We all have been very very busy here. And there’s always more that needs doing than time available. Lilah has been busy sleeping, crying, eating and dirtying diapers. Chris has been busy working for Albertsons, working on web site design, and doing lots of household work. Gavin has been busy climbing out of his bed at all hours of the night, playing hard, chasing cats, and the last day or so, being sick with a cold. I have been busy taking care of Lilah, trying to give Gavin adequate attention, doing laundry and occasionally trying to use the bathroom or brush my teeth and thinking of all the other things I need to be getting done. Eek!
Here is Gavin looking at Lilah, who’s very interested in him too.
Gavin is off to a great start in his brotherly role. He’s offered his sister a truck, patted her head, laughed at her silly faces, and tried to feed her potato chips. He’s been very positive about her showing up in his house and life and I am so proud of him for his generous attitude. He does get sad that he can’t spend time with his Mama every time he’d like and sometimes he gets upset by the sound of her screaming. He’s been a bit clingier than usual and a bit more prone to tantrums. I wish that the adjustment was easier for him and that I could comfort him every time he wants, but we both enjoy the moments we can cuddle together.
Gavin has also been making huge leaps in his communication! Just in the last several weeks, he’s started signing a whole lot more and using verbal words more too. Yesterday he signed “cheese” for the first time and it was in context…no prompting! I can’t wait till he’s chattering away.
Lilah is a pretty happy baby most of the time. She’s not awake a lot yet but she likes having her diaper changed and she smiles when she sees our faces up close to hers. She makes little cooing noises that are so cute and also she makes really funny and loud grunts and honks that make us laugh sometimes.
I am so excited to think about Lilah being able to interact with Gavin and how much fun they will have together. It won’t be long at all now before she will start trying to do everything her big brother does.
p.s. Lilah now has her very own ticker with an accurate age at the bottom! Check it out.
…is here.
she was born at 3:09am this morning after we arrived at the birth center at ~1:20am. erin pushed all of about 40 minutes which was longer than it would have otherwise been because lilah had her cord wrapped around her a couple times.
lilah weighed 8lbs. 8oz. and measured 20″. not only is she a beautiful red head, and already way mellow, when we brought her home this morning and gavin met her for the first time, he smiled and looked interested, which is a much better reaction than we feared. he’s already shaping to be an awesome big brother.
mommy and baby
Gavin has been not eating any dairy, egg, wheat or other gluten for a long time now. Yesterday he decided he wanted to try wheat again. We’d been thinking of trying some things again soon anyway, but had been waiting until the teething process was over since that affects him as well. It gets really confusing when there are so many things going on at once. Hard to tell if one thing or the other is causing a problem, or if it’s a combination.
Yesterday we were having lunch and Gavin reached over and snatched a (vegetarian) chicken nugget from my plate and stuffed it in his mouth gleefully. He proceeded to eat it in two bites. The second bite which was most of the nugget took him about three minutes to get down, but he was determined. The “meat” in the chicken nuggets we eat is mainly made from wheat so we watched him last night and didn’t see much going on. Of course one nugget may not be enough to tell.
So today for lunch he ate four whole chicken nuggets. That’s alot of food for him! He was quite pleased, since he always wants what his Mama and Daddy are eating. Now we watch for yucky diapers, irritability from tummy pains and stuffy nose. Hopefully we won’t get any of those and Gavin can continue with his nugget munching in the future.
I’ve been sadly neglecting my duties in maintaining this blog. Hopefully it’s a temporary thing.
In recent Gavin news, he went to the Dr. for his 2 year check-up and all is well. He’s in the 50th percentile for both height and weight so he’s growing well, even with his food restrictions.
He was absolutely terrified of sitting on their scale and being on the exam table. It was pretty heart-breaking for me. I don’t really know why they have to make the weigh-in so much scarier for kids his age by having them strip all the way. I mean, if a diaper on would help them feel a lot more secure, why does the incremental difference it would make in their weight really matter? I understand it’s a big difference in a little baby, but in a toddler? I’ve decided that with him from now on and with the new baby when older than a year or so I will ask if we can just keep the diaper on please.
We talked about him being a little behind in verbal development and she encouraged us to just watch his progress carefully for a few months and take it from there. She was very quick to say that he’s very interactive and social so she’s not concerned about Autism or anything like that.
We had a lead test and hemoglobin levels done and he had no problems there which was nice to know for sure since we are living in an old house.
All in all, Gavin’s a healthy boy.
He’s going through the “terrible twos” now, which really aren’t all that terribly. It’d be slightly easier if he’d actually say what it was he wanted instead of pointing or pushing and pulling of his parents to show what he wants. But I don’t think him having some preferences and strong ideas of his own is all that “terrible”.
His heart’s fondest desires this week are: a flashlight (we have mini-raves where we shine the flashlight in moving patterns and Gavin runs through them), a vacuum cleaner with many attachments (not turned on though, that’s scary!), and a spray bottle (to spritz oneself and then stare in shock as you have cold water running down your face, and even more fun to spray Mama or Daddy and hear them shriek).
It’s been so hot here lately that Gavin sometimes wakes up from his afternoon nap drenched in sweat. He doesn’t find it very comfortable and usually cries for about twenty minutes after waking up in such an icky state. Also he’s not very understanding about holding still while I comb tangles out of his hair. So, we decided it was time for a cut!
The stylist (yours truly) had to be very skilled at cutting Gavin’s hair at a relatively even length while dealing with Gavin’s swiveling head (he really wanted to see what was happening) and keeping the very shiny and attractive scissors out of his hands without appearing to
Gavin to be keeping them out of his reach! The whole process took about half an hour and was done in the bathtub for maximum distractions and washing ease.
This is Gavin enjoying his new low-maintenance look while playing in his block fort in the living room.
Gavin’s been up to alot recently. He’s working on his driving skills… of very small vehicles. He drives his trucks and cars up chair legs, up human legs, down the halls and just about everywhere. He’s really enjoying toys that move.
He’s learned how to open doors by himself, something he’s been aspiring for months now. He loves to go in the pool at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. He likes to wave “hi” and “bye bye”. He tried on Daddy’s shoes once too. Very funny but not so easy to walk in.
And he’s been working on talking. He says several words now. On the list we’re sure he’s actually saying (it can be hard to be sure) are: cat, meow, hello, juice, wow, fish, ball, mama, and dada. I’m also fairly sure he says “tickle”. The words we hear the most are ball, meow and juice. They are the most useful in his daily life.
He’s been maturing alot in the last several months and I think his new perspective will be a great help when the new baby arrives. I hope that he doesn’t have too tough a time adjusting to the changes. I’m really thankful Chris will be able to be here at home with us for a while to help with things and to make sure Gavin gets what he needs. I think that will make a big difference.
these were taken at the new playground at the local elementary school. they have a big kids playground and a little kids playground which is just right for gavin now. he tried a few too many death-defying tricks on the big kids one when we were over there once.
he loves the slide and just climbing around the place in general.
he likes it when dad’s over at the slide, but he goes down by himself.
sometimes he goes so fast he ends up on his bum at the bottom!
weeeeee!
gavin also likes help climbing up the top part of the slide.
checking out the drain. you never know what treasures you can find if you just look around. the other day he found a juice box straw. very exciting!
and these are at home.
but instead i thought i’d tell a few anecdotes until i can fix a small problem with those.
gavin’s favorite things these days are cuddling up in mama and daddy’s bed and pulling the covers on top of him. every time we go in the bedroom for a diaper change that’s his first and last stop.
he just figured out how to “twirl” this weekend. chris and gavin and i were all in the living room and then gavin started turning around and around. chris and i laughed and so gavin laughed and twirled some more until he fell down. he’s been doing it since then frequently. i haven’t seen him fall since the first time though.
last night we were all hanging out in the bedroom, reading before bed and i had my chin propped on my hand. gavin reached out for my hand and put my hand to his face and then started saying his version of “Hello!”, which is what he says when he’s pretending to talk on the phone. “EeeeOoohhh!” it was very silly and quite cute. can’t wait to see what he does next!
here we are at Red Butte Gardens watching some orange koi in the lake
Gavin and mama
and one of Gavin’s mama and daddy who’ve been married five whole years!
We had an easter egg hunt on Sunday afternoon in my parents’ back yard.
Gavin liked the basket….
and the eggs…
but he liked to put them back where he found them and tipped them out of his basket. He had a good time and we enjoyed watching him. The rest of us had to finish the egg hunt though. One hidden egg would have been a perfectly fine egg hunt according to Gavin.
