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.
Category Archives: Griffin
Nap time
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!
Idea for Booger Storage
“Griffin, did you just pick your nose and put it in my ear???”
“Yeah, I did do that.”
Chutes & Ladders
Sarah found this amazing park shortly after we first moved here last year but it was too sophisticated for Griffin. This fall, with winter fast approaching, Griffin was able to give it a shot. He was slow and cautious at first, but quickly developed confidence and new climbing skills. It was amazing to watch him learning how to handle himself on the massive play structure. He quickly dubbed it the “super duper park.” The official name is the Hyland Play Area, but most people refer to it simply as “Chutes & Ladders.” The photos below are from our last trip on October 29, and the video is from an earlier trip on the 15th.
Old Man Griffin
Text message from Sarah in California:
Sleeping with G is like sleeping with a freaking flying walinda. Made it til 5 or so but he just had a poop on the potty! He said, “My poop’s hard. I need fiber.”
Baby
As I hope you know by now, we will be welcoming another baby into our family in April. Griffin knows there’s a baby growing in my tummy, but it’s still a little abstract for him (it kind of is for me, too, for that matter). He’s heard the heartbeat at the doctor’s office a couple of times, and since then, he enjoys laying on my chest and listening to my heartbeat. It’s a sweet snuggle time for us. I have a pregnancy book next to my bed that he likes to page through to look at the illustrations and ask, “What’s that baby doin’?” to which the answer is usually, “Well, that baby’s getting bigger and waiting to be born.” We’ve talked about umbilical cords and belly buttons, and how he grew in my tummy and I had to go to the hospital to give birth to him, how he took his first breath of air and cried and cried, and how he hasn’t always had words, or been able to walk and jump. He’s seen pictures of himself as a baby, but I don’t think he’s made that much of a connection until today, when we spent about 20 minutes watching videos of him as an infant. He was absolutely fascinated, and admittedly, so was I. The earliest one I easily found was of him rolling over, and he requested to watch it at least eight times. Each time, I marveled at how very, very much he has developed in two and a half years. I see who he is now in those videos of him as an infant; he has the same laugh and expressions, and I feel like I have a better sense of what he may have been thinking then. But most of all, it made me so grateful to have this kid in my life who delights me and frustrates me and makes me laugh and cry and overall, makes me a better person (even though his behavior pushes me into my own tantrums some days). What a miracle it is that this child, who came into the world completely helpless, now zooms on his bike down the sidewalk “like a rocketship!”, recognizes letters and numbers, sings songs, and does many, many things “all by myself.” I think it was a gift to both of us to take the time to sit and watch those videos today; it deepened both of our understandings of who Griffin has become, and I think today, I really needed that.
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)
- “Fank ouuuu!” (Thank you)
- While folding laundry, Griffin puts on a pair of my underwear and proclaims, “Look! I’m fancy!”
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.”
The Eighth Wonder of the World
Just an hour from the Twin Cities lies a site that is definitely cooler than the Colossus, more magnificent than the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus (who’s heard of that anyway?), and nearly as charged with New Age Energy as the Great Pyramid. Plus it is toddler-friendly, has pink picnic tables, and is totally entirely FREE.
See for yourself:
At first glance this mid-size, older model fridge might not appear to be in the same class as the Hanging Gardens, but look more closely:
Are you kidding me? In post-Jerry-Garcia America there’s an unlocked, unattended refrigerator filled with Freezee Pops and a “Suggested Donation” sign? Even after wandering the rest of this amazing, soul-salving site, I think this fridge did the most to reaffirm my faith in humanity.
Ok, enough shenanigans. It’s taken me a while to post the pics, but earlier this month we drove out to the Franconia Sculpture Park with Griffin and had a fabulous day. For those of you not in the know, it’s a 20-acre site in the middle of nowhere (by urban standards—cornfields all ’round), filled with incredible, humongous modern sculpture. Places like this make Minnesota oh-so-easy to fall in love with.
Here are some of our favorite pictures. Click to expand.
