Category Archives: Griffin

Daddy Afternoon

It’s our first full day in Boulder, hanging out with Alli and Nik.  After a very cranky breakfast, we put Griffin down for a much-needed nap.  Auntie Alli and Sarah went shopping and Nik headed out to a meeting, so I was left in charge while Griffin slept.  After he awoke, we had a super-fun afternoon!

First, we went and got the laundry from the laundromat downstairs.  To Griffin’s immense excitement, while investigating behind the trash can, he discovered a huge dirty plunger.  Fun!

Then we went back to the apartment and decided that folding all the laundry was a bore… so we had choices: lunch or swimming.  We decided on swimming.  The pool was cold, but Griffin had a blast.  There were inner tubes and a ball that he kept throwing into the water.  And there was a puddle on the deck to splash in.  I was a bit nervous heading down there, because Griffin has no sense of self-preservation when it comes to the water… he’ll happily walk right off the edge into the water.  But we were in sync this time, and had fun exploring the whole environment. He seemed to understand the concept of the stairs better this time — he knew that he had to stay on the first two steps.  (Later, however, he did try to make a sudden leap into the deep end.)

After swimming we were hungry.  Griffin happily ate a piece of bread, half a banana, turkey, ham, cheddar cheese, and even a bit of pesto.  Yum.

Then, of course, it was time for a stroll around the courtyard.  More fun, and Griffin was happy to smile for the camera.  (See the pics below.)  It feels pretty good to have only one responsibility: being Dad.

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!

Happy Birthday Raven!

Raven’s real birthday (her fourth) was on Friday, but she celebrated it today with a fabulous party at Kids In Motion.  I had no idea that such a cool place was only a short walk from our house.  It’s like a huge padded gym for toddlers, featuring a massive trampoline, balls, balloons, rocking things, bouncing things, swinging things, sliding things… all the good stuff.  It was awesome.  I’ve posted a full set of photos in our gallery, with some highlights below.

Dangling Max
Dangling Max
Griffin had a blast.
Griffin had a blast!
Raven on the rope
Raven on the rope.
Zoe looking exceptionally cute.
Zoe looking exceptionally cute.
Raven helping Max down the scary slide.
Raven helping Max down the scary slide.
Cutest grin ever.
I don't know either of these two guys, but is that not the cutest look you've ever seen???
Besties
Besties!
Burrito Monster
Burrito Monster
Nancy with the cake.
Nancy with the cake.

Words

Griffin has been a babbling brook of sounds lately. I wanted to jot a few down before he actually starts reciting poetry because knowing this noggin of mine, I’ll have a hard time remembering what seems like unforgettable information.

Da-da: First word! We initially thought this was only in reference to Andrew, but we soon realized he was not really that discriminating and everything was da-da for a while.

burr: bird (this used to be any kind of animal, but now is pretty much exclusively birds)

bah: ball, balloon, anything round and ball-like

buh: book

da-da, daddy: Daddy

ma-ma: Mommy

nanna: banana

dah: dog

mah: more

sshhh: fish

muck: milk

Revolution

Griffin with Mixer
Griffin helps by watching the mixer

Today I made banana walnut muffins with Griffin, and it was truly a transformative experience. This may seem like the beginning of a silly anecdote, but I am totally serious. It really opened my eyes to the fact that my child is ready for things I didn’t know he was capable of.

The idea of involving him in making muffins (which I was going to do regardless) transpired after reading a book called Sign With Your Baby and watching the corresponding DVD. I’ve been working on signing with Griffin since returning from full time work, and already he’s picked up more, milk, and all done. I wanted a little more guidance, though, and so turned to these resources. The babies in the video were communicating on such a sophisticated level that it motivated me to first, learn more signs so I can introduce them to Griffin, and second, really involve Griffin in everyday experiences so we can have more opportunities to communicate and experience things together. Muffin making this afternoon seemed like the perfect chance to start. I thought at the very least he’d be fascinated by the mixer!

Griffin with Oven
Griffin watches the muffins baking in the oven

I put him in a little apron and pulled the step stool up to the counter. He watched me measure the flour, sugar, and other dry ingredients and put them into the mixer. He listened to my warnings not to put his hands near the moving parts, and was indeed taken with the sound and movement. Next, we worked on the wet ingredients, which were set aside next to another bowl. This is where the magic started happening. I was standing behind him while he was standing on the step stool: I cracked the eggs in front of his face, which elicited an excited, “ooooooooh!” I brought out the egg beater, and we spun it together, hand over hand, to beat the eggs. He giggled. He poured in the milk and yogurt without spilling! We stirred it together with a wooden spoon. I showed him how to mash the bananas with his hand and put them in the bowl, and to my amazement, he did it unaided. This was by far his favorite part. He was laughing with every squish and signed more! when he was done. I crushed the walnuts, and he dutifully put the walnuts in the batter, one by one, after I’d combined the wet and dry ingredients.

He did get banned from actually filling the muffin tins since he wanted to stick his hand in every single one, but this is only the first of many collaborative cooking efforts; I’m sure we’ll get to a point where he will be able to help every step of the way.

Griffin with Muffin
Griffin enjoys the fruits of our collaboration

Better Than A Dog

Andrew and I are both dog people.  Before getting married, we talked pretty seriously about getting a dog, but then we got engaged, were working full time (plus I was working another part time job), planning a wedding, driving across the country, getting married…you get the picture.  It didn’t seem fair to get a dog if we couldn’t devote the time we both thought a dog deserved.  “Maybe after we’re married,” we both said.  Then I got pregnant.

Now that Griffin has been in our lives for over a year, we’ve been talking about how we’d love to have a dog someday. . .like when Griffin can take care of it.  But we’ve also been thinking, “Who needs a dog when you have a baby?”  The parallels are more than you might imagine.  Griffin likes to:

  • unroll and shred the toilet paper
  • eat everything, especially non-food items
  • get into the recycling and garbage
  • go for walks
  • pee on the rug
  • run around in the backyard
  • lap up water from puddles

And yesterday, we discovered he loves the sprinkler!  Check out the video:

Of course, a dog can’t say “Mama” or “Dada,” and a dog certainly won’t sit on your lap and listen to you read stories while he turns the pages.  And even though Griffin likes to pull all the books off of the bookshelves and reorganize the tupperware all over the kitchen floor, we think he’s a keeper and better than any dog we could have imagined.