11 Months Old!

Seriously, am I really planning Grady's 1st birthday parties (yes 2 - we have a large family)? Yikes.

 

 

 

 

He is continuing to grow by leaps and bounds and everyday I am a mixture of impressed, amazed, bewildered, and a little sad by how fast he is growing. Crawling is a thing of the past! He's actually more interested in running which scares me to death. This is how the first major injury occurred. We were playing his favorite game of "I'm going to get you" (which incidentially when you say this to Grady, he turns around smiling wide as possible and runs straight to you - not quite how the game goes, but he's his own person now!) and BAM. He tripped and went forehead first into the corner of door trim. He cried immediately so hard that I had to blow into his face to get him to breathe again. My heart stopped and I yelled at Dave to go get ice because the goose egg appeared immediately. How he didn't split his forehead open I do not know. Now Dave handled this like a champ, calm and reassuring for Grady. I, on the other hand, failed epically. I could barely hold Grady I was crying so hard. I felt so guilty, even though I was standing 3 feet from him I couldn't catch him from falling fast enough. I tried to convince Dave we should take him to the ER and he calmly tried to reassure me he didn't need to go (the look on Dave's face told a different story - I could tell he wanted to call me crazy and slap me across the face to snap me back to reality, but he knew I was in a terrible emotional state and clearly that wouldn't have helped.) The next day I, of course, called his doctor to be sure and she, along with 20 other moms, told me he has a very strong head and is just fine and it will probably happen again and again and again. Dave's mom told me when Dave was little he would trip over dust so I guess I better get used to it.

So, since that fateful evening my days and nights consist of hovering over Grady, saying no and no touch 500 times, and running interference from our everyday furniture which in my eyes is now evil. Yep - I'm a hoverer. I never thought I would be but motherhood has proved me wrong yet again.

My little bug is walking, running, climbing, basically into everything he shouldn't be these days.

But more importantly, he melted my heart a few days before Christmas when he mumbled those sweet words every mother patiently waits to hear ... "momma". He actually repeated it several times in a row - just to make sure I heard him. So, here we are at 11 months and he has 3 words - dada, momma, and baby. Grady's latest is waving hi and bye-bye. Sometimes he looks at you and sometimes he just pans the room around while waving, but he definitely understands hi and bye. Again, I am in constant amazement with what he has accomplished in just 11 short months.

Now on the eating front, still not too interested in eating small pieces of chicken, turkey, etc. He pretends he's gagging and chocking everytime. Yet, he'll eat the heck out of puffs, cookies, baby goldfish (his fav) so I know he's faking! I'm now trying cinnamon raisen bread, we shall see!

He's busier than ever and is very curious about his toys, how they work, and inspects every inch of them with the cutest serious face I have ever seen.

 

 

 

 

Stay tunned for details and pictures on his first birthday.

 

XOXO,

 

Court

Recap on Grady's First Christmas

Holy moly the holidays came and went! I'm not even sure where to start and I'm quite sure I'm missing some things in this post.

Dave's parents headed to California for Christmas so we celebrated Christmas with his family a little early. Grady's first stab at opening gifts went ok. He made it through 2-3 presents, melted down and then took a 2 1/2 hour nap. By the time we had dinner all 4 cousins were loosing their marbles. Poor Lora, she worked so hard on dinner and we had to rush through it to get Grady in the car and home. Unfortunately he was sick and we had to get him home early to do his nebulizer breathing treatment. I've decided in years to come we're packing his pjs and he can fall asleep whereever we are because Dave and I feel like were missing out on everything having to leave by 6 pm.

Two weeks later we headed to Raleigh for Grady's first Christmas with my family. Suprise - Uncle Fran, Aunt Barbie, Nicki, and Mike all came up from Florida to spend the holidays with us. I'm so glad they finally got to meet the little guy who stole Nona's heart! Grady was much better at the gift thing for round 2 - although he seemed much more interested in ripping the paper than playing with the toys.

(Sidenote - we learned while at my parent's house his favorite color is purple. My little pirate!)

We drove back to MD on Christmas Eve morning and thank God he slept 3 out of the 5 hours we were in the car. Hallelujah! I... eh hem Santa bought us a portable DVD player which he let us open before Christmas so I think it saved us from a total Grady-in-the-car-too-long-meltdown!

Finally, we had our first Christmas just the three of us. We put a cookie out and showed Grady (he didn't seem too impressed) that it was for Santa. I was so excited once Grady went to bed to pull all the presents out and arrange them under the tree. I couldn't wait for morning to arrive. I had envisioned it going a little different than it actually did. He wasn't too excited about hanging out near the Christmas tree and he wasn't too thrilled about the whole present thing either. (Cue the sigh) Oh well, till next year!

I can't believe I did this, but I left my camera in Maryland when we went to Raleigh so as soon as my mom sends me pictures, I promise to update! 

 

 

 

 

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10 Months Old!

Apparently I never posted this - oops!

Cue the broken record - again! Good Lord this little guy is growing by leaps and bounds. Just before his 10 month birthday, Grady graced us with his first word ... "dada". He has been babbling for a few weeks now and would say "dadadadadaada". However, this time he was playing in the family room and Dave walked in and Grady looked right at him and said "dada". MELT MY HEART. I think Dave's heart skipped 5 beats. The look on his face was priceless. Since then, I've been stalking Grady saying "momma" every 10 minutes. He repeats what he thinks is momma, but its really "baba". Oh well, it will happen soon enough. He is talking nonstop now. He talks to himself, his toys, really anyone who will listen. Precious. Grandma Schoen told us he held up a ball and said "bahh", but I haven't been able to get him to repeat it :(

 

Some other firsts just before 10 months old ...he dances. So cute! He just goes up and down while standing in the same place. He mimics what you do. If you growl at him, he growls back. If you laugh at him, he laughs back. If you pat your hand on the table, he does it right back. Amazing!

 

And my favorite first, he took his first step. He actually did it Thanksgiving morning. He was walking around the coffee table, looked at the couch, let go of the table and took one step unassisted and reached the couch. Dave and I were shocked! Its only a short time before he's walking all over the place! For now, just a step or two is fine by me.

 

And as I write this, just last night Dave and I had to give him his first hair cut. Don't freak out, it was just a little snip in the back. No child of mine will rock a mullet!

With all of these firsts happening one after the other, I feel like I can't keep track of it all. I hope I don't miss something!

 XOXO,

Court