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:

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"

First Word: "Mama"

Griffin's first word was "Mama". He said it when he was just over 7 months old. Pretty classic first word, no surprises, though I secretly hoped it'd be "Dada".

It's been about 3 weeks now that he's been mumbling this, but I never knew when to call it official. There just wasn't that one distinctly magical moment, like I had always pictured in my mind. I imagined that my baby boy would look up at me with his big brown eyes, and in his adorably innocent voice, he'd perfectly pronounce the word, "Mama". And once my virgin ears were exposed to that sweet first word, my scarred memory of 36 hours of horrendous labor would suddenly disappear leaving a pile of magical fairy dust sparkling in sunshine... Unfortunately, that didn't happen-

About 3 weeks ago, I started hearing Griff mumble "mama ma". I wasn't sure if he was really referring to me when he said it, or if that counted, or what!? Sometimes he would just talk to himself and would describe everything in sight as "Mama mamammama", but sometimes it would really seem like he was saying it to me. There have also been a few times where he's actually said "Mom". On recent mornings I've heard him in his crib call out "Mama" and I've been interpreting that as "Hey Mom, get out of bed and come see me, I'm awake!!" So, it's official: Griffin said his first word and is now on his path to full on verbal communication. We're working hard on mastering "Da da" and the closest I've gotten is "Ba ba", so stay tuned.