Tag Archives: Griffin Says

Morning Songs

Griffin woke early this morning, nearly an hour before he is normally allowed to leave his room. I helped him use the potty and tucked him back into bed. Before leaving, I reminded him that he should stay in his bedroom until his “orange sun” lights up (it’s a nightlight timer).

As I pulled the door shut, he asked, “Okay to sing songs?”

Haircut

As a child, I remember brushing my mom’s hair and imagined someday that I would have a child of my own who would want to brush my hair, too. Today, out of the blue, Griffin decided he needed to give me a “haircut” with the scooper from a backhoe loader. He carefully combed my hair and made spritzing sounds as he said, “Givin’ you a haircut!” I think that’s as close as I’m going to get with him, and I’ll take it.

Heart Breaking Honesty

Griffin and I just returned from a nearly two week trip to California (which we’ll post more about soon). Andrew came, too, but only for about five days of it. We returned in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, and Andrew took off for a conference Wednesday afternoon. He’ll be returning Saturday. Needless to say, it’s been a major disruption to our normal routines, and in particular, our sense of togetherness as a family. Griffin is definitely missing his daddy.

This morning after our shower/bath, Griffin was all snuggled up in his towel on my lap, and he put his head on my shoulder and said, “I have a sad face.” I asked him why, and he said after a long pause, “I need Daddy,” and let out a big sigh. It nearly cracked me in half.

I think we’re all looking forward to some family time starting Saturday night. Come home to us safely and soon, love!

Wedgies

Things to remember:

  • Griffin lately has been telling a story and then saying, “‘Member that?” (“Remember that?”) and then cracking up. If you say, “No, I don’t remember that,” he’ll say, “No…yes, I do!” Today at lunch, Griffin was telling a story, “‘Member that?” and then proceeded to say, “No sit! No sit! No sit!” over and over again, which, with his pronunciation sounded a lot more like, “No shit! No shit!” His story was just so dramatic and full of animation, Andrew and I couldn’t help but crack up.
  • On his way up to bed, Griffin pulls at the back of his underwear and says, “Look! I made a wedgie!”
  • Calling up from playing alone in the basement: “Daddy! I want to play Legos with my son Griffin!”
  • Spotting a nearly full moon: “Look! The moon! I can see a whole world in there!”
  • A little unclear on the pronouns: “Daddy come play with you?” (when he means me)
Andrew and Griffin built this together with lots of patience!
  • “Fank ouuuu!” (Thank you)
  • While folding laundry, Griffin puts on a pair of my underwear and proclaims, “Look! I’m fancy!”
Mr. Fancy Pants

 

 

The People Who Used to Blog A Lot

Hey. What happened to us over here? We used to write so much more than we have in the last few months. Heck, we didn’t even get the third leg of our huge trip to Europe *in June* properly documented, and it’s just snowballed from there. We’re feeling a little like slackers in the blogging department these days, but the lack of posts has been for an overarching big reason: we’ve been busy and life is full. We’ve been documenting lots of events with photos, but we haven’t even taken much time to sort through those…sigh. Andrew and I both really like to devote time to writing posts and making them fun for our friends and family to read, and time has seemed to be in shorter supply this autumn.

I’ve actually been thinking a lot about time and Facebook lately. As a stay-at-home parent, it has been a wonderful way for me to feel connected to people I love, to share the little daily things Griffin says or does, and sometimes (oftentimes) get immediate feedback (read: sympathy) for days that are less-than stellar. But Facebook goes away hourly. Things I write or read there are surely logged, but it’s not like a journal or this blog. I can’t really go back and reflect, and when it comes to my development as a parent and things I want to remember about Griffin’s rapid growing up, Facebook is no substitute for what we have here. This blog is absolutely for sharing with family and friends what we’ve been up to; but it is also, in many ways, taking the place of a memory book or journal that we will treasure for years. I feel like my time on Facebook has taken away some of the recording I would like to do with this blog, and I’m starting to rethink how I record our daily lives. Some of those little things that get put as status updates on Facebook are actually things I’d like to remember: Like the other day, I was in the basement doing laundry, and Griffin had stripped down naked and ran through the hall with maracas yelling, “It’s music time! It’s music time!” Or how he’s lately taken to flushing the toilet by saying, “Bye bye pee pees! Bye bye poo poos! I’m going to Griffin’s house! See ya tomorrow! Bye bye!” Or at breakfast on Friday, he asked for “more juice please? Hey Mama! I’m a good polite-er!” Those things are ending up as little anecdotes on Facebook, not being recorded for all of us to remember. I have visions of Griffin going back through our blog and reading about his life in his early years, and if I write it all down on Facebook, he’ll have nothing to read!

The point is not to give up Facebook. I think it helps me feel connected to adults in a life that is mainly devoted to toddlerhood, and I’m grateful for that. But I am going to try to change the way I blog. I’m trying something different where, instead of immediately recording little daily things on Facebook, I write them down as “Things to Remember” posts every once in a while on the blog. They won’t be the most eloquent or cohesive posts, but I think they’ll satisfy my need to record a few more memories.

And here’s one to start me off: Today, after he tried on the dragon costume I made him for Halloween, Griffin said, “I’m not a dragon anymore. I’m just a real boy.”

Our real boy dressed as a dragon.

Parrot

Griffin has become quite the little mimic lately. We’re starting to really watch what we say for fear it will be repeated in his sweet tiny voice. Here are some highlights:

Careful honey! – Griffin says this to himself whenever he’s in a precarious position or doing something I’ve told him is dangerous. It’s adorable (except for the doing dangerous things part).

‘Scuse me! – He’s gotten in the habit of saying “excuse me” to people when they are in the way of his desired path or if he accidentally steps on someone, but he’s also been saying it to plants, beds, toys, etc., as in, “Scuse me, tulip!”

Come on! – I’m not exactly proud of this one as I know it comes directly from me and my big mouth when I’m frustrated. He even uses the exact intonation and context, like when he’s trying to open a container of play dough and the lid isn’t coming off, out flies, “Come on!!” Ah, well. At least it isn’t “mother-trucker-asphalt.”

Orange sun, Mama! Good morning, Mama/Daddy! – We bought a night light for Griffin a while back that is a moon when he’s supposed to be sleeping/in his room and a sun when it’s ok to get up. It’s worked really well for us, and even the mornings when he opens his door too early and I have to remind him to wait until the orange sun appears and then he can say, “Orange sun, Mama!”, he just says, “Ok. Bye-bye!” It is just about the sweetest thing in the world to hear him exclaim in his little voice “ORANGE SUN, MAMA! GOOD MORNING!” from behind his bedroom door. He is just so happy and excited, it’s hard not to start the day with a smile.

 

Latest Words

Some of Griffin’s latest words (in no particular order)

Moon. Griffin LOVES the moon. He looks for it every time he goes outside, and he often finds it. He even found it trying to shine through the snowy sky last night as we were taking a walk, and the look on his face when I saw it, too, was priceless.

Tar. Actually “star.” We have a wooden star that we took out for the holidays that he loves seeing lit up, and now he’s pointing out stars at night, too.

Bay. Translated into “play.” As in, “Don’t be changing my diaper right now, it’s time to BAY!”

Reeeeee! READ! We do so very much reading. It’s one of Griffin’s favorite activities.

Bup-eee. Puppy. One of Griffin’s favorite stuffed animals right now is a giant one-eared yellow lab who used to be in my classroom. I brought the dog home to pillage him for stuffing sewing projects (cruel, I know), and Griffin found him and fell in love with him. So he’s a little skinny and has a missing ear, and that makes Griffin’s love for him all the more adorable. Lately, Puppy has wanted to wear a diaper (Griffin hands Puppy to me and signs ‘change diaper’) and go pee-pee on Griffin’s potty.  I’m hoping Puppy will teach Griffin to go pee-pee on the potty so I don’t have to.

Ball. Oh my goodness, Griffin can spot a ball from a mile away.

Ahh-wer. Water. Used to be ahh-wah, which sure did sound like ‘agua.’ Not sure where he’s picking up the Spanish, but I’ll take it.

Cookie. Of course, he had this one down after the first cookie he ever ate. Go figure.

Bye-bye!

Un-two-fee-four. Counting! He’s a genius! Nah, but it is cool that he’s getting the hang of it, and every once in a while he’ll have two things and he excitedly say, “Twoooooo!”

Eh-bow. Elbow. He likes pointing out body parts and elbow stuck for some reason.

Paare, Ap-pul, Nana. Pear, apple, banana, three of his favorite fruits.

Irk-le. Circle. To our surprise, he can identify a circle, square, oval, rectangle, star, crescent (moon), and triangle! It must be all of the reeeeeeeee-ing we do!

His language and communication is developing rapidly and it’s so cool to see the expression on his face when we acknowledge we understand what he’s saying. He’s also trying to use that communication to figure out the world. He likes to point out body parts and show that each of us has them. For example, he’ll point to his ears and then say “Mama” and point to my ears. The other day, we were taking a bath together and he pointed at my breast. I said, “Those are Mama’s breasts. They used to make milk for you when you were a baby. But the milk is all gone!” He seemed to think about it, signed ‘milk all gone.’ Later when we were downstairs in the kitchen, he pointed at my breast again (I was fully clothed this time, just to be clear) and said “Mama!” and signed ‘milk all gone.’ I said, “Yes! Mama’s milk is all gone!” Then he pointed at the refrigerator and signed ‘milk.’ I said, “Yes. There’s milk in the refrigerator.” Then he pointed to the refrigerator and signed ‘milk all gone’ with a questioning look on his face. And I said, “Nope! The milk in the refrigerator is still there!” At which point he looked rather relieved. Then just to be sure, he said, “Ba-ba bye-bye?” (we made him give up bottles cold turkey over a week ago), and I said, “Yes, ba-bas are bye-bye, but you can still have milk in a cup!” More relief.

This kiddo is getting more and more fun with each passing day!

MILK!!

Griffin took an early, three hour long nap today and so was getting irritable earlier than usual in the evening. He was signing for milk (which is part of our bedtime routine), but I wanted to try to keep him engaged a little longer since 5:30 would likely get us a very early wake up tomorrow. So I told him he could have milk a little later and “wouldn’t you rather play with the lincoln logs?” That worked for about a minute before he led me to the kitchen, pointed at the refrigerator and signed “milk” again. I repeated that he’d have to wait and tried to distract him with some books in the other room. He quickly lost interest in those, padded off to the kitchen and returned, laboriously lugging an unopened container of soy milk from the lower cabinet with this look on his face like, “PEOPLE! Knock it off and pay attention to me: I am trying to tell you, I want MILK!” I could not believe his tenacity and willingness to work with my apparent inability to understand his very simple request. His efforts did not go unnoticed and I quickly poured him a bottle of soy milk. We sat down in the chair and he happily listened to several stories before going to bed at his normal hour. It is seriously such a delight to watch this little toddler discover how to navigate and communicate his way through his world.

Signing

Griffin just signed “diaper change” to me for the first time, and lo and behold, his diaper did indeed need changing! This has come at a time where I’ve been getting frustrated by his increasing desires but lack of ability to communicate them to me. Yippie for baby signing!