Flossing

Ahhh flossing...

G took an interest in our flossing around 6 mo and just a few weeks ago we started giving his own peice to him (he is nearly 16mo now). He is a great flossing mimic. He also has his own toothbrush, toddler style with a big chunky handle, and no toothpaste yet. He loves getting ready for bed and flossing with mommy and daddy.

He mostly gums the toothbrush but lets me do a quick one two on top then bottom. I feel really good about it for now.

He also has started signaling with his hands that he needs the potty by pointing to his underwear. Right now it is hit or miss... he signals just after he has wet and just before he needs to go. This morning he played in bed a bit then signaled he needed to go. Since he was dry I really moved fast... and we had a success. This is just a great developement and has me thinking that definately by 2 he will be fully trained.

He is reading/saying the word "Clock" now. He is also taking small electronics apart and seeing how they go together, like the flashlight, remote control(now broken) and computer mouse.

At the dinner table - no kidding - he will sometime ask for a napkin, put it in his lap, and at times reach for it to wipe his mouth and then tuck it back in his lap!!! Too cute! Then there are the many times he throws the napkin and the rest of his uneaten dinner on the floor for Bluew :-(

Learning Tower Hurray

G's brother Nate is a fine carpenter! All I did was ask what he thought of trying to make something like what I have seen on the internet and wha-la! instant kitchen stand sutable for adventuring athletic little boys, and girls...


The chair was G's idea and he put it in place all by himself.

He is also trying his hat at reading.... "hat" and "cat", "clock" and "block". He points to these items in a reading primer and shouts out the word. I think I've also heard him attempt to say "G", "crap" :-( and "duck".

A Wew Toy

GMan now has eight teeth. Today he started to say the word "hat". He makes motor sounds whenever he sees a truck or motorcycle and when he sees the occasional loud muscle car. He has a new stand for in the kitchen which he loves - it doubles as a fort. Pictures coming. He helped daddy put it together - I accidently deleted tons of picture of G helping to stick screws into all the holes.

Dog Walker

The handsom dog walker.

GrandMas Play!

Magic Tunnel
I mean Magic!. I bought this at KB toys on a whim knowing that G is getting more and more physical. This is not just a great rainy day toy but apparently great for visitors too!. Grandma Bev and Grandpa Frank were here and it was a hoot to see Marks mother down on the ground crawling through this tunnel over and over with G! This thing will get you in shape. It is worth more than $12.99... he hasn't tired of it yet and I know it will be part of future games and forts. I can't wait to get the mileage out of this.

First Haircut

First Haircut, about a week ago.

Before

After

Potty "Training"

So the other day Grady did all this by himself and pottied in his toilet... with his underwear still on. I was thrilled!!! He just hit 15 months old.

The Challenges of Christmas

Hey - I forgot to mention in my Christmas wish list message other likes of G's besides books. (Book are getting big). He loves cars and things with doors, switches and knobs. He loves to climb. He likes things that have big chunky interlocking parts, or where a part hides inside another.... lots of dexterity, thinking and creativity. He likes Raffi too.

For the record I kinda hate loud cartoon stuff. Where is the creativity in that? Also not a fan of things with many little parts since I can get compulsive about the cleanups. (Lincoln Logs appear to be my limit)

baking a Cake

  G helped move the flour around and mix in the buttermilk.


I tried to alter a traditional recipe for a Sally Falon style result... soaking the grain. This is s two day process. All in all it worked out well.G enjoyed eating the baked results too.

Here is the long awaited (staged) Halloween pictures of Grady.
He was a Snowman, we walked around our complex to kinda show it off, not really trick-or-treat. We came home with a little candy anyway. Oh boy now when he sees or hears a candy wrapper.... watch out.
I didn't have a pattern for this costume so it came out a bit big. I sure had a lot of fun throwing it together - reminded me of the good old SCA garbing days. Hey Mom thanks for the sewing machine.

Shameless - a link resource

Hey everybody - its that time of year where I fantasize about what toys I might buy for G the coming holidays. For those of you with kids of your own I suggest you check out some of the links I will provide in todays message. I have been collecting online toy store links for about a year now and some of them are pretty cool. One I was visiting today sells pretend cracked eggs and catagorizes toys by which country they are made in.

For those of thinking about what to get G this year I'd like to share some of his preferences here. In light of recently learning how to sign "book" he is discovering story time which has taken some effort. Until two days ago the only story he would sit through was "There is a Monster at the End of this Book - Staring lovable furry old Grover". Two nights ago he sat spell bound while I read to him From Richard Scary's "What Do People Do All Day" from the section about taking a plane trip (very interesting).

As his mommy I'm obviously concerned about "Made in China" toys, but I also feel that a lot of these smaller toy companies are able to better monitor the quality of the product coming from China. Most people I know don't seem to realize for example that although Melissa and Doug toys are really cool they are made in China. So how do we decided where to draw the line. Perhaps Melissa and Doug is becoming a mass produced product line, maybe there is room for concern. Personally I want to believe their pledge, which I've seen on their toys before this lead thing came to light. They promise a high standard of safety checks on all their toys.

Ok here are all the cool toy companies I have collected.
Oompa Toys
Willow Tree Toys My new favorite
Rosie Hippos
Earth Easy Toy list
One Step Ahead
Gummy Lump

Also I wanted to mention that my boy is wearing clothes sizes 18mo - 2T and he has big feet, I think they are as big as his lower leg!
Here are some cool kids clothing companies.
Garden Kids
EcoBaby
Sckoon
Organic Consumers Listing

For those who haven't heard, I just want to let you know that we will be spending Christmas and Bodhi Season here in Pooler.

Cameras and Dragons

Major Camera Malfunction. I can't get the camera to acknowledge the picture card is inside it and properly formatted. I was letting G take pics and then.... boom. DEAD camera.

Here is it's last picture of G man.

Here is a picture of his Rocking Dragon! This is a gift from Grandpa Bob. Aparently it was at a yardsale and he picked it up for $1. I know alot of folks out there in SCA land would happily pay twenty or more for it.



I have some pics from visiting with Jennifer but so far I haven't figured out how to shrink their file sizes so blogger will accept them. If you are someone who knows how to do this please send me a brief email.

Also G can now say "dad", "dog", and "no" and "hi" and I recently taught him to sign "book" and "thank you". He is also working on how to say sorry when he bites us. He seems to regret the impulse.

For Halloween he was a snowman! He actually got a few pieces of candy because we paraded him around the apartment complex. I think he was the only trick or treater here! All the big kids went next door to the neighborhood.

Relocation

Wow! Sooo much has happened. Sorry for the long delay. Many have encouraged me to keep this up and so I shall.G holding Tys hand. We stayed with Tyler and his mommas, bro and Dad as part of our big move. G had a wonderful time. While we were there we packed up and went to Emerald Isle and took some great five generation photos and vacationed with Gs brothers.

A lot has changed in G in the last month. He broke through 3 teeth during our move, he started saying "uh ooh!' all the time and then he had his first plane flight to Maryland. He was a dream passenger thanks to chewing on lots of raisins and nursing.

While in Maryland he perfected saying "mama" and tried out "dog" and "anna" for aunt Lindsey. When we got back home he started using sign language and now asks to "eat", "nurse" and for "more" in addition to "bye bye" and his own special sign for "music". We also visited with Aunt Jennifer, who sang with the Army Chorus of Germany. We almost suprised her... oh well.


G also had a few playdates with some of Mommas friends babies. Hi Sabina and Rebecca.... Hi Mel and Madeline!


He has now taken up an interest in walking the dogs and insisted several times that he be given the leash and he should hold them and take the dogs out, which isn't easy since he wants to hold the leash and walk upright going down the stairs. He has also tackled 8 ft tall slides and readily climbs up to them and goes down no problem, no fears.

This last weekend we took him to Tybee Island, "the" beach near Savannah where he enjoyed playing in the surf while holding daddy's pant leg. We all also visited the UU Church on Sunday and found a great park with some big slides right around the corner from the church. Boy oh Boy is the city a beautiful place - ya gotta come see us!

Picture of the beach trip soon comming.

Young Life

G's last playdate with birthday Buddy Chloe before our big move to Georgia.
This Tomas the Train is from Great Grandma Judy.
What a terrific head shot ;-)

The L118

G on our John Deere - before it goes bye bye.

Red Rocking Chair

Thanks Grandma Beverly for the Rocking Chair!

A Colander

Learning to climb up on to things to sit and stand or climb into things to see if he fits, G entered this phase by going into my cooking cabinet grabbing my biggest colander  He dragged it to the living room and sat in it (out of the blue!).

HAPPY BIRTHDAY G Man!

G One Year Ago.

And here are some pics from His Birthday Party. The neighbors came, and other special friends drove from around town and the birthday buddies got to be together on their birthdays, yea! (Carrot Cake of course!)

Chandi with Chloe and Amanda with GMan

The Great Chaos

We went to Charelston this last weekend. Here you can see the Baby Factory that we are hard at work. So wonderful to see little ones getting along so far. For his birthday Grady got a really cool vegetable cutting toy... you can see it in some of the pics (Thank You).
Here are all the guys, left to right Nate with Ami, Mark with Grady, Taran next to Eric with Tyler.
Ami is six months old, Grady is nearly 12 months old and Taran is nearly five years old and Tyler is one month old.

Grover

The Monster at the End of This Book

Walking Practice

G threw his shoes at me playfully and then sat down in front of me a wiggled his foot... so I put his shoes on him. Then he went running about in them, practicing I guess :-)

Blackberries

I really shouldn't put off any longer telling you all how much G-Man LOVES the wild blackberries growing in our yard. At first he looked at me like I was crazy when I picked them and ate them, offered them to him and told him they were food. Then after about a week of that (this is over a month ago) he reached for one in my hand and popped it in his mouth! He has been insatiable ever since. I pick berries regularly and store them in the freezer to make jam some day soon, but this little guy won't let them stay in the bucket. No Kidding, he grunts and moans when they are really juicy and can't get enough. He's ever started putting more than one in his mouth at a time. And THIS is really where we are with solid food introduction. His diet it maybe 10% blackberries, 10% cheerios and 80% breast milk. It's been just wild. He does eat other things and now that the berries are running out he is trying other fruits more like blueberries, mangos, and cherries. He Also really likes the cucumbers from the garden and goat cheese.

Now what is really funny is I have found some Elderberry in our backyard and I've decided to pick and save those up for jam too. G reached for one of the umbels of berries and then - this is really cute - tipped his head back and tried to eat them right off it. It was very much like a Roman with a bunch of grapes to me. He likes elderberries too now!

Awww...

Emerald Isle

My new favorite picture of GMan... we are fast approaching his eleventh month mark! We had a lot of fun on the beach and at GrandMa/ Great GrandMa Judy's front porch. GMan is not a big fan of the Ocean yet but after watching some older kids play he wanted to try walking with us in the surf. A suprise wave kinda ended that abruptly. Sorry we just don't have any Baby on the Beach pictures for you yet. He's probably been 4 times and each time we forget the camera :-(

Somebody's in Trouble

Great GrandMa Judy's placemats drawer...

Heather hanging out with Grady

Mama and I picked food from the garden, and I like to try it out right away. Cucumbers are pretty yummy.

HAPPY Fourth Of July

GMan does not like fireworks. Even the ones on TV were a little overwhelming. Luckily Mark was there to be daddy and protect him from some of it. The neighbors shot off fireworks till 11 pm so it was a long stressful evening.

Table Find

Handsom boy, and a great little table we found at the Goodwill for $5!

Some of the First Steps

GMan has started walking.

Yesterday looked to be the day, but due to unforseen visit to the ER for Mark GMan had to spend the majority of the day being held and kept off the floor (yucky hospital floor!). A few hours after we came home (with Mark who is sick with unknown stuff, gotta love Dr.s for trying) Grady just started walking around the room, turning directions, recovering from stumbles and everything.
"Look Out" world here he comes!

Hey all thanks again for checking out my blog, clicking on the adds and earning me a few pennies. Please check out my links in your spare time, there are new articles and web sites added from time to time. The list just gets longer and longer. Thanks to Mark for the latest addition.

Fathers Day

Happy Fathers Day!
A dip in the neighbors pool. Cute little splash pool about 2 inches deep.

"Toys"

New favorite "toy", CDs DVDs and the tricky plastic cases they come in.