Waving

Graham totally surprised me when he started waving goodbye as we were leaving church this morning.




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Little performer

She gets her dance moves from her daddy :-).





 
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Peekaboo!

Graham started playing peekaboo with me a couple of weeks ago, but I just recently got it on camera.  I think it's interesting that Piper began to play peekaboo by hiding herself, and Graham plays by making me hide.  Enjoy!



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Wordless Wednesday

Just pictures

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Videos of Graham

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Memory Verse

Piper just started in a non-nursery class at church and learned a Bible verse on her first Sunday!  My heart swells every time she says it for me.




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Boston

Josh and I just came back from a trip to Boston to attend the wedding of two friends.  We also met up with a few of Josh's Harvard buddies while we were there.  It was absolutely wonderful for us to get away and reconnect, even if it was for a very short time.  I was a terrible blogger and took only two pictures the whole time we were gone.  But we were BUSY!

at the wedding

posing with this cool crew sculpture outside our hotel

best babysitter!

On our visit to Harvard Yard, we picked up a little baseball hat for Graham and a shirt for Piper.  She, of course, claimed both of the gifts as hers and is crazy about them.  She insists on wearing the hat while she plays T ball in the back yard and calls the shirt her "baseball shirt."

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Not the best idea we've ever had...

....but thankfully everything turned out just fine.  Look closely to see who wakeboarded for the first time!

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Piper's first day of MDO 2012

Last week, Piper headed out the door to a new classroom and teachers without looking back.  It was definitely different from her first day of school last year.  I don't even think she let me tell her goodbye before she followed Mikey through the door to her class.  I'm so fortunate that she likes her school!

Cheesing it up
September 4, 2012

First day 2011

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Nine month comparison pictures

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What I want to remember: Graham at 9 months

Food and mobility were the themes of this month for Graham.  He finally made it up on all fours, and he doesn't stop!  He added climbing to his repertoire of movement.  I had to dig out the baby gate from the garage to keep him from climbing up the stairs.  And I learned the hard way that he can indeed climb out of the tub.

As for food, he has outgrown his allergies, as mentioned in my last post.  Hallelujah!  He also began feeding himself solid food this month.  He loves to feed himself Grandmom's pumpkin bread, peas, peaches, kiwi, watermelon, carrots, and sweet potatoes in small chunks. And just like most babies, he loves puffs and cheerios.  This development does allow me some freedom to eat my own food during mealtime, but he sure leaves me a mess to clean up afterwards.  He also recently mastered drinking out of a sippy cup.

Another fun development has been listening to Graham babble.  He's not putting words into real use yet, but he says lots of mama, dada, dodo, nana, baba, and ahhhhh.

When it became clear that I would be going out of town for a few days without the kids, I worked hard to get Graham on a schedule so he would be easy for a caretaker.  As of right now, he sleeps until 6 or 7, has a fruit and grain for breakfast, naps at 9 or 9:30 until 11ish, nurses and has a fruit and veggie for lunch, naps again from 1 until 3ish, nurses and has meat and veggies for supper, and nurses before bed at 7.  Every once in a while he has to take a third nap, but I think he's outgrowing this.

He always has something in his mouth: food, toys, hands, etc.

He loves this little hammer and carries it around the house while he crawls.

We call him "peg leg" while he does this.

Curls!

Such a cute little boy!

I'm not sure how he can sleep like this.

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Graham's LAST (!) GI update

Last Tuesday I took Graham to see his doctor at Vanderbilt for a GI checkup.  As I expected, his stool was found to be totally normal and his weight is increasing at an acceptable rate.  His doctor was, of course, pleased with this, although neither of us expected anything different as I was continuing to avoid eating all dairy, soy, and red meat.  I was given the OK to resume eating red meat and soy and to gauge Graham's reaction closely.  The doctor told me that under no circumstances should I try any dairy until he was 12 months old.  I was disappointed with this as I was very curious to see what would happen.

What I didn't tell the doctor was that Josh and I were planning to go out of town for three days at the end of the week.  For the normal person, this wouldn't be newsworthy.  But for me, it meant that I would have no control over the food that I ate.  Short of driving myself crazy or not eating anything, there was no way I could make sure there was no dairy in the food I was served while in Boston.

So I simply decided to eat whatever I wanted and deal with it when I returned.  I didn't go crazy (although I did have some heavenly marscaporeos--and they were every bit as amazing as you would think!), but I definitely ate some dairy.  On the way home Sunday morning, my breakfast sandwich from the airport Dunkin Donuts mistakenly had melted cheese on it (I had ordered it without the cheese), and there was nothing I could do about it except not eat it (not an option for this hungry momma bear). And eat I did.  I even had a cheeseburger--which has never tasted SO good--for supper on  Sunday night (Ok, so maybe I did go a little overboard.  Go big or go home, right?).

I nursed Graham twice between arriving home and his bedtime.  I expected the night to be very rough as his body reacted to the milk protein that hadn't been in his system for months.  Imagine my surprise when he slept over 12 HOURS for the FIRST TIME EVER.  I knew we weren't out of the woods yet and continued to monitor him for obvious signs of reaction (bloody diarrhea, eczema, abnormal fussiness) and also for the not-so-obvious signs (disrupted sleeping pattern, refusal to nurse, increase in spit up, etc.).

It's been over 48 hours since I returned from Boston, and Graham is perfectly normal.  I think I can declare victory now!!!  I've continued to have one meal with dairy in it each day (usually this involves cheese because I have missed it SO much), and everything is perfect.  I can easily say that food has NEVER tasted so good and I have never been so excited to cook and eat--eight months without cheese will do that to a girl!

I am so thankful that Graham has outgrown this (these) allergies in a relatively short period of time.  Now we can return to a normal life!

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Piper Lately

My first baby isn't a baby anymore!  Somewhere around 28 months, Piper blossomed into a little girl and left babyhood behind.  She is at such a fun (and challenging) age! 

Each new day is started with "Where are we going today?  What are we going to do there?  Who will we see there?"  She loves to know what to expect and how to plan for it. 

We always pack our lunch to eat at the pool during rest time (as dictated by the life guards' whistles).  So anytime a life guard blows his whistle, Piper thinks it's time to eat.

Running the bases (backwards, no less)

She loves the water but isn't so fearless that I have to worry too much about losing her in the pool or at the lake.  She's very comfortable swimming at the pool in an inflatable ring and can even paddle around in it with some direction.  She'll jump in only if someone is right there to catch her.

Piper is still a wonderful eater.  With very few exceptions, she will eat whatever I fix for the rest of the family.  I'm so happy that I haven't had to cater to a picky eater, and I hope this never changes. 

Girl never stops talking. There are descriptions, instructions, songs, questions, squeals, and sometimes even tantrums constantly coming from her little mouth.  We know something's up if she's quiet.

Tantrums.  Oh, the tantrums. 

And I can't overlook the whining, either.  She is a drama queen!

Watching the Olympics.  I'm not sure if this was "bolley ball" or "the big girls doing flips," both of which kept her rapt attention.

Ice cream--a rare treat

She loves to pretend.  She takes very good care of her babies (feeding, changing, and putting them in time-out as needed), builds towers out of anything from blocks to boxes to plastic food, studies things with a shovel-turned-maginifying glass, cooks all kinds of goodies in her sink, dresses up like a princess or a superwoman (sometimes at the same time), and creates works of art with play-dough.

Piper will never, ever turn down a game of ball.  She continues to love all kids of ball games: soccer, volley (or bolley, as she pronounces it) ball, baseball, football, basketball, golf, and hockey ball (her words).  It used to be ok to play ball in the house, but now she's strong enough to do some damage with her overhand throw.

It's always interesting to see what's going on inside her doll house.  Usually it's a microcosm of what's been happening in her little world.  Her people take lots of naps, baths (shown here), and turns in time out.

Her little family also sits at the table very regularly.  There aren't enough chairs for all of them, but Piper improvises and uses the baby seat, stroller, and rocking chair so everyone has a spot at the dinner table.  This warms my heart.

She never forgets her prayers during bedtime.  We focus on thanking God for the people in our life, not things, so she usually rattles off any and all people we have come into contact with that day.  She always includes at least one person I would have forgotten.

Now that Graham is on the move, Piper is a little jealous of the attention he gets.  She also doesn't like that he can get into her toys and puzzles.  But at the end of the day, she loves him fiercely.

She's still a great sleeper, although lately she figured out that she can get out of her bed and her room whenever she wants.  After one night where I had to sleep on the floor of her room to make sure she stayed in her bed, I put a knob-stopper on the inside of her door to keep her from opening the door.  It was a little traumatic for all involved, but it did the trick.  The stopper is still on the knob, but she knows now that she can't get get out even if she wants.


Kisses for "Bubby"--her nickname for Graham

Princess Piper

Somewhere around April, Piper finally decided it was ok to poop in the potty.  Although she still wears a diaper for naps and nighttime, she is officially day-time potty-trained.  I'm not sure when she'll be able to stay dry while unconscious because she shows very little promise of this right now.  I would LOVE to stop buying diapers for her.

One of her latest fascinations is with construction equipment.  I have had to teach myself the names of all the different types of "big diggers" we see on the roadside because she HAD to know what they were called.  I see a birthday party theme in my future...

She wore her backpack all day on the day she went to Open House at her preschool.

Pool time with good friends

Piper loves the moon and the stars.  Anytime she spots the moon, she shouts about it so everyone within an earshot also knows it's present.  Most evenings we have to go out and look at the sky before bedtime.  I love this time; she's very calm and snuggly, two things we don't see out of her much!

Even during the most challenging of days, our love for Piper continues to grow in ways we never imagined. I guess this is what parenting is all about!  And we cannot wait to see what she teaches us about life in the process!!!

She had a slight obsession with this little raft and wanted to use it everywhere, not just in the water.

"Wakeboarding" before bed

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