Everything from before the visit

Graham just finished up a visit with both sets of grandparents!  I’ll post on that, but I wanted to share all the odds and ends that I had saved up from before the visit.
I’m back to napping during Graham’s nap so the blog has suffered, but with less than 6 weeks to go, Baby Boy Millington #2 and I are in the home stretch and soon there will be two little boys to blog about instead of just one <3
In addition to being tired and hot, hot, hot, my only other update about Baby Boy is that we were measuring a week ahead at our last doctor’s appointment.  The doctor said that it either meant I had a lot of fluid or we were gearing up for a big baby!  I’m about to enter the weekly appointment phase, so I’ll keep you posted on our progress. 
Onto Graham’s Cute Antics and Noteworthy Tidbits:

• Graham suddenly LOVES to put his head inside our computer cases.  He usually plays peek-a-boo, but sometimes just walks around, seemingly thrilled by the fact that he can’t see anything.  I took some pictures and a video to share.  Now, he puts the case on his head and requests that I film him and then pulls the case off and asks to see the video (2 years, 5 months, 20 days old):

• I thought these were sweet little pictures of Graham’s sleep-time friends.  Although, there is room in his heart for others, Hippo remains his very special friend and he usually emerges from a nap with a firm grip on his little buddy (2 years, 5 months, 11 days old).  I also added some pictures of several of his bed friends.  I came into his room to find that he had neatly lined them up while waiting for me to come get him after waking up:

• Since we are on the sleeping topic, I’ll provide another update.  Graham is getting to a really good place with his sleeping habits in his big boy bed.  The problem has been that he gets distracted by all the opportunities around him so he has a hard time going to sleep.  Nighttime is different because it is so dark, but for naps, he was getting out of his bed and roaming about his room and it was taking a lot of effort to get him down.  I would go back into his room as many times as it took to lay him back down on his bed until he would eventually fall asleep.  Recently I changed tactics and allowed him to stay awake in his room, as long as he stayed on his bed.  He has been doing a great job putting himself to bed.  We will read a story together and then I will leave.  He continues to read on his bed, explores between his top and bottom bed, looks out the window, and eventually selects a pillow to fluff before settling down and drifting off to sleep!  What a big boy!  I got a picture through the monitor of Graham casually flipping through a book before deciding to go to sleep (2 years, 5 months, 17 days old):

• I woke up one morning to Graham screaming “ahh, ahh” from his room.  After a monitor check, I realized he was not in distress and he was just singing his favorite part of a second verse to “row, row, row your boat” – “rock, rock, rock, your boat, gently down the stream, if you see an alligator, don’t forget to scream – ahhhhh.”
• Video of Graham playing with Daddy’s shoes (2 years. 5 months, 7 days old):

• I don’t have any cute phrase updates, mostly because there are so many every day, it is too hard to keep up and remember to write them down, but I can report that Graham is cured of his speech problem and can now say words that start with an “s” followed by a consonant as easily as any other word :)
• Daddy sent me this terrifying video of Graham experimenting on the monkey bars at the park!  When I’ve played with Graham on the monkey bars, he will randomly let go at unexpected times with no warning, so I was very concerned to see Graham practicing with no help from Daddy (but I guess that is what daddies and their boys do) (2 years, 5 months, 7 days old):

• We are having a hot, hot summer!  At PEP, all the kids decided to take a dunk.  Thanks to Nathalie, the one brave mama who got in and watched all of them (2 years, 5 months, 7 days old):

• I’ve always thought Graham was musically inclined.  He enjoys Mommy’s singing and Daddy’s piano playing almost every day and that kid can definitely carry a tune!  He has started to branch out into dance, but I’m not sure his rhythm is quite as far along as his other skills.  He bops to the beat and has started spinning and spinning as his favorite form of dance.  
• Graham had an absolute blast filling a dump truck with sand at Growing Times.  He and his buddy Zander were obsessed for a solid half hour (2 years, 5 months, 23 days old):

• Trader Joes continues to be a favorite spot for Graham because he gets to visit the “fishy and bunny” pet store and also gets to ask the cashiers at Trader Joes for stickers.  On this particular day, he got creative and a little silly with his stickers (2 years, 5 months, 15 days old):  

• And I saved the best for last!  Graham can catch a ball!  I thought we were a ways off from that skill, so I had not even been trying to teach him, but apparently Graham and Daddy were working on in.  I took this video of Daddy explaining to Graham how to catch the ball.  Even though he is instructed to keep his hands down, I love at the end of the video how he actually does the correct motion to catch a ball and secure it between his hands and his body.  Now, I don’t even need to instruct Graham, I can just say “get ready to catch how Daddy taught you.” (2 years, 5 months, 21 days old):