Contributors

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Hammer Ball Banana Malfunction

After praising Griffin for being so good and eating his snack (a banana)... here's is what I discovered in his hammer ball toy: 

What a sneaky guy!

Father's day 2011


Happy Father's Day to Tom!!!  He wins the award this year for being the hardest working, most loving, and most silly/fun Dad!  Here's how we celebrated the weekend:








Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Almost 17 Months

Griffin at age 17 months (minus 1 day)

Turtle Sandbox Fun

Griffin inherited a turtle shaped sandbox from the Milners (thank you!), and he loves playing in our backyard; he scoops sand into cups, funnels, buckets, and his mouth.  



Superman Father's Day Cards

Here are Grandpa Hendrix and Gong-Gong's 2011 Father's day cards:  (the inside reads "I hope to be as super as you!")


Orange Crocs!

Awesome.  Griffin's feet have finally gotten just thin enough that I can just squeeze (and I mean squeeze) them into his new orange Crocs (courtesy of Auntie Ashley).  Don't worry, his feet are still quite chubby and they still have little fat pillows on top.  I've been waiting and waiting for this day and it has finally come!  Here is Griff with his new snazzy summer shoes:


Friday, June 17, 2011

10 Great Things:

Finally getting back to posting... man, it's tough staying diligent and posting regularly, and I catch myself thinking "oh, I need to blog about that", whenever I witness Griffin do something new and amazing, which is happening more and more these days.  It's hard enough to remember to get the camera to capture the moment, so I usually allow myself a "free pass" and I slide the memory into my back pocket for future blogging.. but with my severely unreliable Mommy-brains, this is not a good plan.  He's growing up so quickly and I don't want to forget all of these great things:

1. Griffin has been 'blowing' his nose.  This has actually been happening for a while now, maybe like 2 months.  Sure enough, he can blow his own sticky yellow boogers onto a tissue on command (most of the time).  Sometimes he makes the nose-blowing sound to indicate he needs a tissue, and usually by this point there is snot almost dripping into his mouth (classic!), and once in a blue moon Griff will get his own tissue and blow his nose himself, amazing!

2. Griff's verbal vocabulary has recently increased by 3 words: "rock", "baby", and "man".  Rock and baby are fairly understandable and accurate, and man sort of sounds like "Maneuhman".  He figured out the word "man" because we recently bought a big bag of plastic animals off of Craigslist, and there were 2 little firemen inside amongst the zoo of pigs, giraffe, myriad of dinosaurs, horse, etc. (bonus!).  Anyway, Griff was really interested in the firemen, or as I call each of them "man".. and he quickly adopted that new word.

3. Speaking of the huge bag of plastic animals, Griffin has also started pretend-playing.  It seems so imaginative for a 17 month old.  He will lay his animals down and make snoring/sleeping sounds, and when he's eating, he will also feed his animals and "maneuhman", and by "feed" I mean he will dunk the animals' heads into his yogurt bowl, or put them near the Cheerios and make a munching sound.  Yesterday he had the horse and the giraffe kiss, which was adorable.

4.  In the last few weeks I've noticed a really positive change in Griffin's behavior.  The amount of aggressive behavior with friends, hitting Mommy, refusing to clean up in music class, and having time outs every day has really decreased.  I'm no longer on total edge during playdates, feeling like I have to hover over Griff to shield his friends from his whacks, pushes, and swiping of their toys.  There's less apologizing to other Moms.  In fact, Griffin has become the best cleaner-upper in his entire music class.  As of 2 weeks ago, he'd hear Miss Lisa sing "clean up", and he'd run over with whatever instrument or toy and throw it right into the bucket- of course he claps proudly of himself (and so does the rest of the class for that matter as they are all familiar with Griffin's "I-refuse-to-clean-up-so-I-will-whine-until-the-teacher-lets-me-keep-the-toy-until-I'm-ready" antics..  It's been an amazing transformation, like someone pulled a switcheroo on my little Asian devil baby.

5.  That said, I've fully jumped on board the September Baby Train.  ChooChoo!  After months of protest, I'm feeling somewhat inspired by how cool and fun Griff has become, that I may officially be over my, as Lindsay puts it "PTSD" from Griffin's labor and delivery (my stomach stretchmarks/flab/screwed up belly button might say otherwise).  Though it's a stressful prospect, I feel more ready to be a Mom of 2, though I can't really picture Griffin as an older brother. He's such a sweet little guy who loves to play with older kids, and wow does he get jealous when I hold any other baby.

What's the "September Baby Train" you ask?  Well, Megan, Martha, and I all made a pact to all "try" starting this September (oh how very Gloucester high school of us).  We rationalized that we'd enjoy the summer and start working on Baby #2 come Fall.  I wasn't exactly "ready" when I initially agreed to the pact, unless by "ready" we meant "totally mortified of the thought of the next birth process"...  Anyway, last week I caught myself looking up baby #2's predicted gender on the ever so reliable Chinese Birth Calendar.  (P.S.  If we get prego in September, I think it will be a girl!)  Game on.

6. Griffin successfully locked himself in the bathroom recently.  Of course I ran out of my room to grab the bathroom door knob literally 1 second too late.  No worries, it was an easy rescue mission, nothing a bobby pin and an Asian Macgyver couldn't handle. 

7. Our little engineer in training has learned to turn light switches on and off as well as faucets. 

8. "Boo!"  Griffin thinks it's completely hysterical when I jump out from behind a corner and scare the crap out of him shouting "boo!!"  He loves it and laughs and laughs.  Now he shouts "boo" to me, but he is usually just standing near me or sitting right in front of me... not very scary, but quite funny.

9. Griffin makes siren noises every time he sees a fire truck, police car, ambulance, etc.  (We bought him some emergency vehicle magnets that he's really into)  The thing is, he now also makes siren noises for big vans, some trucks, and all sorts of general non-siren vehicles.  Gotta give him kudos for trying...

10. This morning at Starbucks, Bren said to Griff, "Where's Bren?", and Griffin pointed right at her.  It literally made her year.  Also, about an hour ago, Auntie Joyce stopped by for some a quick living room dance party.  As part of her departure routine, she and Griff exchange blown kisses and Joyce always says "I love you".  Today, Griff responded by signing "love" (he crosses his arms over his heart, which is a sign he regularly does), and then he pointed at her (totally a first!)!!  So cute!

Friday, June 10, 2011

Buy Buy Baby!

I forgot to post this, so I'm backdating this post to June.


Griffin's Buy Buy Baby ad came out in their national mailer for the month of June.  It arrived electronically and then via snail mail.  Woohoo!  Man, I really want to buy a penguin pool...

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Griffin's First Report Card

Griff got his first "Infant Progress Report" from school this week.  Oh man!  It's basically a 4 page long checklist of actions and the expected developmentally appropriate ages for each action (ie. "8 months - Smiles at mirror image", or "15 months- Imitates actions on toys"), along with his teacher's comments. Griff scored "yes" for every item, minus the one the teachers had not observed, (I'm so proud, the kid deserves a gold star), and the following were the comments by category from his teacher Miss Jackie: (I find these quite amusing.)

Cognitive: "Griffin enjoys looking at picture books and really concentrates on the pictures!  He also plays peek-a-boo w/ teachers and friends.  Griffin learns new concepts quickly.  For example, when to clap when we sing 'if you're happy and you know it.'"

Social/Emotional: "Griffin enjoys participating in fun games and songs.  He sings and dances and tries to get others involved.  He does a super job playing catch too!"

Gross Motor: "Griffin is progressing nicely, walking on his own.  He is able to climb on the structure and push the cars around."

Fine Motor: "Griffin is able to feed himself with a fork and spoon :). He likes doing projects that involve gluing.  He always claps to show he is proud of himself." 

Language: Receptive and Expressive: "Griffin does an excellent job indicating what he wants whether it's using words or pointing to it.  He lets us know his likes and dislikes.  He is starting to repeat some words."