You Know Dasher...

But do you recall, the most famous reindeer of all?

Grahammy, the green-nosed reindeer...



This one was taken around 4pm one afternoon last week. Guess who had spent all of naptime sticking foam letters on himself instead of sleeping?


Merry Christmas everyone!

wattayagonnado?

More photos!

Happy Holidays

I know the holiday season is truly upon us when I partake of the annual ritual known to parents all over the country - the photo shoot for the family Christmas cards. Having two active boys is not always easy, especially when you're trying to get both of them to sit still and smile for the camera.

Here are a few of the outtakes from our session:

Disney and stuff

Man-o-man, we have a metric ton of pictures from Disney World coming at you at 90,000 mph. Plus some other stuff.

Chadds Ford Days

Here are a few pictures from Chadds Ford Days (and other stuff, like Elias' first day of school). Also, this video of Elias rockin' out to some folk music.

Washington and Other Places

We got back from our super-fun-packed trip to Washington a couple of days ago, and I just uploaded a bunch of pictures from there and elsewhere.

It was great to see Bill, Amy, and Guillermo. (Guillermo is fantastic. He's everywhere you wanna be!) It was also great to see Steve, Cayla, and all the Samms family at the wedding. I'd say more but it's taken more than two hours to get all those photos up and tagged, and now I just want to shower and go to bed.

Note to wanderers: Spokane is the little-known Paris of eastern Washington state. You must visit!

Updates

On Thursday, Elias and Graham went for their 3-year and 1-year old check-ups, respectively.

Elias now weighs 28 pounds, 14 ounces (19th percentile) and is 36 inches tall (15th percentile). Because he's now three, instead of giving head circumference as the third percentile, they give BMI. They didn't give the actual BMI, they just said his was in the 30th percentile. People always say that before a growth spurt, kids tend to chunk up, and I think that is what Elias is doing now. He's only grown about 2 inches since his 2-year check-up, and looks much chubbier than ever before (though to call either of the kids "chubby" is a very long stretch).

Graham is now 18 pounds, 13 ounces (4th percentile) and 29 inches tall (23rd percentile). His head circumference is 46 cm, which is in the 48th percentile.

In non-medical news, Elias has begun potty training in earnest over the past couple of weeks. We've been letting him run around the house pants-less and encouraging him to use his potty seat in the bathroom whenever he feels the need. Upon a successful deposit, he receives a jelly bean and, if solid waste is involved, a Curious George sticker to put in his special Poop Sticker Book. He's pretty good at pooping in the potty and rarely has an accident, but pee seems to be a bit trickier for him. This afternoon he came running out of his room asking me, "Where are the cloth diapers?" I handed him one from the laundry basket and asked him why he needed it. He showed me the spot in Graham's room where he'd had the accident and moved to sop it up with the diaper. When I asked him why he hadn't used the toilet, he pointed to a stuffed stegosaurus lying on the floor, backed away from it a pace, and said in a low voice, "The dinosaur was going to bite me if I went to the potty". I was about to inform him that stegosauruses are plant eaters, but decided I'd better not antagonize him.

Graham is truly a delight and it's so much fun to see him growing and changing every day, becoming more of a little boy and less of a baby. He likes to push toy cars around on the floor, making a "Vrmmm" sound while he does it. He's learning to clean up after himself, and will take his foam letter bathtub toys and one by one put them away in the frog basket that holds all the bath toys. His fifth tooth finally popped through last week, and he's been putting it to good use eating the same foods the rest of the family has for our daily meals.

The big news, though, I've saved for last. Over the past week, we've noticed that Graham has been standing without support more and more. He would pull himself up on a table or toy and then let go. At first he would sway precariously while he did it, but he's become increasingly steady with practice. The past two days I've noticed him getting into a standing position without pulling up on an object. Today he stood up next to me, I scooted back about a foot and held my arms out to him, and he took two steps towards me before grabbing my hands! Many babies first steps are more like delayed directional collapsing, but his steps were steady and deliberate. He repeated the feat in front of John a bit later, this time showing off by dramatically pausing after the first step before taking another.

Happy Birthday Graham!

He is one year old today! We went to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania and had ice cream cake (made by Grandma Jane) and opened presents. It's been a busy day and I haven't uploaded any pictures yet. Maybe I can get some up tomorrow.

But here are a couple:

The cake.

The boy.

Update: I should add that Elias help decorate the cake by placing the letters, which is the reason for the interesting orientation of some of them. Also, the final "I" is not an "I", it is a "1", for one year old.

Happy Birthday, Elias!

Elias celebrated his third birthday today. He had a cool train cake made by Wendy and lots of excellent presents from his family.

Click through for more birthday photos, or check out the photostream for many more pictures from Longwood Gardens, Brandywine Park, and even our backyard, where you will see a baby snapping turtle.

Like Momma Like Baby?

My brother e-mailed me a copy of my hospital picture (taken 38 years ago today, give or take a day or two), and I thought it would be interesting to see how similar or different Elias, Graham, and I looked.

Click on the picture to see who's who.

Today's Poem

Get in line

behind the cars,

Drive down the street

to the bars.


-Elias

Disney Cruise

We're back from our Disney cruise on the Wonder, a fine and sound vessel. The photos are up.

All in all, we had a lot of fun. We already signed up for our next one, probably in May, 2010.

Happy 9 Months! (Very very late)

Today, almost a week after Graham turned 10 months old, he went to the doctor for his 9-month checkup. Everything went very well - the doctor was pleased with his development and was impressed that he already uses "Mama" when he calls to me (this sounds cute, but he's usually tearfully blubbering "Mama, Mama, Mama..." when he's crawling after me begging me to pick him up while I am invariably busy with something important).

His stats:
weight: 17 lbs., 10 oz. (4th percentile)
height: 27.5" (10th percentile) - though I don't think he was stretched out on the measuring table as much as he has been at prior appointments, since he definitely has grown more than half an inch since he last went at 7 months when he measured 27 inches)

The doctor pulled up a computer chart of Elias's growth over time in his first year, and it tracks Graham's almost exactly - they both started out about average weight and height but fell to around the 5th percentile by 9 months, after a couple of months of crawling and other baby busy-ness helped slim them down. This is good news for me since Elias's hand-me-downs will fit Graham during the right seasons!

The doctor gave me the go-ahead to start letting Graham eat most table food (which I secretly have been sneaking him lately, anyway - he loves meatloaf and quesadillas). Solid foods have been a challenge for him, since he will only accept a few bites of pureed food from a spoon. After that, he wants to be a big boy and do the job himself. He's been subsisting on toast, cheerios, avocados, bananas, microwaved fruit cubes, shredded cheese, and other traditional baby finger foods, but now I'll be able to share my meals with him too. This will make feeding him on our upcoming cruise much easier.

Speaking of the cruise, we fly down to Orlando tomorrow and depart from Port Canaveral the next day. We'll post the pictures when we get back!

cadhuivh@#%

Just Goofin' Around

We'll Miss You, Grandma!

Grandma Norma was nice enough to come see us this past weekend. I had been telling Elias in advance about her visit and promised him she would read him all the books he wanted. When she walked in the door and he figured out who she was, he didn't say a word. Instead, he bolted out of the room and ran to the stairs. As he was frantically climbing, I asked him where he was going. "To get a big pile of books!" was his reply. I guess he WAS listening to me when I was telling him about all the fun he would have with his Grandma.

The weekend's fun wasn't limited to books, either. We took a ride on the Strasburg Railroad, went out to lunch at a Mexican restaurant, and Elias enjoyed some yummy macaroni and cheese made with extra love especially for him by his grandma.

Graham was sick and miserable, but was still able to enjoy a few cuddles and hugs with grandma.

to engineer is human

This is interesting.

On my way to relax and watch a little TV while the boys played quietly, I saw Elias building a couple of towers out of his bricks and and then attaching the train tracks to the top.

A little while later, he came and asked me for help. I knew just what he wanted to do as he explained to me his plan for building an elevated railway, and I showed him how to put together all the pylons and connect the tracks in a circle. I ended up doing most of the work, actually, because he seemed to have a problem with making all the pylons the same height.

After trying out the train he'd built earlier (you can see the little "Daddies" - that's what he calls them - riding on the train cars), he told me he wanted to make a tunnel for it to go through, so I built that too and put it just where he wanted it.

Wendy thought it looked like the Disney World monorail, which it sort of does.

We were lucky with this in that Graham didn't destroy it right away. Graham always wants to play with whatever Elias is playing with, especially blocks or trains. He loves to stand up next to the train table and throw train cars around and rip up track like Godzilla, or push down and smash whatever Elias builds with his blocks. Elias starts out tolerating this, but get frustrated with Graham quickly: "Get this baby away from me!" if we are lucky, or a push followed by a screaming baby if we are not.

(Click through for more photos)

Happy (!) Easter

We took the kids to the Kennett Square Easter Egg Hunt at Anson B. Nixon Park this morning. Graham stayed warm strapped onto Mommy, but Elias got to join in the fray.

This picture is deceiving, as the place was CRAWLING with kids. I was a little worried Elias wasn't going to be able to get any eggs since he had to compete with the hordes of other children. Luckily, the 4 year olds and under had their own area for the hunt, and the organizers imposed a four egg limit on participants to make sure everyone had a chance to find at least one egg. Elias outdid himself, as you will see from our photo essay on Flickr. Just click on this picture and follow along.

New pictures

I added a few new pictures to Flickr including such thrilling captures as

Graham Goes Godzilla on Elias' Tower


and

A Bug Lands on Elias.


I've been trying to get a picture of Graham's new teeth - yes, TEETH, he has two now - but he's been a little shy about showing them off.

Happy(?) Easter

Yesterday the Easter Bunny came to the Kennett YMCA for an Easter party. Elias is not fond of the Easter Bunny. As soon as he saw it walking down the hall, he covered his eyes with his hands so he wouldn't have to look at the abomination.



As you can see from the picture, Graham was unimpressed. Elias can be seen clutching Graham's arm - I think he's actually trying to protect his baby brother from the evil bunny.

Graham Crawls!

Yesterday evening, attracted by some tools Elias was using to "fix" a broken doorknob, Graham figured out how to crawl. He actually crawls a little bit, and frog-hops a little bit. He's quite good at it for a first timer!



Huzzah for Graham!

Get up. Stand Up.

Annoyed by the amount of media coverage Elias has gotten in the last two days, Graham decided to seize the spotlight again today by executing one of his most amazing feats to date: pulling up to a stand for the first time. His prize? The TV remote control which had previously been out of reach on top of the ottoman. That and this gratuitous blog post.

Way to go Graham!

In other news, there are unconfirmed reports that Graham's first tooth has finally emerged. Though he has refused to comment and will not submit willingly to an inspection, we believe it is his lower right central incisor. We will update this story with new details as they become available.

Edited to add: Well, I wrestled him to the ground and pried his mouth open. Yes, he has a tooth! You can just see the top of it at the gum line. My baby's growing up. *sniff*

Elias Finds the Lollipops

Today after we got home from school, I retreated upstairs to Graham's room to nurse. Elias was messing around downstairs, and, bad mother that I am, I figured he was probably wrecking something, but as long as I could hear banging and clattering, then he probably had not gotten to the scissors and started doing surgery on himself or the dogs. Graham and I were lost in our oxytocin-fueled daydreams when Elias appeared at the door with his best I'm-Going-To-Be-Charming smile plastered across his face. He was rubbing his chest in a big circular motion, which means (as those of you doing Baby Signs will know) "Please"

"What do you want, Elias?" I asked.

"A lollipop," he replied hopefully.

Uh oh. Well, without going into too much detail, let's just say this:

Prehalloween trip to Target + mommy with sweet tooth = bag of 300 mini Tootsie Pops stashed in a drawer in the dining room

So Elias had (finally) found this bag. Trying to buy time to think of a new hiding place for the tootsie pops, I drew him into conversation.

"Where did you find the lollipops, honey?"
"The drawer"
"How many lollipops are in there?"
"ALL OF THEM!!" He was about to burst.

I went downstairs and let him pick out a blue lollipop from the bag, but told him he couldn't eat it until after lunch. I was forgetting, of course, that on the spectrum of self control, Elias is far closer to chimpanzee than he is to adult human. He promptly sat down on the floor and started picking at the wrapper.

"Honey, don't unwrap it until after lunch"
"It's unwrapping itself!!" he cried helplessly.

A few minutes later he had managed to pull off the entire wrapper and was lovingly gazing at the bare, ready-to-eat tootsie pop he held in his hand. I was peeking at him from the other room and when he brought it to his mouth called out, "Don't lick that yet, honey!!"

"I just need to touch it with my teeth!" he explained, exasperated. Silly mommy.

some things about Elias

The following is a short conversation Elias and I had as I got him out of the bath this evening.

Elias: I blame you, Daddy.

Me: Me? What do you blame me for?

Elias: I blame you for me.

Me: I made you the way you are?

Elias: No. I'm like you!

Ouch.

-----

On another note, Elias and I have been getting along really well lately. I haven't raised my voice to him in almost two weeks, and although I have given him a few of timeouts, he's been pretty cooperative. One main thing is that he's back to saying "Bog Dammit!" when he finds himself in a situation where someone, perhaps me, might say something that sounds similar. He first picked this up in December, but had mostly forgotten about it until last Saturday morning when I took him out to run errands. When I was getting him out of the car at the drugstore, I managed to drop the prescription for my medicine in a large, deep rain puddle, and as well I dropped his bottle of water, which then rolled under the car behind the rear wheel. I let loose with a barrage of swears much to Elias' delight, and he started repeating them immediately and joyfully. Oops.

Anyway, thanks to more timeouts, he now knows "Dammit" is a naughty word, so he tries to say it slightly differently - say, "Mammit" or "Babbit." He likes alliteration.

-----

Speaking of timeouts, Elias also has gotten in the habit of giving Wendy and me timeouts whenever we are doing something he doesn't like. This only worked the first time, when Wendy tried to model good timeout behavior by going to the timeout spot and sitting quietly. But he still gives them out pretty indiscriminately. My response now is always, "You can't give me timeouts. I'm Daddy and you're Elias, and only mommies and daddies can give timeouts." This works all right unless he is feeling particularly ornery, in which case he responds, "No, I'm Daddy and you're Elias, and you get a timeout!"

Eight Months!

Today was Graham's 8 Month Birthday! He celebrated by going for a walk outside (in the stroller) in our glorious 65 degree weather, trying cantaloupe for the first time (big thumbs up from him, by the way), and playing peekaboo. We've enjoyed some good peekaboo sessions before, but today he figured out he could hide himself by pulling the towel up over his face. Too cute.

Happy birthday Graham. I can't believe you're going to be 1 in just a few months.

Hair on Fire!

Graham's normally unruly hair was particularly wild and voluminous today.

More Mad Skillz

Now that Graham is over being sick, his development has resumed its leaps and bounds growth! I'd been putting Cheerios* on his high chair tray recently, but while sick he preferred to push them on the floor and scream until I picked him up. In a fine mood yesterday, he finally decided to pick some up and try them. The first few didn't make it down his throat - he held them tightly in his balled up fist and shoved his entire hand in his mouth. After a bit, he figured out the pincer grip and was soon picking up cereal pieces and popping them in his mouth like an old pro! He sucks on them until they dissolve, then goes in for more.

It took Elias a long time to figure out the proper way to eat Cheerios*. He would grab them between his thumb and forefinger but had trouble transferring them into his mouth. So he would nibble at the parts visible around his fingertips and then drop the last unreachable pieces back on his tray. This went on for a couple of months before he got the right idea.

Everything is now going swimmingly with Graham, but he's so excited about all the great things he can do that he doesn't want to sleep anymore! He wakes up frequently and when I go in to get him, he is invariably sitting up in his crib or is up on his hands and knees rocking back and forth trying to crawl somewhere... maybe off to find more Cheerios*.

*They're actually Giant supermarket's generic organic 'oat hoops'

Graham's Mad Skillz

Graham worked diligently on his sitting up today and finally developed this technique...



the babbling and head bump are optional.

If Pride is a Sin Then He's Headed Someplace Warm

Graham sat up by himself for the very first time today! This picture was taken right after he accomplished his amazing feat - you can see the pride in his eyes.



He's been on the verge of crawling lately. He gets up on all fours and rocks back and forth. Sometimes he even 'steps' forward with his arms, but he hasn't figured out he needs to move his legs also, so he just ends up falling down on his belly. Today while he was in his pre-crawl position, he settled back on his haunches then just pushed himself upright and swung his legs around.

Bravo, Graham!

you say foe-tay-toe, and I say foe-tah-toe

More pictures of the kids. This one is kind of interesting: I left Elias alone in the tub (bad Daddy!). He'd been curious about the bar of soap for a few nights, and was always trying to play with it. I didn't want him to, because I was afraid he'd get some in his eyes and become even more scared of getting his face wet than he already is. So as I left the bathroom, I told him not to touch it.

When I got back, the bath water was cloudy white and there was a semicircular notch taken out of one side of the soap bar, which was sitting in the soap dish. I looked at it, and then looked at him and asked, "Did the soap taste good?"

He answered quietly, "No."

Then I wondered what happened to the missing piece of soap. "Elias, did you eat the soap?"

"No."

"Then where is the rest of it?" I asked.

"I don't know."

I fished around in the tub for a minute, and was relieved to find the missing bit, which he had sensibly spat out.

-----

Also in this set, some photos of Graham. Wendy will probably be appalled because she didn't get a chance to edit them, but I thought he showed some amusing expressions, despite the snot bubbles and drool.

Our New Game (Even Graham Gets to Play!)

The last couple of days, Elias has been asking me to play the Go To Sleep game with him. The way this works is this: we go to his room and he pretends to be the adult at bedtime, while I pretend to be him. He tells me to get into his bed (luckily he has a comfy queen sized bed so there's plenty of room for me and my constant companion Graham). After Graham and I climb into bed, I make a point of getting under the covers, "to keep warm" I tell Elias, since he is suspicious of covers and prefers to spend these cold Pennsylvania nights sprawled out on top of them, much to John's consternation. He turns out the lights and sits in a chair next to the bed to tell me a story, as John does when telling Elias his bedtime stories. A typical story goes something along the lines of "I'm going to tell you a story about trains. The train lives on the tracks. It goes clickety clack." If I ask for a song (usually John sings him a song before leaving the room), he'll sing something like, "Singing a song, song song song" or a version of Salty's song, "Yo ho ho and a bucket of goo, the tiller spins...".

The funny thing is that he doesn't use his normal voice to tell the stories. Instead, he does this cute, high-pitched mouse voice. He sings his songs in a breathy, tuneless falsetto. I don't know if these vocal stylings are supposed to be an homage to John or what, but they're very charming.

After finishing the song, he then tells me, "I'm going to sleep in the other bed" and gets up and leaves the room. I followed him once and found that he goes into my room and climbs into my bed, but usually Graham and I just lay in bed and enjoy the silence, a rarity in our house. A minute later, he comes back, turns on the lights and announces, "It's 3 o'clock! Time to wake up!" Then I get up and we play a different game.

Graham's "Six Month" Appointment

Graham had his 6-Month Well Baby Checkup today, 2 days shy of his 7 month birthday. The doctor diagnosed a slight ear infection and confirmed that he has at least one tooth coming up, which is a bit of a relief to hear since Graham had turned into a pretty crotchety old baby the last couple of weeks

His stats:
weight: 15 lbs, 15.4 oz (10th percentile)
height: 27" (50th percentile)

He's up from 14 lb, 2.3 oz and 25.25" at his 4 month appointment, but still turning into a skinny minnie like his big brother. Cousin Guillermo is going to outweigh him any day now!!

Astronut

Looks like I didn't take many photos in January, but here's one. Click through to see more.

Baby Got Back

I took this picture to document Graham's Mongolian spots. These are the blue-black birthmarks covering his back and bottom. Many Asian babies are born with them, including Elias, but his have faded a bit over time. I may have had them at one point, but don't anymore.

Anyhow, I thought it was a cute shot of him, bald spot and all!



(You can also see a vascular birthmark on the back of his right arm)

if I had a photograph of you

Here's the jacket art we're thinking of using for Graham's album of 80s cover songs. It drops February 5th and it's only available on vinyl, so look for it at the hipper record stores in your town.


Seriously, this is what his hair looks like all the time. Crazy kids.

Da da da da da da

Graham has been quite the chatterbox lately. He stayed up long after his bedtime last night calling "Da da da da da da da" and "Tha tha tha tha tha". When he woke up later during the night for a feeding, instead of crying, he just started calling "tha tha tha tha tha"

As I was writing this, Elias, who is supposed to be napping, tried to sneak in the room behind me. Graham looked at him and started yelling "Tha tha tha tha tha", which translates to either, "Go back to bed!" or "Great, you came to play with me!" Good job, Graham. I'm sure this is the start of a long tradition of ratting out your big bro.

Second Attempt

Today's second try at solid food went much better. Instead of just dumping gobs of oatmeal into Graham's mouth, I put the spoon into his mouth and let him suck the oatmeal off of it. He was begging for more after finishing the small amount I gave him (about a teaspoon), but I think I'll wait until tomorrow to see how his body reacts to the food.

I'm going to miss his once every 4 days, all-liquid, breastmilk poops.

Half-y Birthday, Graham!

Well, I blinked and all the sudden Graham is celebrating his 6 month birthday. I can't believe its come so fast!

Other than the part when he fell out of bed this morning (oops), he's had a pretty good day. He even got to try his first solid food - oatmeal mixed with breastmilk - at lunchtime today. Not much made it down his throat, but a good time was still had by all.

Looking a little wary as he takes his first bite:


Post-meal - note all the oatmeal he spit out on his bib:


Other Graham news. He can roll both ways (front to back and vice versa) when he wants to, but is pretty content to just stay on his back or his belly, unless I look away or leave them room, at which time he executes a quick flip. Maybe he's just bashful. He also enjoys sitting, and after we help him into a sitting position, he can stay up for minutes at a time playing with toys or just watching the goings-on around him,

We're on teeth watch here, since Graham has been chewing on everything lately, including hands (his own or anybody else's he's lucky enough to find), hair (usually mine), and toys (his favorite is a Bunnies by the Bay duckling - thank you Kukuks). The past few days he's been drooling like a madman and napping poorly, so I expect an incisor might pop through at any moment.

After experiencing a major sleep regression at 4 months (waking up every 30-45 minutes all evening, then every two hours through the night), he's back to his normal self. The sleep thing would've killed me, but I remembered all too well how Elias had done the same thing at the same age. Elias easily resisted my feeble attempts to improve his sleep and eventually got better on his own, so with Graham I figured I would skip all the stupid strategies to try to get him to sleep and make it easier on him and me by just giving him what he wanted. So the last couple of months, I've spent many evenings laying in bed nursing him, watching TV or playing Tetris on my DS. I can think of much worse things I could be doing with my time, like sitting in a dark room holding a screaming baby and trying to convince him that, no, he really isn't that hungry. So it all worked out.