Monday, August 22, 2011

Mish Mash

I didn't realize how horrible I have been at taking pictures lately! Because of that, there are only a few pictures in this post :( I have to make myself get better or poor Brendan isn't going to have any pictures of his second year of life!

We've been busy getting ready for baby to arrive and enjoying the last part of summer before Brendan starts Mother's Day Out next Monday. He will be going two days a week - Monday and Wednesday - from 9 AM to 2 PM. I'm really excited for him to get to experience it and I think he will also learn a ton.

He has started saying things are "cool" now :) I thought he was saying "two" at first, but then I realized that wasn't it and listened a little harder and said are you saying "cool?" and he repeated it to me the same way. It's very cute. He will bring me his race cars and say "cooool!" or point at things when we are out and say it.

He also loves to say "pool" everytime we pass the pool area in our neighborhood and has become quite the water baby! He finished his first session of swim lessons last week. He can go underwater for 5 to 6 seconds and independently swim that amount of time through the water (independent swimming is more like gliding with no one holding onto him right now). Just in the past week or so, he's finally started kicking his legs. When Tim is giving him a bath at night, he will lie on his stomach in the tub and move his arms and kick his legs while he is swimming :) He starts the second session (Waterbabies 2) tomorrow night with Tim. Tim is doing it with him since I will be having the baby in the middle of the session (did I already mention that in my last post?). His friend/girlfriend, Kinley, is also doing the lessons again with him.

CiCi (my mom) gave him a rocking horse back at Christmas. He was scared of it at first, then he liked being on it for a second, then he liked it but couldn't get on/off by himself. Now, he can get on and off by himself and pull the horse's ears on his own to make it sing or say things. He lovesss riding it and it's very cute when he does.
By the way, he can also say all his grandparent's names now whenever we ask him to :) Some of them are clearer than others, but he attempts to say all of them. He also tries to repeat to us any words we say to him.

He was VERY grumpy when he woke up from his nap last week, even though he slept for 2 hours and 25 minutes. This was the result whenever he was eating his snack:

I've figured out he has to be left alone in his room for a little while whenever he wakes up for the morning or from a nap. He usually immediately gets out of bed when he wakes up and goes to his door, so I always thought he wanted to get out right away but, when I would open the door, he would run away from it and scream/squeal and lie on the ground like he wanted me to leave him alone. Now, I don't even go open the door unless he cries. I just leave him in there and then he is able to open the door when he wants to come out. This usually results in him being much happier. I can move our video monitor camera to the door so I can see what he's doing whenever he's over by the door. The other day after he woke up from a long nap, he spent 20 minutes laying there just sticking his hands under the door or rolling around. This is a picture I took of the monitor:
Silly boy :)

This Thursday, I will be 35 weeks pregnant! That means I will have 35 days until my due date! I have an appointment on Monday, August 29, and he is going to start checking me for progress and I will be going every week from then on for appointments. I have gained 31 pounds as of my appointment last Tuesday. I will surely gain over 35, but I'm hoping not to gain more than about 40 because I immediately lost 30 with Brendan and, if it goes the same with Griffin, that will only give me 10 pounds to lose - which would be much nicer than the 30 I still had to lose with Brendan! I am starting to swell now and am having trouble getting my wedding rings on/off, but my feet haven't really swelled, yet. The doctor said most of what I gain from here on will be water-weight. I am still hoping I won't quite make it to the September 29 due date since I had Brendan 11 days early. Most people I ask in the family seem to think it will be around 2 weeks early. It is SOOO hot that it has just made me very "done" with the pregnancy sooner than I was with Brendan :)

Here's a 34 week belly picture:

Next post, I'll try to remember to do a comparison of being pregnant now vs. being pregnant with Brendan and I'll try to have more pictures! Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Monday, August 8, 2011

19 Months

Hi, everyone! Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. Time has just started to get away from me :)

Brendan turned 19 months this past Saturday. He had his 18 month appointment on July 14. He is 99th percentile on height (I believe it was 35 inches), 80th percentile on weight (29.4 pounds) and 92nd percentile on head size (I can't remember this...maybe 19 3/4 inches). His weight has fallen off a little, I think because he's gotten SO picky about eating and seems to hardly want to eat much of anything anymore, but the doctor said he doesn't really expect it to fall off anymore than that because of the way Brendan's body type looks. He thinks he will probably stay a pretty big boy. He is very healthy and on-track in all his milestones.

We've just been hanging out around here, trying to stay a little cool in these horrendous temperatures! I swore I wouldn't complain about the heat after we had such a freezing winter, but being 30+ weeks pregnant in 110 degree temperatures is just terrible. I feel like I am sweating constantly.

The heat has NOT kept Brendan from wanting to go outside. Sometimes, I think he doesn't even notice it. We have still been doing swimming lessons every Monday and plan to sign him up for the Fall/Winter Session that starts in a few weeks. We finish summer and then the fall starts the next week. He can go underwater for 5 seconds now and can "glide" underwater on his own, if he gets a push from me or the teacher. He still won't kick his legs to swim around, but other than that is doing everything he's supposed to. Tim will be doing the next session with him since I will be having Griffin in the middle of it.

This picture is out of order, but we played in a little pool in the backyard the other day. Brendan had lots of fun - mostly with Daddy spraying him with the hose. We've also gone to our neighborhood pool a few times and he loves it this summer. He really likes the splash pad area a lot, which isn't too fun for me because I end up getting a lot wetter than I want to and have to go up and down stairs :) It has some slides he likes to go down. He also likes the baby pool and we have a pool that has two big slides that he really enjoys going down when Tim is with us. I don't attempt that on my own.

We also went to a playdate in mid-July at Nash Farms in Grapevine. It's a historic farm and house that they open every once in awhile for kids to come play at and tour. Brendan's favorite thing was the tables with the old metal toy tractors on them. We spent most of the time there. We also went on a tractor ride around the grounds of the farm and saw a cow.
We took Brendan to see his first movie in July! We saw Winnie the Pooh. He was very scared of the previews, which were extremely loud and, in my opinion, too violent for the movie we were seeing. I think if the movie is rated "G," the movies they preview should be rated "G" as well. I was worried we wouldn't make it through any of the movie with the way he reacted to the previews, but luckily the movie was much quieter. He sat and watched all but about the last 15 minutes and then he just stood in front of us or walked back and forth in front of us and ate snacks. He still doesn't really watch TV except I occasionally put on Dinosaur Train or Super Why on PBS and he enjoys those a lot. His friend, Benjamin, and Ben's parents met us for the movie and we went to lunch at Cheesecake Factory afterwards.
Here are some more pictures of when we played outside in the pool. Like I said, getting sprayed with the hose (and drinking out of it!) were his favorite things.

Brendan has also discovered putting his head in Shiner's big water bucket outside. I try to make sure I put it on top of the grill so he doesn't get into it, but sometimes I forget or I feel bad for Shiner not being able to drink out of it so I keep it down. Pretty gross that he is practically drinking out of the same bucket as the dog, but what can you do? This is what hairdo results whenever he does it:
Hahaha, it cracks me up!

Brendan LOVES his Daddy and wants to be just like him. He tries to walk in his shoes a lot.
And this is what it looks like now if Brendan comes up and puts his arms around my legs and looks up at me:

Speaking of that, I am 32 weeks pregnant as of Thursday. Here is the 32 week belly picture:
Griffin moves a TON throughout the day and also has the hiccups about 3 times per day (I do not like the hiccups!). He weighs about 4 pounds now and is about 16 inches long. We had an ultrasound a few weeks ago and he was 3.2 pounds, which was right at the normal size for the number of weeks I was at the time. His head is very low already so we weren't able to get any good profile pictures of him :( His heartbeat is consistently around 155 bpm when we check it at the doctor. I have gained 26 pounds as of my appointment last Tuesday, which I am very happy with since I know at this point I won't gain anywhere near the 60 I gained with Brendan. It has been another uneventful pregnancy, which is great.

Hope everyone has been doing well and had a great weekend!