Easter with Great Grandma!

We spent Easter in Walla Walla with Great Grandma.  It was very special for us to introduce Graham to Great Grandma and to spend  two days at her magical house with the rest of the Johnson/Whitfield clan.  Watching the kids play and celebrate this fun holiday together was just so much fun.   Great Grandma's house is a magical place to explore and I think the kiddos all had a really great time.  For us, the best part was just sitting around enjoying a meal together with the whole family. So very much to be thankful for.

 

The kids had so much fun at Great Grandma's house.  It really was just a great family gathering where the kids could play and the adults could sit back and marvel at how wonderful it was to have 4 generations together for such a special weekend.

I love this sweet picture of the four kids.

 

Grady finally has enough of an attention span to watch a movie on the road for at least an hour or so.  This time it was Finding Nemo and we let him use headphones.  He was sitting in the backseat with a constant running commentary of what was going on  . . . "oh no, he touched the boat" . . . . "what is that mean girl at the dentist doing?", . . "Do you see those turtles mommy, do you see them?"

The first hotel stay with both boys was, um, interesting.  Grady was thrown off at first and kept asking about the hotel, "is this Walla Walla?"  and telling us, "I just want to sleep at home."  Even by the end of the trip I don't think he quite grasped that the hotel was not  actually Walla Walla but was rather in the city of Walla Walla.   Grady was low on sleep and high on sugar for the majority of the trip which made for some interesting breakfasts in the hotel lobby.  Thank goodness we had one easy child ;)

At this point Grady was still in a pack and play, but Papa offered to take him to his bead each night.  They watched YouTube videos of astronauts and hippos and spent the night sleeping in a bed!  I have slept with Grady before while trying to get him used to a bed and he insists on having at least 5 contact points with your body at all times to make sure you don't slip out of bed while he is asleep.  It is not easy.  I am sure Papa was tired, but he seemed to treasure the fact that he got to have a special sleepover with Grady boy.  In other good news, this little trip catapulted Grady into three weeks of sleeping in his own bed successfully.  We'd been telling him that after Easter his crib was going away.  We took his crib down Easter Sunday and he has been great in his bed ever since!  So proud of him for this big new accomplishment!  

 While in Walla Wall, we went for a walk around the beautiful Whitman campus.  I'd forgotten how gorgeous Whitman is, especially in the spring.

Easter itself was pretty perfect.  The Easter bunny brought Grady some new garden gloves and tools.  He was ecstatic.  It was better than Christmas, serioulsy.  In years past Grady has never made it past a couple of eggs in the egg hunt due to the unshakable distraction of the candy inside.  This year, however, Grady didn't even make it out of the starting gates for the egg hunt.  He was too distracted by his cool new garden tools and wanted to get right to work.  He had zero interest in hunting for eggs even when I tried to prod him away.  It was adorable and hysterical.  I love this little boy!

 

 

 These boys are pretty much the cutest thing ever these days, enjoying conversations about cars like two old friends.

This guy was cute as ever in his Easter getup.  He was his normal happy, very easy going self and loved his cuddle time with Great Grandma.  So much fun to celebrate those first holidays with the newest member of our family!

 We even managed a picture of all 4 of us!   It is a little squinty, but I am thrilled that we have a picture of the four of us looking in the general vicinity of a camera.  Thanks Uncle Doug!

 The trip home was filled with beautiful spring countryside views, kids who slept three plus hours, Grady's new obsession with barbecue pringles, and lots of smiles remembering a wonderful Easter holiday.

My girls

I love living in my boys world, but I am so thankful for those few and far between gatherings with my girls.   I had such a weekend in Scottsale, Arizona this spring and it was amazing.  We spent two wonderful days by a pool soaking up sun and nights out eating fabulous food and attempting to make it out afterwards.  I hesitate to say we are old, but let's just say we were much better at days by the pool than we were at making it out past midnight.  I have had almost 15 years of friendship with some of these girls and have been friends with all of them for over 12 years.  While we have many more miles between us and conversations are far less frequent than they used to be, I never feel like there is any distance between us when we get together.  I love each of these girls (and the ones that couldn't make it) and feel so so lucky to be a part of this circle of friends. On my flight home a passenger asked me, where you vacationing for Spring Break?  I thought to myself and then responded, "yup."  This felt a lot like spring break and it was awesome. What great girlfriends I have!

I am also so thankful for the wonderful husband I have who encouraged me to go away for the weekend, who handled our two little guys taking them to the zoo and fishing, and who said "it is my job to let you get away" when I got home and thanked him profusely for letting me go to Scottsdale.   What a great man I have! 

Graham: 4 & 5 Months

Graham's very favorite pose, appropriately titled in the yoga world, happy baby pose. . . perfect, for our happy little baby.

I better get this post up fast because soon our Graham will be 6 months! My return to work has obviously made spare time a little harder to come by! While I didn't get my stuff together earlier enough to do a 4 month post and a 5 month post at the appropriate times I will be backdate these post with the things I know and remember about our sweet boy in the last few months.

Graham at 4 months

• Graham's stats were:height 26 cm (70%), weights 16 pounds 5 ounces (57%) and head circumference 44.8 cm (99%, note that he is now actually on the chart in head size).

• His hair is blondish, but still not sure if it is going to be white blond like Grady, strawberry blond, or dark blond.

• His eyes are still a mystery too.  If I had to call them something, I think I would call them hazel leaning towards green.  Some days they look blue, some days, green, and some days gray.  

• I refer to him as Mr. Happy Pants because he really is one of the most smiley babies I have ever seen.  He lights up our world every single day with his sweet little grin and contagious giggle. 

• I was a little worried about his development because before 4 months he could hardly lift his head up.  We blamed it on his big head (see above), but I was secretly a little worried.  Then, like clockwork at 4 months exactly he learned how to lift his big old head up!

• At his 4 month check-up, the Dr. noted that he had a tooth.  I acted like I'd noticed, but I really had no clue.  His second tooth grew in shortly after.  Those gummy smiles left us far too soon! What baby gets teeth at 4 months?!?!?

• Along with the teeth came the drool.  Graham can soak a shirt in 2 minutes flat.

• He was making good progress about sleeping through the night until I went back to work.  Once I went back to work, he decided that he and I needed a meet up at 3:00 a.m. every night.

• He loves the baby in the mirror and having his little neck kissed.  He erupts in the sweetest little giggle ever. 
• He found his toes and especially likes to put them in his mouth when naked.  We pull off wet socks from his all the time and look at each other and ask, "How did his socks get wet?" only to realize that he has been sucking on them
• He learned to roll over from tummy to back.
• He is in 9 mos clothes and quickly outgrowing them.

Here are some shots of sweet Graham baby at 4 months.

My favorite picture of him to date, taken at 4 months to the date.

He is so content, he will just fall asleep in his little chair.

My ski lodge buddy, while Grady tried out his skis.

The beginiings of his head being up!

Visiting dad's work.

Cool dude taking his first ride as a big boy.

His cousins LOVE him.

 

Graham at 5 months.

• He eats real food, well baby food.  He has tried pears, carrots, sweet potatoes, bananas, and rice cereal.  He is a good and extremely messy eater!  He now weighs in at 17.7 lbs on the Johnson scale.
• His hair is fuzzy.  Especially the day after a bath, he has the cutest little duck fuzz going on. He doesn't have much hair but certainly more than Grady did, but that really isn't hard to beat. 
• He started sleeping through the night again - Knock on wood!   Sometimes he wakes up and just babbles in his crib happy little noises, but most nights lately he has been able to put himself back to sleep.
• He refuses to lay on the ground on his back.  He automatically rolls over to his tummy, but hasn't learned to scoot or how to roll back over so gets "stuck" and frustrated.
• He is still so sweet and easy going.  If he catches anybody's eye, he'll share the biggest smile.
• In the bath he just kicks constantly.  I don't think he likes it, but he doesn't really cry much ever so he just kick kick kicks until we get him out.
• He handled his first 4 hour car ride like a champ.  We didn't even need to stop once on the way home.
• He is officially in the "I want to put that in my mouth" stage with everything he can get his hands on and if you get a hand near him he will pull your fingers in and leave you covered in his drool.
• He  now loves to stand with us holding him up.   He doesn't seem as physically advanced as Grady, but I think part of this is just that he is a more content baby who is not in a rush to move on to the next thing.  It is a nice change up. 

Here are some shots of Graham at 5 months

Morning cuddles

 He now reaches for the Bells and seems to notice her when she is around.

Getting ready for his first feast!

Favorite pose

Sweetest pic 

My second favorite photo.  He freely gives smiles all the time. So so happy.

Making friends with Sophie the giraffe.

And for the brotherly comparison, you can read about Grady at 4 months and Grady at 5 months.  Below are some comparison pictures.

Grady at 4 months.

Graham at 4 months.

Grady at 5 months.

We also received some disappointing news about sweet baby Graham in early February.  He was sick with what ended up being RSV and when I took him to be seen at a clinic on a weekend, the urgent care doctor pointed out an abnormality in his sternum where his sternum grows inward a bit forming what I can only describe a bowl at the base of his sternum. I didn't think much of it because Graham had been seen by 4 pediatricians since birth and none had mentioned it.  But then I looked it up later that night and my heart absolutely sank.  It is called Pectus Excavatum and is a fairly common and typically hereditary birth defect.  I waited until his 4 month appointment to ask his pediatrician about it but I read every piece of information that I could get my hands on about it before that appointment (both a blessing and a curse, but probably more of a curse).  What it comes down to is that this is an abnormality that can be a cosmetic deformity at best.  At worst, it could impact his heart and lungs and his ability to participate in physical activities.  The defect will likely grow worse as he gets older, but nothing can be done until he hits puberty because growth spurts can trigger the worsening of the defect.  If it is severe or impacts him physically (or frankly even emotionally), he'll likely have surgery.  The surgery is significant and would involve putting two bars across his sternum for a period of two years.  It is unfortunately a painful procedure with a lengthy recovery. Science is changing quickly and new technologies are being developed to deal with this defect all the time.  We have an appointment with a local specialist at the end of this month to speak about the recent developments and to establish a baseline for Graham.  It is never easy to hear unexpected news about your baby.  I wish that there was a quick fix and that we wouldn't have years of waiting to see how this will all play out, but I am sure we will get through this just like many families do who are dealt much more difficult circumstances.  We'll continue to count our blessings and work to raise two confident boys who accept their own differences and the differences of others and hope that somehow this will have a silver lining that we'll discover along the way.

Before this all happened, our nanny would tell me every day that there is just something special about Graham and you know what, there really is.  Yeah he is "special" because he has this abnormality, but  there is also just something inexplicably wonderful and unique about him. He is destined for great things, whatever they may be. I am sure he'll take this all in stride and teach his old mom some things along the way.  If you are curious about more information, you can learn more by clicking here and here.