Grant's Weight Follow Up

Yesterday we went to see the doctor at Children's to see how I'm doing with my weight. My last check up was in December. They said I was doing good then. I was back on the charts for my weight - 5th percentile for weight at 24 mos, but 20-25th percentile if you compared my height to weight ratio. They told us then that if I kept up the good work they would only need to see me one more time - to make sure I was keeping up the good work. We got to the doctor's office a little bit early so Alayna and I got to watch the fish for a while. Little did we know our 9:30 appointment was going to mean sitting in the waiting room til about 10:15 and not actually seeing the doctor til about 11. Yeah - keeping me and Alayna entertained in waiting rooms is a pretty easy task for Mommy and Daddy! (Mommy says - "I hope you sense the sarcasim")

Well, when I was finally called back it was time for the weigh in and height measurement. Mommy didn't get the camera ready on time to get a picture of me on the scale, but this is me when they are checking my height. I'm in my undies b/c we thought we better be as accurate as possible on my weight. I did a really good job. I weighed in at 23lbs 14oz and 33 inches tall (just a tad over).

Then it was on the the next room where we waited again for a long time. Daddy's been trying to teach me how to thumb wrestle - so while we waited we practiced. I beat him several times...using two hands is ok right?

Well - finally the nurse and dietician came in to ask us a bunch of questions. How I've been eating, what my meals look like these days, how my BMs are, if I've been sick, etc. The two of them consulted with the dr and then he came in to talk with us. Well - he wasn't too happy about where I am right now. Since December - 4 months ago - I have only gained 3 OUNCES! WHAT? Yup - 3 ounces. How did this happen? In Dec I was doing so good and now it stopped? And I didn't get any taller either. Basically this puts me in the 3rd percentile for both. When we met in Dec I had gained on average 1oz ever 3 days since my previous appt. Between Dec and now - I am only gaining at a rate of 1oz every 60 DAYS.

So - Mommy and Daddy were given 3 options.
1. Stick to the meds we are currently on...the appetite stimulant I take 12 days and stay off 12 days.

2. Do Nothing - just let me eat my regular meals and snacks with all the added calories we can possibly think of adding (ie - butter everything, use dips for everything, put Carnation Instant Breakfast in my milk, etc)

3. Do a scope to make sure everything on my insides is "all good"

Well - Mommy and Daddy were not a fan of #3. I'm not sure what it all involves, but I don't think I am much a fan of it either. I guess I would be "put out" and it would only take about 10 minutes, but doesn't sound very fun at all. Mommy and Daddy talked with the doctor some more and his final recommendation ended up being to simply do nothing for a while and see what happens by simply continuing to add calories to my diet.

Mommy and Daddy are very frustrated. Meal times are just so stressful when I'm not gaining the weight like I should be. They don't know what happened. I seemed to be eating fine. At the last dr visit they even told us we could stop the meds if we felt I was doing ok. Mommy kept giving them to me until last week though - "just in case". She stopped putting the Carnation Instant Breakfast in my milk a couple weeks ago - thinking I was doing fine - but stopping that just a couple weeks ago would not have caused this little of a gain. It's hard for Mommy to believe I haven't gotten any taller. I just grew out of my shoes and she swears my pants have gotten shorter in the last few weeks. Maybe they measured me wrong...but I don't think so.

So your prayers for peace with this whole thing for Mommy and Daddy would be greatly appreciated. Most days they just think -"hey, we just have to accept Grant is going to be a little boy" but yet others they wonder if there are more things they should be doing "just in case" it truly is something more. Mommy was ok thinking I was just a little boy until the dr got out the growth chart. He took my current growth scale and factored in Mommy and Daddy's height. If I don't get going - I may only be about 5'4" by the time I'm done growing. THAT scared Mommy. That's not even 2 inches taller than her.

To top things off - all 4 of my eye teeth are coming in right now. It doesn't help much in the eating dept because my mouth hurts all the time.

Anyway, that's where we're at right about now. I guess I'm just going to continue eating all the high calorie things everyone else wishes they could eat and hope it helps me put on some lbs...heck at this point we would accept ounces.

Thanks for checkin' in with us and helpin' us through this. Hopefully I'm just little - but I don't want to be THAT little :)

What's Been Happening Lately

Grant is enjoying his first ever Fruit Roll-up from Grandma and Papa Meidam. He got them in the mail for a Potty Reward. He's been doing great now for about 3 weeks or so. He still uses diapers for sleeping, but other than that he is good to go. He tells us when he has to go and has only had a couple of accidents in all of these last 3 weeks. WAY TO GO GRANT! Just over 28 mos - great milestone!

Alayna LOVES holding her own fork or spoon now. It's hard to do a meal like this though. I know I have to let her eat with these and make a mess if I ever expect her to be able to use them BUT it is so hard. Here she is eating applesauce. What a mess! Everything ends up all over her, in her hair, on her clothes... and if I attempt to "help" her with the spoon she pulls so hard to get it away from me that the food ends up on the floor, wall, highchair or all of the above. So - I pick my battles. If she's just had a bath or we are going somewhere the silverware doesn't even come out of the drawer and her meal involves only finger foods :)

Papa Meidam and my birthday celebration this past weekend up north

The kids got to find Easter baskets and eggs from Grandma and Papa. THANK YOU!!! Alayna is enjoying an M&M from her basket. She LOVES them! Little stinker is so smart she knows where I keep them in the cupboard. If I go in there and give something to Grant for going potty or reward myself - just because I can - she makes it known that she feels she deserves one as well :)

Grant - on the "hunt"

Owen, Grant & Nolan - the boy cousins

Out for an early dinner at Applebee's for my birthday on Monday because Grant had swimming lessons at 6. Grant hardly ate anything and Alayna threw most her food on the floor. I didn't have to cook though - so it was still good right? Oh how birthday celebrations have changed :) That's ok - I love it!

YAY for warmer weather. Not a lot to do in our yard yet b/c we still have everything put away from the winter. But we went for a walk and down some slides yesterday after naps.

Alayna has recently been shying away from the slides, however yesterday was a different story. I think she's conquered her fear.

Prayer Time

Grant's 2yr old version of "Now I Lay Me". When I was pregnant with Grant my sister gave me a Prayer Bear that says this prayer when you sqeeze it's belly. We started playing it on my belly everynight when we went to sleep even before he was born and continued after. He's been getting better at saying it himself over the last few months - leaving out a few words here and there, but now getting most of it.
We asked him to say it loud (so we could hear it on the video) which is why he may seem like he's yelling a little bit. But - if we don't ask him to say it loud he does the first two phrases just fine and then for some reason feels the need to whisper the last two.


Prayer:
Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
May angels watch me through the night
and keep me in their blessed sight
AMEN

13 Months

I am 13 months old! YAY! I'm excited, but not feeling too great these days! The last couple weeks I have been teething. I think I still am, however over these last couple weeks I broke through one of those huge teeth in the back - molars? I wasn't too cranky - but I definately wasn't myself.

I'm down to just one bottle every day now. I drink all of my other milk in a sippy cup. This is exciting - I always liked stealing Grant's cups. I still do, but now I get my own as well! I still get excited when I see my bottle though too. Sometimes I drink 8oz of milk before bed and sometimes only 3 or 4 - BUT - Mommy says this bottle will disappear soon. :(

I continue sleeping with 2 (at least) nuks. One in my mouth and one in my hand. Why, you might ask? Well - these days kids can't have ANYTHING in their beds with them forever. No blankets, pillows, stuffed animals, etc. So...when Mommy and Daddy decided one night to put 2 nuks in my bed so they didn't have to get up and find it for me every couple of hours...I became quite attached to this second nuk. (This is Mommy's theory!) Anyway - now I am a bit older so I go to sleep with 2 nuks, my blanket and a bear lovie I got from Grant for a baby present - most important though - 2 nuks! Now sometimes I cry because I can't find either one of them in the middle of the night. Where are they? Lost in my blanket!



What else am I up to?
- my hair is long enough to be getting in my eyes. Mommy tries to use barretts or put a pony on top of my head. Barretts don't usually last too long before I pull them out.
- favorite foods - cheese, grapes, mac n cheese, mandarin oranges
- I have started talking - I say "ba-bye", "bye-o-bye" (rock-o-bye), "ball", "Mommy" (we think), "baby" (which have all been picked up in this last week)
- I am getting really good at walking. It's not my favorite way to travel yet, however I try to do it much more often now - quite often taking off on my own after pulling up on something. I can make it halfway across a room, however usually decide a few steps is enough, get down and crawl to where I really want to be
- I have 7 teeth. I just broke my first molar through last week, have 4 front top teeth and 2 bottom front teeth
- Wearing a few 9-12 mos clothes, however out of most things that were 6-12 mo sizes. Now I'm on to 12-18 mos. Crazy! It's fun getting into new clothes though!
- Size 3 diapers


Well - I best be off. I haven't been feeling well today. Last night I had a fever before bed of 100.6 and we coughed it up to new teeth. But I didn't sleep very well and this morning when we checked I was up to 102.2. We saw the dr this afternoon b/c Mommy thought it was an ear infection. Thankfully - it's not an ear infection, but the only answer we really got is "it's just a virus". Hopefully it will just clear up on it's own - I don't like feeling rotten. Sleep well all!

Grant's 2 Year Pictures

Here are a few of Grant's 2 yr pictures. Just a sampling of what I all have to chose from. This is going to be tough! He wasn't too smiley on his picture day, but our photographer managed to get the few that he did give.

We brought a fire hat (courtesy of his cousin Brayden), Grant's puppy "Spot" and a Fire truck he got for Christmas to have some pictures taken to hang in his room. He's still in his Fire truck toddler bed - so I better get these pictures hung in his room before he grows out of it!

Alayna's 1 Year Photo Shoot

Alayna's photo shoot lasted 2 days! Her mood wasn't so good on day one. All the white background pics were from day 1 and after all that we knew she wouldn't take much more. The dark background and outside shots were day 2. Alayna did great and we're really happy with what we have to pick from. I'm not posting everything...I picked a variety...I have a lot of deciding to do :)

What is that in her hand? A bottle cover. She had some grapes in it when we sat her down for the picture and if I would have tried to take it away - it would have been all over...so we let her keep it. Other than that - it's a cute shot.

I see here - a Huggies Ad :) Anyone know someone in their marketing dept?

Okay - I thought it would be cute for Grant to pull Alayna in the sled...I didn't think through the fact that he can't pull 19lbs and the fact it takes him a little while to get used to walking in the snow...oh well - they look like they're having fun :)

Weekend

Last weekend we had to have fun INDOORS because it was raining outside. That's ok though! We met my buddy Grant, his Mommy, Daddy and little sister Taylor at Flabbergast! It was A LOT of fun! We ran and jumped all morning. Alayna could bounce in a couple of them and she went down some slides, but she didn't like them as much as the last time we were there.

This is "buddy Grant". I refer to him as this and even talk about his dog Wrigree (Wrigley) quite often. We are only 5.5 months apart. I'm older, but he's taller.

Potty Update, Walking Update, First Words

Potty update for Grant...today I was at the mall with the kids and Grant TOLD ME he had to go potty - TWICE. He's been doing better the past few days with telling me #2, but once today it was just pee and there were NO accidents. YAY little buddy. He told me once tonight as well - so totaling 3 times today. WHEW - I'm so excited!

Walking update for Alayna... She has been super busy these last few days. Really closing in on mastering walking and starting to say some words. It's so fun to watch her walk. She does much better (goes further) if she pulls herself up on something and starts from there as opposed to me trying to balance her and let go of her hands. Grant even likes to be the one she is walking to - it's cute to watch him get excited for her and even cuter when he goes "look - I walk too Mommy". Feeling a little left out???

First words? No WAY! Well - her little blabbering videos on a previous post actually captured her first word - "ba-bye". That was Mon night. Tues night we were at Grandpa and Grandma Kok's house and she started saying "bye-o-bye" while sitting and rocking in a little rocking chair. THEN - tonight she threw a ball and said "ba.." (no real "ll"s after it, but I still think that is what she said). Apparently she likes the "b" sound - that's all she is saying so far :)

My Babies are Growing Up on Me

My babies are growing up on me! I am so glad and blessed to be able to stay at home with my kids. At times all the day to day things are hard to handle and it's easy to get stuck in a rut BUT then one of them does something that catches you off-guard and it makes you realize - THEY ARE GROWING UP SO FAST YOU BETTER ENJOY THE RIDE!

Some stages are frustrating - potty training, sassy talk, lack of listening, teething, throwing food on the floor, etc. BUT other things are SOOOO rewarding - listening to them sing songs you didn't know they knew, watching them learn to walk, seeing them as they sleep - looking like complete angels, hearing first words and animal sounds, snuggles before and after naps, having tear end after you've simply kissed the "owie" and made it better.

Just a few notes of things for me to remember about the things Grant and Alayna are up to these last few days:

- Grant - just last week started asking the ultimate question - "WHY?" about EVERYTHING! When does this end? :)
- Alayna - just today is really starting to pick up on her walking skills. She's so proud. And to balance she puts her hands way up in the air - kinda like karate kid when he had the bummed leg :) I'll try to get her picture!
- Alayna is starting to say more sounds and little words. Ba ba ba - for beep beep beep in Wheels on the Busby by - for bye-o-bye'g in a rocking chair, ah ah ah - while seeing monkeys at the zoo
- Grant singing all of Happy Birthday all by himself tonight for Grandpa Kok
- Grant is loving his independence. Everything is "I do myself". This has been for about a month now. SOOO frustrating at times, but good to see he is learning and wants to be able to do things on his own. It's just SOOOO much faster for me to do it sometimes! Patience!!!

That's it for now. I LOVE my job and am so thankful for these gifts each day. I just pray that we as parents continue to cherish these babies - cuz "It Won't Be Like This For Long" (Darius Rucker).

That's Just Crazy Talk

Alayna has her own language these days - it's just hilarious! She really starts talking like she is telling you something really important. It's been hard to catch on camera because as soon as she sees the camera she either becomes camera shy or is just more intrigued by it she stops talking.

So far she hasn't had any "real" words that are consistent. At the zoo on Friday she said "ah ah" when we were looking at the monkeys. So I think that will qualify as her first animal sound :)

This video was about 2 weeks ago. I only got a little bit of her "language" and then she realized she was on camera.

This was last night in the bathtub. I wasn't holding the camera, so I think she forgot about it. She really had something to say! At the end of this one - she says "ba-bye". She's never done this before. First word qualifier? She won't repeat it again though - so I'm not sure.

She's also more excited about songs lately. She really likes Wheels on the Bus and will occasionally try to do the "wheels" action or say "bee bee bee" for "beep" on the horn. Fun stuff!

Walking is getting more interesting to her. She tries on her own more often, but is still only getting a few steps.

Weekend in the North

We actually went up north to Grandma and Papa's place LAST weekend, but Mommy and Daddy left the camera up there so we really couldn't do much updating until now! It was a great time. Our cousins were there and it was nice enough outside that we could go sledding and make snowangels.

Daddy took me on a snowmobile ride in a circle around the yard

Macey took me on my first "real" sled ride. It was fun!
Macey, Nolan and I got to go for a ride in the sleigh with Uncle Chad

Daddy and I going down the hill

With Briana's tree. This year Papa put a fence around it so the bunnies wouldn't get it. Last year they almost killed it!

At night we had a flashlight and popcorn party while watching the Olympics. I(Alayna) didn't get to have popcorn yet - but I drank my bottle while everyone else had popcorn. We all got cool chairs and flashlights to sit in the dark with!

I went out on Sunday with Owen. He is so strong - he pulled me around all by himself on that sled. Even up the big hill! It was a lot of fun to play outside with him!

Daddy was able to take one last snowmobile ride for the year and Mommy got her long run in for the week while we stayed with Aunt Jayme and Grandma. Fun stuff!!!

Still Climbing

Yup - I'm still climbing - on EVERYTHING. I am pretty good at it - if I do say so myself!
Mommy keeps the gate to Grant's room closed all the time now b/c I can get up in his bed all by myself! I'm not so careful on how I get down though OR how close I sit to that opening!

Don't worry Mom...I'll help you with these...

Why are you pointing at me to get down? I can do this! I AM ONE now!

I can get up on this all by myself now too! Riding the bike is lots of fun. Grant and I fight over it often. And when I REALLY want to be a stinker - I let Mommy catch me standing on the seat. HEHE! Come on Mom - I won't get hurt!

Swimming

Grant and Brian participated in a parent/tot swimming lesson class in Jan and Feb. Grant LOVED swimming. Alayna and I got to go watch just one week - observation week - and he did a great job! They do all sorts of nursery rhymes, singing, splashing, blowing bubbles, etc. Lots of things to get the little ones used to the water.

FUN? Oh - I don't know!

Mommy - when do I get a turn?THANK YOU DADDY!

I guess - the bathtub will do for now!

It was so fun Grant is signed up to start again this next session. Fantastic!