some pics of Henry...

He's starting to look so much older so we wanted to make sure and get some good pics along the way.  He's full of smiles lately :)

 

WATCHOOTALKIN' BOUT GRANTY?

 

I think he looks like Peter in the above & below pics.

another of Grant's super powers...

Apparently Grant is in possession of poo that causes temporary paralysis but only for Peter.  The other night I was making dinner and doing about 30 other things and Peter noticed that Grant had a certain familiar odor.  Upon checking him he realized he'd blown out and in doing the diaper check Pete ended up with poo on his hands.  (Gross, I know but when you're up to your ears in dirty diapers you get desensitized to it).  So instead of dealing with it Peter yells to me that Grant's blown out --to which I yelled back to go & change him. (Apparently the poo makes your brain unable to function for a few moments as well). He informed me at that time that he couldn't because he'd gotten poo on his hand.  How that meant he couldn't FIX the problem I will never know because I then had 31 things to do.  Apparently in Dad-world this made sense.  Fortunately for all of us the paralysis of the brain and body were short-lived as he came in to check on us once the mess was cleaned up. 

This would be a lot funnier if everyone were around when at least 3x a week Peter sings a little ditty he made up with the lyrics "DAADDYY the WonderDad.. doing things no other Dad's will do!"  This is after I ask him to do something completely ordinary.. throw something away.. put on Grant's socks.. whatever.  We apparently have found the WonderDad's kryptonite.  :)

All about Henry... :)

With all the seizure stuff going on with Grant I feel like we haven't had as much time to just enjoy Henry's baby stages.  It's going by incredibly fast and he's getting bigger and cuter by the minute.  His little smiles came in over Christmas and I forgot how much it warms your heart to have those pure little smiles looking back at you.  He also smiles when Grant talks to him.  He is starting to come out of the pink, squishy, infant stage and is changing looks.  He still looks quite a lot like Grant but he's going to keep that dark dark hair and I think his eyes are looking quite hazel or green.  He's FINALLY got the hang of nursing.  Only took us 7 weeks!  I have to say I'm so glad to be done with all the washing of bottles and pump pieces.  It just added one more thing to my already busy day.  On 1/16/08 he had his 2 month well baby visit with his pediatrician.  He now weighs 10.2 lbs which is in the 25%.  His height is 23" which is in the 50% and his head was 15" which is in the 10%.  He also had 5 shots at that visit which on top of everything else wasn't something I was too excited about.  He ran a bit of a temperature but has seemed to fully recovered.  I'm not sure if Henry is going to have the aversion to sudden noises like his brother did for so long, but it would appear that way.  Peter was emptying the dishwasher the other day and the pans clanking together jarred him awake and set him off as does my sneezing.  It's amazing how you forget all of this stuff the second time around but if possible I think we may have an even more laid back baby than Grant.  The noticeable difference is that Henry is a big snuggler. He likes to be held and would prefer to fall asleep ON someone and if not on someone he wants me within arms reach.  Grant never wanted to be held even as a baby so it was weird going through the "stop baby crying" check list with Henry.. fed? yup.  changed? yup.  burped? yep.  oh.. you just want me to hold you?.. okay.. how long.. oh i see.. forever.  I normally don't mind it but it is harder to get things done.. well that and having 2 kids now adds to the complexity.  Anyway, I wanted to post a little of what's goin on with the little guy so we don't forget what it was like when he was this little.

-misty

the post i didn't want to write...

This past Monday Grant had another seizure.  This one lasted much longer but seemed to be due to a temperature spike.  Peter was at work and I was alone at home with the boys.  About 5 minutes before it happened I noticed him acting a little funny.  Grant is a super active little guy and he just slowed down and seemed a little "off".  He was sitting on his knees and he put his head down on the ground while I had started feeding Henry.  I asked if he was feeling ok and he told me he wanted water.  His water bottle was in his room so I walked him back there and told him to get his water and come out.  I went back to feeding henry in the living room and made a mental note to check his temp when I was done.  After around 5 minutes he hadn't returned and it seemed a little quiet with the exception of a weird noise I'd heard.  I fully expected him to be in his room sitting there reading books like he often does.  I walked back to his room to find him about a step away from where I'd left him but on the ground convulsing.  There's just nothing worse than seeing his normally bright & smiley eyes totally glazed over and unresponsive.  I called 911 and he was still convulsing for quite awhile after they arrived.  At one point he took a deep breath and kind of seemed to come out of it a bit but then continued to tremor.  Peter got home in time to go to the hospital with him again while I stayed home with Henry.  They basically said follow up with the neurologist and they thought it was due to a temperature spike.  His fever was 102.7 when the EMT checked it at our house.  That night we gave him tylenol to keep the fever down but became alarmed when his fever seemed to be pretty high.  A call to the pediatric nurses line had us giving him alternate amounts of motrin and tylenol every 3 hours to keep his fever down.  Throw Henry needing to eat in there and no one got much sleep.  The next evening his temp rose from 99.8 to 103.9 in span of 5 minutes and he started shaking and I was sure he was going to have another seizure.  We took him into Children's Hospital where the doctor found we were going to the neurologist the next day and then seemed to be disinterested in anything other than getting us out the door.  On Thursday we went into the pediatric neurologist and he told us they were more concerned about the first seizure he had with no fever.  If he has another seizure without a fever then he'd be considered epileptic at that point and would have to go on anti-seizure medication.  He said he very well may have more febrile seizures due to temperature spikes and the tremors and things could have been due to chills and just feeling rotten.  He's given us some medication in case Grant would have another seizure lasting more than 4 minutes and said he hopes we don't have to use it and that he never hears from us again.  I fully agree.  We have the Sleep EEG scheduled for the end of the month so we can fully rule out any other issues but I'll be glad to get it all behind us... again.  I don't know how I'll ever be able to sleep without his baby monitor on my nightstand or even take a shower without calling out to him 20 times to make sure he's responsive and ok.  He's already getting annoyed with me asking "Are you alright?" about 50 times a day.  If you didn't know any better you would have no idea that anything was going on with him.  He's been running around like normal except for those bouts of high temps and has even been sent to the naughty corner a fair amount of times for random things.  It's hard to just carry on normally though and with Peter in Japan this entire week I think I've got a rough week ahead of me.  Keep us in your thoughts and prayers.

-misty

Christmas past, tubing & lesson learned?

We're back from the holidays and Grant still hasn't worked out that we can't just head over to Grampa and Gramba's house just whenever (though I wish we could).  We had a great time with our family and even got in a couple of movies.  The flights were a bit of a struggle but overall both boys traveled really well.  Grant also got to play outside with Grampa EVERY day we were in Cozad.  There was still plenty of snow around and his little snowsuit and the old sled got plenty of use.  I thought this pic of Grant and Henry was particularly sweet.  Grant has always quite liked his baby brother but out of nowhere he decided on his own that he really wanted to hold him.  We've asked him several times at home if he wanted to do this and he had no interest but one evening at my parents house he blurted out "Grant hold baby" so we of course got out the camera. 

This past weekend we took Grant tubing and he LOVED it.  I really fear he's going to be a little extreme sports dood.  Henry and I had to hang back at the cafe because it was a little too cold for us to be out.  The minimum age they recommend for the tubing was 3 but we thought we'd just take him out there and see how we felt.  After the first run he was on his feet and rearing to go again.  He yelled "WEEEEEEE" all the way down every time on the way down and Pete said that every time at the top of the till he yelled "GO GO GO" until they were off.  After their tubing session ended I went to the car to feed Henry and Peter let Grant hang out and play in the snow.  He was scaling big drifts and hills and having a great time. 

For the past few months we've been lecturing Grant over and over again to not grab things off the kitchen counter.  We're normally pretty good at keeping them clear or keeping things we need towards the back.  This morning I was trying to get a bunch of appts booked for Peter and I and noticed I was getting something accomplished and it was quiet which could only mean Grant was up to no good.  I looked over and he was reclined on the couch with a bottle of hershey's chocolate syrup tipped into his mouth.  I immediately freaked out and hung up on the dentist's office in order to go investigate.  Fortunately, the reason the chocolate syrup was out was so I could throw it out because it was nearly empty and the rest was too thick to get out of the bottle anyway.  So no nightmares of chocolate everywhere.  So AGAIN we had the "don't get things off the counter" lecture and we were on our merry way.  This afternoon I was in the dining room and noticed Grant had made his way to the kitchen and was grabbing the dishwashing soap off the counter.  I watched as he pulled it down and put it to his mouth and then recoiled as he realized that it didn't taste of something yummy and wiped his mouth over and over.  He then quietly replaced the bottle and walked back to the living room.  I'm not sure he learned his lesson completely but I'm sure it made more of an impression than my lectures. :)

Henry is doing great and staying out of trouble.  He's now nursing completely and I think gaining weight.  He'll have his 2month well baby check on Wednesday and I'll do a complete Henry post on his progress then. 

 

-misty

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