Dear Graham, Week 34

Dear Graham,
Today's letter looks a little different...that's because it's all about blue bonnets. Yes, I am dedicating an entire letter to flowers. And yes, I'm fully aware that you are a boy. Ever since we found out I was pregnant with you, I couldn't wait to take your pictures in the famous fields of Texas wildflowers. I know, most parents would probably look forward to other, more important milestones, say like walking or talking. But me, I've been checking the wildflower websites daily to see when these blue beauties were going to make an appearance.

So, this past weekend we went on a Sunday drive out toward Brenham, Texas in pursuit of blue bonnets. And for the first 30-plus miles outside of Houston, I have to admit I was getting a bit worried that we might be too early for the season. However, I put on a brave facade for your daddy, who was wondering more and more by the mile if I had truly lost my mind. Fortunately for both of us, you were sleeping soundly in the backseat and unaware of the impending doom that existed if we drove this whole way and couldn't find any blue bonnets.

Fortunately for all of us, we came upon it: a glorious field of Texas blue bonnets. We shouldn't have worried about being able to spot them; cars belonging to other anxious picture taking parents were lining the roads.

You woke up as we came to a stop and I couldn't wait to snap your pictures. Except, your normal "I smile around the clock personality" apparently decided to stay in Houston. The baby we got out of the car was serious, studious and not about to flash a smile. Despite how silly mommy looked when trying to make you grin. I'm not exaggerating when I say we took 200 pictures of you. And here are the only smiles (this includes the coercive tickling smile too):









You grab for anything in your reach these days, and blue bonnets were no exception. You love to study things and examine everything around you, which made trying to get you to actually look up at us for a picture extremely difficult.








You were even patient when we tried your new hat on you:



And when mom and dad joined in on the fun:





But that's okay, despite not wanting to cooperate with us for your inaugural blue bonnet photo shoot, we had a great time during this process. And I'm already counting down the days until we can do it again next year. (Or, until I can convince your daddy to go again in a few weekends.)

Love,
Mommy

Dear Graham, Week 33

Dear Graham,
I thought I’d use this week’s post to tell you what a “day in your life” looks like these days. I chose a weekend day since that’s when we get to spend the most time together.



4:45 a.m.-7:00 a.m. – Yes, these ungodly hours do exist on a weekend day. Despite our pleas to get you to sleep in, your wake up time remains sporadic. Just when you think mommy and daddy are getting a bit too comfortable in our new roles of sleeping through the night, you like to change things up a bit and vary your wake up time. For some reason you think it’s cool to get more sleep on weekdays when mommy has to wake you up and then on weekends you want to maximize our time together and wake up before the rooster. And, yes, your daddy did take you outside at 6:00 on Saturday morning to show you that the sun wasn’t even up yet. Judging by your wake-up time on Sunday morning, I don’t think you got the message.

5 minutes after wake-up a.m. – First bottle of the day.

Post-bottle until 8:00 a.m. – Play time! Play these days involves sitting up and playing with as many toys as you possibly can at one time. And the more noise those toys can make, the better.



As you sit on your blanket and play, if there are any toys out of you reach you stretch and reach to get them or roll to get them.

Which means sometimes we find you like this:


Or like this:


8:00 a.m. – Oatmeal time. Oatmeal became the replacement for rice cereal when you decided to go on the rice cereal strike. Apparently it tastes much better to you.

8:30 a.m.-9:00 a.m. – While most people may just be waking up on their weekend day off, this is your time to lay down for a nap. If you woke up extra early, you get a bottle before naptime, which tends to make you very drowsy. But if it’s not bottle time yet, you always fight sleep at first. And your first line of defense is to be as vocal as you can. Because apparently if you’re talking, you know you’re not sleeping. So you coo and jabber and fuss and sigh and do just about anything you can to make noise. But eventually your heavy eyes give in and we put you in your crib when you’re just about asleep.

10:30 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. – Wake up time! You often wake up refreshed and ready to go for the day. If you didn’t have a bottle before sleep, now’s the time.



11:00 a.m. – Time for more play. This time it’s time to play in the jumperoo, which you love. You spend time hopping up and down while grinning ear to ear.

Noon – Lunch time. Lunch these days consists of either a fruit or a vegetable. This weekend you tried mango for the first time and loved it. (Notice a trend here?)

1:00 p.m. – Time for nap number two. See notes above for nap number one.

2:00-3:00 p.m. – Wake up time! We normally find you cooing away in your crib after your naps, telling us you’re ready for us to come and play. We love the smiles you reward us with when we come into your room.

3:00 p.m. – Bottle time and then more play time. This time we go outside to get outdoor time in. This may include a walk to the neighborhood park to swing, a run in the jogging stroller or playing outside on a blanket. After outside time is done, we read, watch a Baby Einstein if mommy and daddy are trying to get something accomplished, or spend more time sitting up and playing. (By the way, I’m starting to think you may never crawl because you hate laying down and playing now. Laying down is sooo for littler babies and you’re a big baby now. Plus, by laying down you may miss out on seeing the action that’s going on around you. So instead you want to sit up and play all of the time.)

5:30 p.m. – Time to start thinking about a bath if it’s bath night. Again, you love, love, love your baths.

6:00 p.m. – Dinner! Dinner is another bowl of oatmeal and then a fruit or a veggie, the opposite of what you had for lunch.







6:30 p.m. -7:00 p.m. – Time for the bedtime routine. Bedtime routine includes playing classical lullabies, reading a story if you’re not too tired, putting you in your sleep sack, giving you a bottle, and prayers. I love rocking you before bedtime because you’re often truly tired and so you’re still. All throughout the day you’re too alert to be still, but in those special 10 minutes before bed I get to hold you and cuddle with you. I repeatedly try to freeze these still frames in my mind because you’re growing up more and more each day.

Love,
Mommy

Dear Graham, Weeks 31 and 32

Dear Graham,

I wish I had a better excuse for combining your letters this week, but in reality, it’s just life. That and you are more and more interactive these days, which makes me want to spend every moment that we’re together actually playing with you. This means those moments when you’re sleeping have been reserved for doing things like laundry, eating, cleaning and showering. You know, those important things that ensure our friends and coworkers actually want to be around us.

(Hey, not every picture can feature a smile!)

Your pediatrician’s office gave us a book before you were born that answers all kinds of different questions about infants and babies. This is so crazed mommies and daddies that get a crash course into parenthood those first few sleep-deprived weeks don’t call the doctor’s office at all hours of the day to ask about the abnormal color of babies’ poop. This book has been a gem and it’s often one of the first resources we consult. (And then we read Baby 411, compare the two for their similarities, differences and Graham-isms, proceed to have long conversations about which is most applicable, and ultimately walk away with no true answer, but comforted by the fact that you’re normal. But enough about our neurotic research tendencies; back to the pediatrician’s book.) At the very back of the book, they publish milestones you are to be hitting on a monthly basis. We get so excited when you demonstrate one of those milestones a month or two ahead of time. And then we tend to shy away from those that you’re not quite up to par with yet (i.e. when you were to be rolling over at 3 months. Or 4 months.).

However, this month you nailed your 7-month milestones to the point that if grades were given, you’d earn a 100%. One of which is banging your toys. I think you’re trying to get extra credit on this one by finding the loudest possible toy that you can bang against the hardest possible surface. And, to borrow a word from Charlie Sheen for a pop culture reference that you’ll be clueless about, you’re definitely “winning” with your combination of your stackable bath cups against the ceramic bath tub. You still love taking baths, but baths have taken on a whole new meaning (and decibel level) for mommy and daddy with your discovery of banging.

One of my favorite new tricks of yours isn’t in any book. Again, we have enjoyed such nice weather the past few weeks that every day we do something outside together. And over the past few weeks you’ve started to notice birds. You hear them first, and look straight up into the sky to locate where they are. If you can find them in your range of sight, you follow them as they soar through the skies. Once you can no longer see them, you hold your gaze there, wondering if they might come back. While it sounds so simple, it’s one of my favorite things to watch you do because it involves so many different thoughts. It’s like I can see your synapses firing away as you process this new discovery.

You still haven’t met a food you didn’t like, and I told your Grahamma it’s because of my good cooking. Over the last two weeks you’ve tried pears, green beans and zucchini, all of which you’ve gobbled right up. I’ve enjoyed making your baby foods from scratch and watching you as you taste the new things that I created. Hopefully you’ll still like such a variety of foods as you grow up.

Over the last month or so, when holding you, you will reach toward our face with a wide open mouth and give a “kiss” on our cheeks. For awhile, I just thought you were trying to get my face in your mouth, since you put everything you come across in your mouth. It took me awhile to realize this was actually a sign of affection and you often give your “kisses” after mommy and daddy kiss your cheeks. We love the wet, slobbery mess you leave behind.

Love,

Mommy