Japan right now and Grant has been walking to his side of the bed asking where Dah-EE is. He'll be back on Wednesday when we find out the sex of the baby!!! I can't wait!

OH! and on the potty front.. Grant went poo in the potty and was ok with the celebration that ensued.. however when he turned around and caught a look at what came out of him it scared him. Funny kid.

-misty

confusing celebrations & happy news on the prego front...

I've been practicing "pottie time" with Grant every morning after breakfast for about a week now. We go in and take off his diaper and he sits on his pottie. I let him play with special toys and books that I only let him play with during pottie time. For a week my really "regular" guy has sat on the pottie and happily played for 10-15 unproductive minutes. Today I got him up from his nap and decided we'd do a second round of pottie time. We went in and did our regular stuff and suddenly he looked quite concerned and reached down between his legs to grab himself. I noticed wee in the toilet so I cheered for him and think my cheering added to the confusion. Anyway.. it's a small milestone but we'll take it!

We also finished up Grant's art class this last week. It was fun! All the messy painting and play dough you could fit in an hour and then you remove the apron and someone else deals with the mess.

I got the OK from our fertility doctor and my OB this week to stop the 2x daily injections of heparin!!!! I can't tell you what a relief it is. You would think you'd get used to it but it still hurt and my stomach is still covered in huge bruises.

We had an OB visit today and everything looks good on the baby front. I was REALLY hoping to find out the sex but it didn't happen. So now we have to wait 2 more weeks til our next ultrasound. We heard the heartbeat and everything was good. I've still been suffering from horrible morning sickness and she gave me a prescription for some anti-nausea stuff. I'm kinda iffy on taking anything but I didn't get sick today. Tomorrow will probably be a different story.

-misty

Fun in the Sun!

We've had a crazy snap of gorgeous weather this week. Grant and Kyle cooled down in Kyle's pool. I was surprised how quickly Grant was comfortable in the pool. He's normally pretty cautious about new things. I'll have Peter copy the rest of the photos over to our flicker album early next week.

-misty

New Bathroom

We finally had our downstairs ¾ bathroom/utility room remodeled into a full bathroom + utility room…

Some photos:

Exciting news!

Since we just passed the 12 week mark I thought it was an appropriate time to announce that Grant is going to be a big brother!

His new baby brother or sister will be arriving somewhere around November 19th.

We're very excited and nervous about how in the world we'll manage with 2 tornadoes! And Grant's not sure what it all means but I'm sure he's ready for the first trimester tiredness to leave (probably more than I am).

-misty

finally new pics! and grant's new skillz

We've had a bunch of pics on the camera that we've been meaning to put on our flicker page for quite awhile now and just hadn't got to them. They're finally up here but I need to go through and delete quite a few really similar pics. Above are some of my favorites.

It's amazing how much stuff Grant seems to pick up from Sesame Street or who knows what. The other day I was reading one of his books to him and when we had finished I shut the book. The book was about numbers and on the cover there were a bunch of numbers scattered around. Grant looked at the cover and immediately pointed to the number three and said "THREEE!" I thought it had to be a one-time thing so I wrote out some numbers on his easel and asked which one was a three and he pointed directly to the number three. I've been practicing his other numbers with him and he now knows 2 and 3 really well but gets a bit confused about the number one. I think it looks too much like a line for him to recognize that it's a number.

He's also doing quite well with his colors. Yellow or "yeyoww" seems to be his favorite, followed closely by purple and blue.

The other morning Grant woke up before we were ready to get up. Peter went and got him and returned to our bed and put him between us. To date, this has never worked. I don't know why we keep trying.. I suppose to buy us a few more minutes before we really HAVE to get up. I'd had a particularly rough night sleeping and was exhausted so I was whispering to Grant "Shhh.. Mommy is tired.. Mommy needs to sleep". He sat up and looked and me and immediately did the signs for "BABY" "EAT". This was done with much force to get his point across - "I don't care if mommy is tired.. BABY NEEDS TO EAT". It cracked me up. :)

-misty

I'm sure it's not just me but...

How is it that Grant is outside for 15 minutes and manages to get THREE HOURS WORTH of dirty?

-misty

Surgery over, ear tubes in and adenoids out...

Grant had his surgery today and is fairing pretty well. As much as I have complained about how ridiculously active Grant is, I really hated seeing him under the oral sedation (pre-anesthesia). Within seconds he'd lost the little sparkle in his eye and just looked SO drugged up. I cried a tiny bit as they took him down for the anesthetic, IV and surgeries. He hasn't had an ear infection in nearly 3 weeks so I kept wondering if it was all really necessary. When the surgeon came in to talk to us after the procedure he let us know that he had another ear infection starting and his adenoids were big and spongy (apparently a sign they need to come out). The surgery itself only took about 15-20 minutes and then he was in recovery for about the same amount of time. The anesthesiologist carried him back to us and he was really crying hard and that's when I lost it. I can't take seeing him in pain. He was quickly distracted when Peter offered him the juice the nurse brought for him. We weren't allowed to give him any food or drink after 1am last night so he hadn't had anything since 6pm the night before. We've never given him any sort of juice either so after his first taste he drank the entire thing really quickly. As rotten as he was feeling his raised eyebrows and we had to keep pulling the straw out so he'd take a breath. After the juice the nurse brought in a package of graham crackers which Grant quickly demolished. The rest of the time was spent trying to keep Grant from trying to walk around on his own. He was still loopy and druggy for hours after and couldn't stand up right but that didn't keep him from trying. We're having a bathroom remodeled and of course the contractor started today so Grant didn't get his normal afternoon nap in. He did remarkably well though and has managed to pick up a really weird laugh since the surgery (think a cross between a sheep and the Count on Sesame St.). I think tomorrow he'll be back on regular Tylenol. So all ended well and our ridiculously active toddler is back and everything feels right again. :)

-misty

Grant - The Kiss Machine

Grant won't kiss Daddy. He will however kiss the rug, floor, and laundry basket if you ask for a kiss. Even his plastic sponge bob will get a kiss.

To paraphrase Seinfeld: No Kiss For You!

Daddy's first weekend as Mr. Mom and Grant's first trip to ER!!

Thursday night I'd been feeling kind of lousy and ended up using a house call Dr. that Microsoft is offering as a benefit (amazing service and benefit). Turns out I had a few things going on.. a kidney infection and the start of some upper respiratory gunk. I was running a 102-103 temp for most of the weekend so Peter had to stay home Friday and the rest of the weekend to take care of Grant and me. Since I haven't been able to stomach much and I slept all weekend I was the easier of the two. Pete isn't normally around all day long to see the normal Grant-proofing that needs to be done and the magician-like distraction techniques you need to keep things sane. Peter was shocked to learn our little monkey could climb up onto the dining room if the dining room chairs aren't pushed in (duh).

So Pete made it the entire weekend until Sunday night when Pete decided to shove a piece of dried apple up Grant's nose and we had to take him to the ER. Grant has always been a "more is more" type of baby when it comes to snacks.... and why bother putting them in your mouth one by one when you can put the entire handful in? One of the tiny dried fruits I gave him missed it's intended target and ended up right inside his left nostril. We laughed about it and then I told Pete to grab it out before he snorted it up. Somehow Pete seriously misjudged the size of his finger to the size of Grant's nostril and he pushed it up further. We weren't really to stressed because he wasn't in any pain and was only annoyed by us trying to get it out. I called Ask A Nurse and they recommended taking him in to ER which Peter immediately said was RIDICULOUS. Long story short.. we took him in and they used this cool little balloon thingy to get it out (let me know if you want more details) and this HUGE chunk of apple came flying out. It went in probably the 1/4 the size of a kernel of corn.. it came out a little bit smaller than a marble. I didn't realize how much those things would expand! I'm SO glad we went it.. there was no way we could have got that out on our own. Grant didn't even cry. He was mad about being held down but that's it.

So, hopefully I'll be feeling better tomorrow, Peter survived his first weekend of being Mr. Mom and Grant had his first trip the ER. :)

it really does go SO fast...

Tonight I was packing up some of Grant's old clothes and toys and I ran across the little giraffe rattle that he used to play with all the time. He used to chew on the head and the back foot and the back feet were always flatter than the front two little feet. His little snout was still matted from Grant's slobber and his back feet were still flat. In that minute I was taken back to that time and it really made me tear up. I actually had trouble packing it away. I've never been emotional about packing up any of his little jammies or clothes but for some reason that really brought me back to his baby days. He's no longer a baby. We now have a full blown toddler. The thing is you always hear "it goes so fast" but wow.. it goes SO fast. Some things seem so so long ago like bottles and night feeding and the wobbly head stage and yet I can't seem to figure out how we got to 18 months. I'm sure in a year or so I'll be saying this again. :)

-misty

all is quiet here...

Pete left this morning for Japan and I can't believe how out of sorts it's made us and how quiet the house has been. It's not like he's loud or that he's never left on business trips before. I think it's just knowing that he'll be gone for like 10 days that makes the difference. Tonight when I was getting Grant ready for bed he seemed confused about why we were in his room doing bedtime stuff and Daddy wasn't around. Little things like running across the street to get the mail are things I'm trying to figure out how to get done. I guess I wait til Grant goes down for a nap or to bed for the evening and run out quick and hope I don't get run over by a car.

Even though I'm not employed I still look forward to the weekend. Having the extra hand for 2 days is SO helpful for just getting small things done. It's going to be interesting with Pete gone this weekend and next. With a kid like Grant you need someone to be on "Distractor Duty" so you can do things like vacuum the spare room without Grant deciding he needs to help. I also can't get into his closet if he's anywhere near. He quickly squeezes by my legs and starts tearing his clothes out and whatever else he can find like he's on some sort of treasure hunt. I'm counting down the days til Pete's back.

Oh! the pics above are a few I snapped last week or so. Grant decided he doesn't much care for mud. (Thanks to cousin Tina for the super cute jacket! :))

Hurry home Pete!

-misty

the dood's new 'do

Grant had his first haircut on Saturday and it went unbelievably well! After he recently freaked out from bubbles being in his bathwater I was SURE that it was going to be a bad experience. I took him there on Friday to have a little look around because he often takes a little while before he's comfortable with new people and places. He seemed to be OK on Friday and really liked sitting in the car like chair and all the little Happy Meal type toys they had all over. Surprisingly Saturday was a breeze! He seemed to be slightly annoyed at mom and dad constantly interrupting his playtime to take pictures. The only time he even seemed uncomfortable was when she was squirting his hair wet and using the clippers but overall it was easy peasy. He never fails to surprise me. Sharp objects and clippers coming at his head and he's fine.. but put nice, fun bubbles in his bath and he screams like it's some crazy form of torture.

I actually surprised myself by welling up as he seemed to turn from a baby into a little boy right before my very eyes.

-misty

magical disappearing pants and other updates...

sorry for the lapse in updates Grant and I have both been sick but that only covers the past week...

So I've heard that once toddlers are running around they lose a ton of weight and they're clothes start getting loose. I didn't think much of it because he seems to have a huge appetite but 3 times in the past two weeks I'll be doing something and turn around and his pants are gone. Every time I stop and think "Am I losing it? Did I not put pants on him?" Then I realize he's walked out of his pants... again. He's got such a funny little body he's got quite a tummy but wears his jeans under his belly like a grown man. It's been hard finding jeans that fit him well.

He's been learning so many signs from watching his Signing Times videos at breakfast. The other day I was washing dishes while he was watching and I turned around in time to see him signing "Please" along with a song on the video. So now he knows the word but getting him to use it in practice is quite another thing. If he wants something he wants it now and is wondering why I'm making him do this crazy sign when all he wants is THAT cookie NOW.

Last weekend Pete had to pick up more branches from the yard (from the windstorm in Dec) and we took Grant out there to let him tear around. And tear around he did. We had our first totally grass stained and muddy pair of jeans to try and clean. He's SUCH a little rough and tumble boy.

We're back to going to My Gym but I'm finding out that he really doesn't like the craziness of big crowds. He much prefers smaller groups and doing his own thing. And he still hates the 5 minutes of circle time at the beginning where he has to sit still.

He's also got ANOTHER ear infection. The doctor we saw mentioned speaking to his pediatrician at his 18 month visit about getting tubes put in his ears. Scares me but with as many ear infections as he's had I think it's inevitable.

I'm going to try and get some new pics up here in the next few days.

-misty

Bye Bye

Grant said "bye bye" with his usual wave to me this morning when I left for work :)

Boy is growing up!

home from the holidays...

wow.. I haven't posted in a long time.. here are a few bullets of things Grant has been up to.

- was allowed to break all sorts of rules while in the care of Gramma and Grampa. The minute I left the room it was like Babies Gone Wild - no bed time, sure push every button on the TV and stereo, ooo see if he like's cake, candy, pudding etc. All good fun and while he enjoyed the freedom now, he's going to LOVE future visits to Gramma and Grampa's house. :)

- The problem with the relaxation of the rules is when I come home and have to play bad cop and tell Grant to get down from standing on the coffee table he responded with a VERY defiant NO! I tried not to react so he wouldn't think it was funny but inside I was going "sweet baby jesus the terrible two's have begun"

- He decided he didn't really like touching the snow and had to walk with his hands up so they didn't touch (as in pic above).

- On Christmas morning Grant decided his favorite food was Aunt Audra's pancakes and impressed us all with eating 4 1/2 pancakes.. and then I cut him off. He was not to pleased about this.

- Once we reached my mom and dad's house he decided that walking was the thing to do and his crawling days were completely over.

- We had about a week of sleepless nights and a really clingy baby that was totally unlike Grant. This spanned over New Years Eve when we had our worst night of night wakings to date. We found that his ear infection came back in addition to him cutting almost all of his molars at the same time.

-He can now identify his nose, toes, ears, eyes, mouth, teeth, and hair.. but only if he's in the mood.

- We had a really great time and Grant loved all the attention from Gramma, Grampa, Taylor, Timmy, Chris and Audra.

We're off to Baby Loves Disco tomorrow so Grant can boogie to his bottom off. :)

-misty