Johnson Doodles: February 2014

We had the incredibly hard task of saying goodbye to Mrs. Ray Ray a couple of weeks ago. Rachel or "Ray Ray" as Grady calls her was with our family from the day I went back to work after maternity leave in December up until the moment she left town for new adventures that await her in North Dakota. We miss her dearly already.

When we first started looking for a nanny, I was perhaps a little insecure knowing that I work long hours and knowing that whomever we chose for Grady would see him much more than I would. It seems silly and just so insecure, but I worried that Grady wouldn't know me as his mom. That all changed when we met Rachel and I threw my insecurities out the window like the bad habit that they were. I was no longer insecure I was just excited for Grady that he got to spend his days with such a warm, loving, energetic and sweet second mother. Rachel was just that, a second mother to our Grady for over a year of his life. She loved him like he was hers and he loved her just the same. They were two peas in a pod for the time we had Rachel as she navigated each day (and each tantrum) with patience and grace that I admire so much. To hear him squeal "Ray Ray" each morning when she came to the door was the cutest thing ever. She taught Grady boy so much and did so with such joy. She made it possible for me to go back to work in those early baby days and every day since because I knew Grady was in such wonderful hands. Simply put, she was an angel and we will never forget her. After bawling like someone had run over my puppy for a few days straight, I finally came to my senses and realized the gifts Rachel gave us will live on in the smart spunky little boy that she helped raise. We love you Ray Ray and we are so thankful that you chose our family to share your love with.

After a short search we did find a new nanny who seems smitten with Mr. Grady already. Mrs. Kayla is also wonderful and will be great for Grady, but our dear sweet Ray Ray will always hold a special place in our heart.

Version 1.5, version 1.5?!?! Why is my baby growing up so fast. Despite my utter shock at how fast Grady is growing up, I can tell you that I absolutely love 1.5. Grady is a fun, talkative, inquisitive, active, climbing, jumping, spirited, firecracker of a little boy. He lives life with great enthusiasm in both the high and the low moments. There is no need to guess how he feels about something. If he loves it, he'll let you know and if he hates it he'll REALLY let you know. He threw a lovely tantrum at his last Dr. visit and our sweet doctor looked at me and told me "I know it is hard now, but it will serve him well later in life." I agree, if Grady can channel all of his energy and inner fire, he's going to have an awesome life. He is not going to be a boring child to watch grow up that is for sure. We love you Grady boy, every little bit of spark and all.

Here are the Grady tid bits at 1.5:

At last visit at 17 mos, he measured 33.3 inches tall (85%), 23.8 pounds (50%) and had a head circumference of 18.8 inches (63%).
He's got big feet. He's in a size eight.
He talks... and talks... and talks. He is constantly jabbering and picking up new words every day. Rather than just communicating wants and needs he'll now tell us his thoughts, which has been an amazing transition to watch. It sounds like such a basic thing, but I am amazed when I ask him, did you play on the bars at the gym, expecting him to answer with "yesh" and he instead he says "bars boo (because they play peek-aboo), bubbles, balls, fun." When you look at Grady you can see his wheels are always turning and his new ability to express himself has allowed us a little window into his active little mind.
His longest sentence and one he says often is "Ray Ray car beep beep ba bye wheel wheel wheel", when he is trying to describe Mrs. Rachel leaving (more on that later). He's also starting to regularly string other words together "come here", "all done please", "mama sit".
His favorite number by far is the number two. If you have two of anything, he will make sure you know it. Two cups, two socks, two shoes, two lights, there are lots of pairs of things out there.
Sometimes he reverses sounds in the cutest way. For instance, a remote is a "mote-re" and a top is a "pot".
My favorite words right now are "sunsigh" (sunshine), "octpu" (octupus) and "yehyoh" (yellow).
He's got ears like an eagle. If he is sitting eating at the table and plane flies by outside, he'll stop eating to say "airplane". If the washer clicks on, he'll stop what he is doing to say "wash." If the coffee pot starts to drip, he'll say "hot." Either I am going deaf or he is just really in tune with sounds because I never hear any of these things until he makes me notice them.
He is currently in bottle detox. At a year and a half we decided it was time to move towards a bottle free lifestyle. It is going better than expected, but I expected the worst. I tried the weening off approach, but it went like this: "baba, empty, more, baba, more, empty, MORE!!!!" (said while holding his bottle upside down and shaking it with tears and a pouty lip).
He has a great memory. If you do something once, you better be prepared to do it again because days later he will still be asking about it. Also if he bangs his head or knee on something for the next several days when he walks past whatever he hurt himself on, he will point and say "owe, no no."
His teacher at little gym calls him a jumping prodigy as she reminds the other parents that 2 is generally the milestone for being able to jump with Grady. Not sure that jumping is really where I want my kid to excel at due to the associated safety hazard, but the kid does love to jump.
Aside from jumping his very favorite pastimes include spinning until he looks like a drunken sailor, eating raisins, dipping his fingers in ketchup, perching himself on the highest most dangerous thing he can find, carrying the heaviest thing that he can find around the house (including laptops, large pans, and stationary toys) saying "heavy", swimming in the bath, driving with the wheel wheel wheel, unloading our pots and pans and "cooking" with them, and eating anything with sugar that he can get his mits on.
He has already saved our house by pointing to dada's BBQ, which was bursting with flames and yelling at us "hot hot hot", which neither Chris or I had noticed.
When coloring one day, I was telling him the colors one by one and he would look at me or try to repeat them. I was going on saying pink, blue yellow, white, and when I said orange, he looked at me and asked "eat?" His little brain is always thinking and putting concepts together.
On his tippy toes, he can open and close doors and loves playing peek-a-boo behind the doors.
He loves giving hugs and kisses freely now and still starts them from across the room running and then semi-slamming into our faces.
He is a mama's boy. I'll admit that most of the time I don't mind that one bit but when I am trying to get something done and he is holding on to my leg screaming at the top of his lungs, I could live without it.
Speaking of mama, half the time he refers to me as "mommy" rather than "mama" and he has also started to call Chris daddy, one more sign that our little boy is leaving his baby days behind.