Happy 21 Months!

Graham turned 21 months old on September 23rd, 2011, and he had a busy morning of celebrating with some major playtime at his Growing Times II class followed immediately by a trip to the YMCA before coming home for lunch and his nap.  The second half of his day, Mr. Graham was a MAJOR fuss-pot!  It took him 21 months to get his first fever but he let us know that he wasn’t happy with it.  Graham was fussy for a couple of days (screaming when he woke up and unable to sleep through the night) but he is now totally recovered and back to his usual happy self. 
He stood on the scale in our bathroom and weighed in at 28.5 pounds.  He is talking up a storm, running like his leg was never hurt, and still singing every chance he gets. 
To celebrate his 21 month birthday, I’m going to catch up on all those Cute Antics and Noteworthy Tidbits that I have been jotting down for the past two months. 
Every moment with Graham is so precious and special and I just love sharing and recording these little nuggets of his life. 

• Check out this adorable video of Graham saying “I love you!” (21 months, 4 days old):

• Graham had a really sweet wake-up sequence from his nap the other day.  He woke up calling for Dada and I told him that he wasn’t going to see Dada for a long time (since Nick had a work dinner so he wouldn’t be making it home until after Graham went to bed).  Graham responded by saying “Monday, Tuesday.”  When Nick was away on business for a week, Graham and I had counted how many days were left each time Graham woke up.  I was so impressed that Graham was able to come up with counting days when I told him he wouldn’t see Dada for a long time.  What a smart little boy!  After confirming in his mind where Dada was, Graham flopped down and said “toes, toes.”  Now when he wakes up, we pull off his sleep sack and he finds his toes and then he knows he is ready to get up.  Here is a video of him finding his toes (20 months, 25 days old):

• Graham can now sing ALL of “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” with no mistakes or prompting other than maybe a run through first or a light tap on the head to get him going. 
• Ever since we shifted naptime to after lunch, Graham has had a few incidents of falling asleep while eating.  In the picture (19 months, 15 days old) he was out like a light and in the video (21 months, 3 days old) wait until the end to see what happens when he drops the bottle:

• Graham loves books but he was all about banging the keyboard at our last trip to the library (20 months, 24 days old):

• Now that Graham has gotten bigger, we comfort him with an upright hold instead of a cradled baby hold.  Daddy is demonstrating.  Doesn’t Graham look content (20 months, 25 days old):

• Graham continues to work on his utensil skills.  Here he is trying desperately to pick up his sandwich bites and being very insistent that we “look” and watch his efforts.  When Mommy slightly adjusts the angle of his fork, he is so very proud of himself (20 months, 25 days old):

• Graham is eager to answer any question we have.  He fills in the blanks when we pause while reading, and tells us what things are and what they sound like.  When he doesn’t know the answer, instead of pausing or staying silent he has gotten into the habit of quickly saying a jumbled “whoababah” and then expectantly looking at us and waiting for the next question, as though he has clearly answered correctly with no problem.
• Our little boy got his first train set!  Graham enjoyed playing with a train set at a toy store, so I went to a thrift store looking for a test set to see if Graham would enjoy playing with a train set long term before investing in a nice set.  I came back with an enormous set taking up 5 plastic bags.  While Graham slept I put together about a third of the set but didn’t have room for more.  When Graham woke up, he played and enjoyed it but had a little trouble maneuvering around the set (as evidenced in the video) so even though Mommy and Daddy had fun playing with it, the train set is now packed away until Graham gets a little older (20 months, 17 days old):

• Graham is no longer JUST a runner.  He is now a jumper, twirler, and dancer.  On solid ground he can’t really jump without holding my hand, but he is close and enthusiastically says “jump” as he tries (on the ground, couches, and beds).  I even caught him laughing hysterically in his crib when he would jump and then purposely fall, thinking that was pretty funny stuff.  His favorite time to dance is when Daddy plays the piano.  I caught a bit of dancing on this video while Daddy was playing Graham’s new favorite song “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” on the piano (20 months, 18 days old):

• In addition to enjoying Daddy’s dance music on the piano, Graham is furthering his piano education and has started to select and ‘read’ his own sheet music (20 months, 21 days old):

• Graham says “yum” when he eats something especially good, “wow” at just about anything, “chip” and “coke” when he sees Daddy and wants some of Daddy’s snack, “oh no” when he accidentally unzips his sleep sack, “mess” when he makes one, “dis” when he wants this, “more toes” when he is ready to find his second set of toes, “thank you” at appropriate times which makes us very proud, “sorry” after I say “oops” because he knows I will be apologizing shortly, “icky” when anything inedible ends up in his hands, “ouchie” or “boo boo” or “lip” when referring to his cut (see lower bullet), "story" when he knows it is time for books before bed, “ready go” before any fun activity, “juice” to request his new favorite beverage, “spit” to remind me that he needs to spit when I am done brushing his teeth, “soap” and “shampoo” to direct me in his cleaning, "poor xyz" when anything falls ("poor ducky," "poor pancake," etc.), “time out” when he knows he is breaking the rules, “nakey” or “naked” when he gets a diaper change, “let go” when he is pulling my hair, and “sit down” when he wants to play ball in the hallway.
• Graham is now a kissing machine.  It all started with that little peck he gave his friend Laurel and then you can see what happened when he went on what was supposed to be an innocent play date with Kenzie (20 months, 8 days old):

• Now he is a full-on smoocher.  In this video, you can see him puckering his lips and asking for kiss after kiss (20 months, 17 days old):

• Graham has been working on learning how to spell his name.  Whenever he is getting a diaper change, he looks at his name sign and we spell out the letters then point to him and say “Graham.”  Now he can point to the sign and hum the tune of spelling the letters but that is about as far as he has gotten. 
• Graham had a really fun play date with my friend Alethea, who kindly offered to babysit one night.  Two of their activities are now permanent additions to Graham’s play repertoire: galloping around on all fours like a horse and then going up on his hind legs with arm in the air and saying “neigh” and using an empty bottle to pour and then scrub fake shampoo into his or anyone’s hair.   
• Graham had another one of those fun kid firsts.  He got to lick his first spoon while Mommy made brownies.  No surprise, he loved it! (20 months, 27 days old):

• Graham singing (with increasing intensity) one of his favorite songs, “EE-I-EE-I-O” (20 months, 17 days old):

• For the most part, Graham stays put together in bed, but I came in one morning and found his foot out of the sleep sack and his arm out of the sleeve of his shirt but still through the hole in the sleep sack.  Too cute (20 months, 23 days old):

• Our big boy is now going down the biggest boy slide at our playground.  I took three videos so you could see every angle of our proud boy and his latest accomplishment (20 months, 18 days old):

• Nick took Graham on a run before I got up in the morning.  I told him to make sure Graham was warm enough and I had to laugh at the outfit when Nick got back.  You can see the outfit (vest, slippers, and all) in both pictures but in the second picture, you get a side view of Graham’s new fake/on command smile (21 months, 2 days old):

• Sleep time is pretty cute for Graham these days.  When we say “it’s time” he starts singing the “night time” song.  Once in his crib, he sometimes goes right to sleep, but other times he will recite the story we have just finished reading, chat to himself about anything and everything, or go through singing 5 of his favorite songs.  It is our little window into what is going on inside Graham’s head.  In this video, Graham is opening and closing his sleep sack, reciting “say, I like green eggs and ham, I do, I like them Sam I am,” and singing bits of  the“6 little ducks” song.  Not the best video of his pre-bed routine, but it gives you an idea (20 months, 24 days old):

• Our poor little boy had his second visit to Urgent Care.  He was playing in the playground during his Growing Times I class and face-planted into one of the steps, cutting a big gash in the space between his lip and chin.  He was bleeding a lot and the other mom’s sprang to action doing a wonderful job helping, calming Graham, and keeping the wound clean.  My friend Cherise left the class and came with me to Urgent Care so she could hold Graham’s hands and stop him from touching the cut until it was seen by a doctor.  I was sure our next stop was the plastic surgeon but it turned out to look worse than it was and didn’t need any additional treatment.  Graham fell asleep the second we got back in the car, so I was able to get a close up shot of the nasty little cut (21 months, 3 days):

• The one good thing about Graham’s cut was that it seemed to cure him of all his other fussiness.  While we were at Urgent Care, I had them check his ears and chest and he was fine and ever since we left, there have been no more tantrums or sleep problems.  Before discovering that a severe injury would snap him out of a fussy phase, we found that letting him watch videos of himself would calm him down without fail.  You can see how much fun he has when he is watching himself.  He thinks he is just about the most entertaining and fascinating thing that he has ever come across (21 months, 2 days old):

• This is an example of a typical play activity for Graham and why he has gotten so good at saying "mess" (21 months, 5 days old): 

• At Graham’s play classes, his favorite activity is still pushing things (check out the picture of all his friends playing with the parachute while he runs away with his push toy) but he did take a break from pushing to ride the mini rollercoaster toy (21 months old):

• Graham will insist that he gets his story time regardless of if it is convenient or not.  Here he is getting comfortable on Daddy to have a story read to him (20 months, 19 days old):

Phew, we are all caught up on Cute Antics and Noteworthy Tidbits.  Now, just stay tuned for 8 (that’s right, 8) final catch-up posts and then we will be all up-to-date :)