My Happy Boy

 It's morning greetings like these that make every moment of motherhood worth it.  Oh my sweet and happy boy... I love you Griffin!

A First: Crap in the Tub

This happened tonight.  Lovely.

Airplane!

Griffin says "Dada" and makes a whooshing sound when he hears or sees an airplane in the sky.  He's gotten really good at spoting them these days.

The Light Bulb Went Off!

Today was a great day.  Other than Griffin whining A LOT in his high chair ("all done, all done, alllll donnnnnne!!") and throwing most of his breakfast and lunch on the floor, (P.S. Griffin's personal chef/slave, oh that's right, that's me, made a giant batch of cinnamon raisin french toast for bfast- 1/5 of of a slice made it into his mouth.  I made 2 types of sandwiches for lunch- grilled cheese and canadian bacon on mini croissants, and almond butter and strawberry jam on multigrain english muffins- what's not to like?), we spent almost the entire day outside playing and soaking up the summer sun.  Our day was filled with visits to 2 playgrounds, a long walk into town for coffee, driveway playtime, an afternoon playground playdate with his Stroud kid buddies, dinner outside with Greta/Charlie/Annika, leftover birthday cake for dessert, and a super long 2.5 hour nap (for Griffin, not me) somewhere in between all that fun.

The best part of my day was hearing Griffin use several brand new words.  It's like a light bulb has gone off in his head, and as of today he can and is willing to try repeat words better than ever.  When we were leaving Hobbs Playground, I asked him to, "say bye bye to Audrey" (Suzanne's 4 week old baby, who Griffin has hung out with a total of 3 times), and he promptly said "bye bye Au-drey".  It was amazing.  He's been saying "avocado", his current favorite food, more and more.  Today was also the first time I heard him say 2 (well techincally 3) very important words.  "Thank you", and "Lovie" (I unraveled a new blue lovie today which he was super attached to).  Griff has always been great at signing "thank you" when prompted, and I've always said the words aloud while he signed them in hopes this day would come. Woohoo!  It's here!  It felt so satisfying to hear him stutter through but successfully tell me thank you today, a few times!  He also muttered something that sounded really close to "yellow" when I asked him to pick out which color bandaid he wanted to wear as a sticker on his knee (I lured him into the house by offering him stickers for his barely scratched knees).  Also, tonight as I turned off his light when putting him to bed, I said my usual "good night Griffin, love you." and I swear he said "night night mama" (he says this almost every night now) and "love you" (totally a first, assuming i heard him correctly).. as I closed the door to his room.. oh my sweet boy. 

Griffin talking melts my heart.  It's just the most adorable thing to hear his little boy voice.  I know that I have to savor and appreciate days like this where I witness such amazing aspects of his development.  Today is one of those days where being Griff's Mom is the best thing in the world.  (Dear Future Vicki, Re-read this blog entry on a day you want to put Griffin up for adoption...)

Pics from Hobbs Playground:

19.5 Months Old!

Tigger

Tom's nickname as a child was "Tigger" because he bounced around and never sat still... like father, like son? 

Griff's 2nd Haircut

We managed to go 7 months in between Griffin's first and second hair cuts.  Since he screamed through his first one and looked super nerdy with short hair, I wasn't dying to take him the second time around, plus, I just love him with longer hair. The thing that made me finally bite the bullet and bring him in for a snip was a lady in the Y parking lot who said to us, "oh, how old is she?" It was time. Earlier today we brought Griff down to Silver Shears, a local barbershop in Village Plaza, just a 3 minute drive from our house.  Ken was Griff's barber and he did an amazing job.  Griff cried just a bit at the end, but he looked super cute with his new layered hairstyle.  You could tell that Griff was proud of he looked afterwards...

 

Day at the Track

It was like F1, but a little less loud and a little more cute...

Self Shots: Mom & Griff at 19 Months

 

 

Uh-Uh-Three!!!

Griffin counts to three like this, "uh- uh- three!"  

9 has been his favorite number, but I think 3 is giving 9 a little run for it's money...

He picked up the letter B from his playmat the other day and when I asked him what letter it was, he said "B"!  

Saving the Kix for Later...

I was saving this piece of Kix on my t-shirt for later...

Here's a cute pic of Griff playing in his sandbox:

Shit Happens (Happened)

We had a new first yesterday:  In the middle of trying to multitask (unsuccessfully), I took Griff's diaper overly soggy diaper off and let him run around inside.  (He had been playing in his baby pool, so his diaper was drooping so far down between his legs that you couldn't help but feel bad for the 2 little velcro straps holding on for dear life...)  I had my hands tied with dishes, filling ice cube trays with chicken noodle soup, and cutting up tomatoes for a pasta salad, when I glanced behind me and saw new puddle on the dining room floor I had just cleaned up.  Of course.  In the not even 2 minutes I let Griff run free, he peed on the floor.  The warm puddle barely phased me, but to add to the fun while I was cleaning that up, I found what I thought was a little piece of "meatball" (a thumb nail sized cut up piece of Jones all natural honey maple sausage link, the new form of protein that Griff will actually tolerate)... As you may have guessed, it was NOT a "meatball", though maybe it could have been at one point in time... What was even more funny/nasty, I found a surprise ball of poop (dry/hard, not runny thank God) on the 6 inch wide strip of hardwood floor in the living room, spaced perfectly between our rug and Griff's foam play mat.  Instead of laughing at the situation and taking pictures for the blog as per my usual process, I had a little too much going on, and I panicked and screamed "Tooooommmmmm!!!!!!", so sorry there are no pictures! :)

Mommy & Daddy

On Friday Griff said "Mommy" (instead of "Momma"), and yesterday he said "Daddy".  So cute.  It was totally unprompted and unexpected as we don't usually refer to each other as Mommy or Daddy...  Also, Griff said "you" when practicing "I love you" to Auntie Joyce.  He has yet to piece all 3 words together at the same time, but we are almost there...

Too Sexy

In the blackmail bank...  Griffin being sexy at 19 months old...

Kids Say the Darndest Things

Griff strung 3 words together for the first time today:  "Up please Mama"!  Amazing!  (Happy 19th Month Birthday Griffin!!)

Best new words from the past week:  "meatball", "happy", "ice cream"

Griff has started saying the funniest expressions, and most of the time he uses them in the appropriate context..  "Oh man" (when he drops something), "whoa" (when he trips up or down the stairs), "Oh yeah" (when I give him a delicious snack)... 

... oops, blog entry cut short, I can hear Griffin jumping up and down in his crib, is it wrong that I want to pretend like I don't hear him so I can have a few more minutes to myself?  He's up from his nap and it's only 2pm... "oh man"