Yesterday Peter and I headed out to the grocery store after Grant and Henry went to bed. Apparently after a few minutes Grant was up again. Jenny went in to check on him and explain that it was bedtime and she was also given the "Granny OUT!" treatment. Nice to know it's not just Peter. :)
The other couple of Grant things I wanted to mention were the amount of bumps and bruises Grant has gotten since he's been here. He's skinned his knees and knocked his head more times than I can count. A few days ago we were getting fish and chips and had to wait outside until the shop opened. Grant had wandered underneath this sign that was just about his eye level. There were trees and bushes behind the sign and rather than going in after him Peter decided to joke that there were monsters back in there -not thinking Grant would even take notice or understand. Grant turned on his heel and ran full speed back out of the trees not quite ducking enough to clear the sign and we saw his feet fly up in the air and him land flat on his back. I think he was quite shaken up by the whole thing. He was fine but I think if we'd gotten that on video it would have been on america's funniest videos. The other incident that happened a day later was at the pancake rocks. Grant was walking by this little girl who was quite pretty and he couldn't take his eyes off of her. His body kept moving full pace and he ran right into a wall. He then started kissing the ground so I have no idea if he knocked a little screw loose or what but everything seems to be back to normal again.
I HOPE I'm not jinxing myself here by saying tonight was the quietest bedtime we've had since we arrived. And we didn't even have t resort to drugging either of them!! :)
-misty
Friday, March 14, 2008
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Daddy OUT! & blowout city
I'm typing this from Peter's account but rest assured it's me.. as Peter hasn't entered a blog post in probably a year.
We just got back last night from a 4 day/3 night long trip up to the North part of the South Island. We spent a couple of nights in Kaiteriteri which is right along the beach and where the water taxis and cruises take off from. It was a pretty long drive and Henry gave us a lovely ending to the day by blowing out as soon as we arrived. The next day we took a 2+ hour water cruise to Totranui where we had a nice picnic on the beach.. chased Grant around and got eaten by sandflies. Grant was completely wiped out and fell fast asleep on the water taxi almost as soon as we boarded. They were both really good travelers again though Grant is getting really, really tired of his carseat. I can totally understand it though. We travel for hours and then he gets to have 20 min of fun and we're off again.. so everytime he gets back in he thinks its going to be for hours again. The third night we stayed in a place a little south of Punakaiki where the Pancake rocks are. Grant thought that every rock from the pebbles to the parking lot to the paved pathway were "CANCAKE WOKS!!!" It was a ten minute walk to the rocks and when we got there he was underwhelmed and we had to keep him tantrum free and away from the shear drop-offs for 20 mins while we waited for high tide. The tide comes it and blasts out these blow holes through the pancake rocks that water has carved out over time.
Through this all the biggest challenge has been getting him to bed at night in a hotel room with us in the same room. It's like his evil uncontrollable twin comes to visit at around 7pm every night. He basically does anything naughty for attention until we're both in bed and ready to go to sleep and then he crashes out on the floor and we have to pick him up and put him in his bed 5 minutes later. On the last night we thought up a really cunning plan. We'd PRETEND like we were going to bed @ 7pm and once he fell asleep we'd pick him up and put him to bed and we'd be free to read the paper or do whatever. 2 hours later Grant had peaked on the naughty scale and was doing anything to get attention. This included screaming monster noises at Henry and shaking his crib, going through Peter's suitcase and throwing all the clothes up in the air. Coming around to each of our sides of the bed and yelling "1, 2, 3 WAKE UP DADDY/BAH-EE!!!!!!" Eventually on the last night we brought in his carseat and strapped him in that and 5 minutes later he'd fallen asleep and we moved him to bed. I'm still not sure we did the right thing but it worked. When we looked at the time it was then close to 9pm and we were exhausted and ready for bed and we realized he'd outsmarted us by messing around until we were ready for bed again.
When we get back to his bed at Granny's house Grant is then refusing to go to bed again. He messes around for an hour and when Pete goes in to try and tuck him in and be loving Grant lies down on the bed for about 3 minutes then turns around and says DADDY GO! and kicks him out the room. There's gratitude for you.
Henry on the other hand tried his first bottle of formula today and all seems to be well with that. We're preparing for a night away and wanted to see if we could get him used to a bottle and formula so he could stay with Sarah. He's also blowing out about every day which is really annoying when you're on holiday. He's also getting quite good with his little hands. Today I saw him pull out his binky.. look at it and then try and get it back in his mouth. He's also decided he really hates any sort of blankets on his feet. He's good at kicking out of any swaddle and kicking off any sort of blankets you use to cover him up no matter the weather.
Speaking of which Henry is paging me now..
Later,
misty
ps. will try and get pete to upload some links of the places we've been and our pictures sometime tonight.
We just got back last night from a 4 day/3 night long trip up to the North part of the South Island. We spent a couple of nights in Kaiteriteri which is right along the beach and where the water taxis and cruises take off from. It was a pretty long drive and Henry gave us a lovely ending to the day by blowing out as soon as we arrived. The next day we took a 2+ hour water cruise to Totranui where we had a nice picnic on the beach.. chased Grant around and got eaten by sandflies. Grant was completely wiped out and fell fast asleep on the water taxi almost as soon as we boarded. They were both really good travelers again though Grant is getting really, really tired of his carseat. I can totally understand it though. We travel for hours and then he gets to have 20 min of fun and we're off again.. so everytime he gets back in he thinks its going to be for hours again. The third night we stayed in a place a little south of Punakaiki where the Pancake rocks are. Grant thought that every rock from the pebbles to the parking lot to the paved pathway were "CANCAKE WOKS!!!" It was a ten minute walk to the rocks and when we got there he was underwhelmed and we had to keep him tantrum free and away from the shear drop-offs for 20 mins while we waited for high tide. The tide comes it and blasts out these blow holes through the pancake rocks that water has carved out over time.
Through this all the biggest challenge has been getting him to bed at night in a hotel room with us in the same room. It's like his evil uncontrollable twin comes to visit at around 7pm every night. He basically does anything naughty for attention until we're both in bed and ready to go to sleep and then he crashes out on the floor and we have to pick him up and put him in his bed 5 minutes later. On the last night we thought up a really cunning plan. We'd PRETEND like we were going to bed @ 7pm and once he fell asleep we'd pick him up and put him to bed and we'd be free to read the paper or do whatever. 2 hours later Grant had peaked on the naughty scale and was doing anything to get attention. This included screaming monster noises at Henry and shaking his crib, going through Peter's suitcase and throwing all the clothes up in the air. Coming around to each of our sides of the bed and yelling "1, 2, 3 WAKE UP DADDY/BAH-EE!!!!!!" Eventually on the last night we brought in his carseat and strapped him in that and 5 minutes later he'd fallen asleep and we moved him to bed. I'm still not sure we did the right thing but it worked. When we looked at the time it was then close to 9pm and we were exhausted and ready for bed and we realized he'd outsmarted us by messing around until we were ready for bed again.
When we get back to his bed at Granny's house Grant is then refusing to go to bed again. He messes around for an hour and when Pete goes in to try and tuck him in and be loving Grant lies down on the bed for about 3 minutes then turns around and says DADDY GO! and kicks him out the room. There's gratitude for you.
Henry on the other hand tried his first bottle of formula today and all seems to be well with that. We're preparing for a night away and wanted to see if we could get him used to a bottle and formula so he could stay with Sarah. He's also blowing out about every day which is really annoying when you're on holiday. He's also getting quite good with his little hands. Today I saw him pull out his binky.. look at it and then try and get it back in his mouth. He's also decided he really hates any sort of blankets on his feet. He's good at kicking out of any swaddle and kicking off any sort of blankets you use to cover him up no matter the weather.
Speaking of which Henry is paging me now..
Later,
misty
ps. will try and get pete to upload some links of the places we've been and our pictures sometime tonight.
Friday, March 07, 2008
BIIIIG GUY!
I remembered after the last post that I forgot to mention this story about Grant. The first night we went to bed in the RV Grant had decided that the bed above was a little too scary to sleep in alone. We'd also made the horrible mistake of leaving George and Elmo, his bedtime friends, back at Grannie's house. So we decided Grant could sleep with us. He of course thought it was time to mess around and we decided ignoring his goofing around was the best tactic. The first campground we stayed at we were backed up to the bathrooms so Grant figured out if he got between the curtain and the big back window he could see a parade of people coming and going right outside. So as we sat trying to ignore him he started naming off "Guys" and girls or "Gurgles" as he calls them. So we were getting a play by play that went something like this.. "guy.. guy.. gurgle.. gurgle.. guy.. gurgle.........BIIIIIIGGGG GUYYY.. guy.. gurgle.. gurgle." I REALLY wanted to jump up and see this BIG GUY as Grant has seen my brother and Dad who are pretty big guys, but I was trying to hard to stifle my laugh and ignore him. I can just imagine what people were thinking seeing a little naked boy in the back camper window pointing them all out. I hope the BIG GUY wasn't offended. :)
So we just got back from our RV vacation a few hours ago and getting Grant to sleep alone again is proving to be a bit of a challenge. I've said good night and he's screamed his head off.. Pete's went up to talk to him again only to get more screaming.. and right now I can only assume the silence is because Pete's in bed with him. I'm just so thankful to be sleeping in a bed without sand and without having to climb over everyone to feed Henry every night!
Will update more as I think about it. Oh.. and like his older brother Henry seems to have developed a thing for blowing out at airports. What IS it with that?!?
-misty
hopefully I can get Pete to throw a few pictures up as well.
So we just got back from our RV vacation a few hours ago and getting Grant to sleep alone again is proving to be a bit of a challenge. I've said good night and he's screamed his head off.. Pete's went up to talk to him again only to get more screaming.. and right now I can only assume the silence is because Pete's in bed with him. I'm just so thankful to be sleeping in a bed without sand and without having to climb over everyone to feed Henry every night!
Will update more as I think about it. Oh.. and like his older brother Henry seems to have developed a thing for blowing out at airports. What IS it with that?!?
-misty
hopefully I can get Pete to throw a few pictures up as well.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
G'day from NZ
Well today is Peter's birthday in New Zealand and with the international date line and being in the RV for a few days I thought TOMORROW was his birthday. I felt incredibly embarrassed when I was yelling at him for something this morning and he reminded me what day it was (which I of course argued until he showed me the paper proving himself right).
So after quite a few days of traveling I just have to say we were blessed with two incredibly good travelers. After a mix-up and flight change and waiting around at the check in desk in Seattle we were then marked to go through an additional round of security. They must have thought Henry and Grant were high risk as they both got patted down as well. I really wish I could have gotten video of Henry's little wobbly head and half smile as I held him up and "spread 'em" for the woman to frisk him.
The flights were really long but both boys were real troopers. I think Grant squealed 2x for less than a minute about being in his car seat. Fortunately with the flight change we got here just in time for him to play with his cousins Luca and Arabella and then he went straight to bed.
We've been traveling around the North Island of New Zealand for the past 5 or 6 days in a rented RV. The day we arrived and today have been the only day we've seen the sun. It's been a bit frustrating to see these AMAZING views that you just KNOW would be so much more stunning when it was nice out. Several brochures called the parts we visited "winterless" as it always has good weather and we ran into someone who has been here for the past 18 yrs and had never seen rain and weather so bad here. Anyway.. It's hard to do much complaining now that we're backed up to the sea with absolutely BEAUTIFUL scenery and even got some swimming in today.
Henry updates:
He's now rolling over ever time we turn around. He's also quite good with finding his feet and has just about figured out his hands. He's had a great deal of time to look at them lately while we've been stuck inside the RV with the rain outside. He's also getting into the crazy blow-out stage. Which makes it particularly annoying when you're out camping without easy access to laundry facilities. He also decided the day we arrived that he no longer sleeps in his carseat. I was trying to break him of this habit back home and was kicking myself for trying to change it before we left. However now he's a "big boy" and sleeps lying down. I realize ALL of these things individually would have merited a blog post for Grant. I knew I'd have less time to blog and the second child blahblahblah.. but wow.. I didn't think i'd fall this far behind in recording his activities. So Henry when you grow up and need therapy for this - know that we love you.. I'm just crap.
Grant updates:
He's eaten Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches by request every day. When I try to give him anything else he says "no.. no.. no way." He learned "no way" from Go Diego Go. He looooves boats.. the beaches and chasing chickens and seagulls. We did a harbour cruise in Akaroa and he spent the ENTIRE boat trip running from the back of the boat to the front yelling to me "I SEE WAWA!!!!"
The other interesting thing about all sleeping in an RV is sharing the same sleeping quarters. Right now Grant has taken over our entire bed and Henry refuses to sleep unless we're all in bed as well. Which is why i'm ending this now. :)
-misty
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