Tag Archives: milestones

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!

First Bouncy House!

This weekend we were at Gustavus for Grandma Pam’s birthday (and the homecoming football game) and Griffin got to enjoy his first bouncy house.  He was definitely the youngest kid going into it, and Sarah and I were both worried that he wouldn’t be able to handle it.  (Lots of bigger kids were freaked out.)  But never ones to shy away from experimenting with our child, we tossed him in and watched.

He was in hog heaven!  It was such a joy to see… he could barely stand up, but every time he fell down he just laughed and laughed.  He eventually made it to the side where he could hold on and jump, shrieking with glee, but then he would head back into the central mosh-pit to be pummeled by larger kids, still cracking up hysterically.  We weren’t sure if he would be able to find his way out (the entrance was covered by a flap), but after about 15 minutes he bounced over to the flap and slid right out, still grinning.  We’re definitely going to do this again!

Gleeful Griffin
Notice his Gustavus regalia

First Leech!

Griffin had his first encounter with a leech this weekend at the Stocco cabin. He liked wading in the shallows which, as this photo attests, is not without peril. The sucker (ha ha) didn’t actually get a good bite, so Griffin’s little foot was unscathed. (And, once you get beyond the ick factor, leeches are pretty harmless.)

Leech!
Griffn's first leech

More photos will follow in due course (most of which aren’t gross). Tomorrow we’re moving into the new apartment which doesn’t have internet yet, so there will be more of a delay than we’d like. We’re pretty excited to finally settle into the new place!

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.

Happy Birthday Griffin!

We tried to get a cake from the bakery in Minneapolis that made Sarah's first birthday cake but it had closed long ago. However, this one was made in the same spirit, with clowns, balloons, and two coke bottles from the original cake!
Griffin doesn't quite know what it is, but he's pretty sure he wants to touch it.
Whoa, that's sweet! (Probably more sugar tonight than in his whole first year...)
I could get into this...
Sticky gooey fun!
In the end, not nearly as messy as we had expected. He didn't even put his hands in his hair. Older and wiser already!

Griffin Walks!

Griffin has been experimenting a lot with walking lately: letting go of the coffee table, taking one step and then falling to his knees in a crawl, cruising all around a chair, or holding on to a finger to barrel across the room. But TODAY he full-on walked for the first time!

I had just gotten home from work, my arms full of baby and bags. I put Griffin down on his feet next to an ottoman and threw my bags to the floor. Just as I was about to drop to the floor and join him, he turned around and walked seven or eight steps to a pile of boxes that have been waiting to be put in the storage shed. He did it all by himself!

I tried to get him to repeat his wondrous new abilities once Andrew got home from school, but the G-man still prefers crawling. It will only be a matter of time before he’s confident enough to try it again!

He Crawls! He Stands!

We’ve been neglectful blogging parents lately, but Griffin’s been making so many leaps developmentally, we can hardly keep up. Over Thanksgiving break in Santa Cruz, despite the slippery tile floors of the rental house, Griffin learned to crawl. Andrew was witness to the first official crawl (and burned his Thanksgiving cheesecakes in the midst of the excitement), as well as the first official pull-up-to-standing. It’s so amazing that Andrew has been around for these developmental milestones in spite of the fact that he’s working full time!

We had only one week between Griffin’s crawling victory and pulling up to standing, so we’re frantically baby-proofing much higher than we thought we’d initially have to. Actually, I think baby-proofing is a misnomer. It should be baby-not-going-to-get-hurt-too-badly-if-he-comes-into-contact-with-this…-ing. Thankfully he’s not very fast yet, but it’s only a matter of time.

Griffin Sits!

It seemed like just an ordinary web chat. Auntie Alli was getting caught up on all of the latest with Griffin, and he was looking cute for the camera. I kept trying to get him to do his new tricks, but he was so fascinated by the glowing red ring of the web cam, it was hard to get him to do anything other than stare. As Alli and I chatted, though, Griffin started sitting up on his own without support! Live, from the living room floor, Auntie Alli witnesses a milestone! It was quite exciting for everyone…except Griffin who acted like he’d been doing it his entire life. After we said goodbye, I played with Griffin some more on the rug, surrounding him with pillows to cushion the inevitable topple. It was then that the real fun started. Take a look:

Love At First Bite

We have crossed over into solid food, folks! Griffin is in love with bananas. He also ate some rice cereal today, but banana was the clear winner. I’ve been wanting to officially introduce him to real food, and today just happened to be the day. With six teeth already, I’m sure Great-Grandma Doris would say, “It’s about time!”

Griffin was very interested in the spoon, too!
Griffin was very interested in the spoon, too!
There's banana in there, and he ate every last bit of it!
There’s banana in there, and he ate every last bit of it!

Record Breaking Nap

I have to take a moment of what will soon be the end of the longest nap Griffin has ever taken to say how great it is to be able to have two hours in the middle of the day to do things like laundry, dishes, tidying up, and writing blog entries. Let’s hope this turns into a trend!