Griffin is starting to count. He "counted" to ten yesterday and to twenty today. "Counting " means that he tries to say the number when they are counting on Sesame Street - there's a little pause after each number they read during a counting segment and he tries to repeat it. He skips some, but does pretty well overall considering he's just started. This a.m. he did say 8 and 18 after 7 and 17 without being prompted. And he's trying to hold up his fingers too - the number of fingers doesn't necessarily match the number being discussed, but it's a first step. He's been talking a lot about Big Trucks too, when we ride in the car. Apparently the bigger they are the louder he has to say it. This weekend we went to a kid's music concert/Halloween party, church, and to Six Flags where he rode a (stationary) horse on the carousel and played in a giant room full of balls. There was fun to be had at each. And there was also one major meltdown per event. We take the bad with the good. He just gets so excited and has so much fun that he hates to leave. Except for church; he got really upset in the nursery and we had to be pulled out of Sunday School. He was ok until another shirt of people came in to watch him. He also had a little episode Friday night at daycare. Every 3rd Friday they watch the kids for $30 and we went out for sushi. We stayed till 8 or so just about 10 minutes too late as he had a crying meltdown.

Curse you Jobs

We had to watch this over and over while he danced around. At the very end he says Ap pel and points to the logo on the screen.

This is the commercial he saw months ago and at the very begining with no logo placement he said apple.

Zoo tour

Wow what a day. We went to the zoo for the first time that he could comprehend. It was quite an adventure. We saw elephants, zebras, giraffes, snakes, hyenas, bears, lions and monkeys. We went in an exotic bird exhibit and they flew all around you. They talked to him and he screeched in excitement louder than the birds. As you can see he is 34 inches tall now. Grew an inch and learned a life lesson at the hippo exhibit. The hippo comes out of the water and shakes his tail and then the sh*t really starts to fly. Sorry the video was shot at an angle. I'm glad the monkeys weren't flinging their poo and doing other nasty things.


He wasn’t a big fan of the rattlesnake as it was lying in the glass case right next to him. He said bye pretty quickly. He mostly got mad that he couldn’t climb on the protective railings. Probably what he is going to remember most of all is that we won't let him climb on things.

He had his Mr. Silly shirt on. Some guy laughed and said hi Mr. Silly and he immediately pointed to his shirt to show him Mr. Silly. Whenever he wears the shirt to school his teachers ask him where Mr. Silly is and he points to himself. Funny stuff.

Only about two meltdowns today. We played out in the yard most of the day and did some small amount of yard work. He helped us pick up sticks and rocks and threw them away in the garbage can. We played roll the car to each other tonight and then he gave me about 10 minutes of running hugs. He waits a few seconds and runs up for a big hug. He then back peddles a few steps and then does it all over again. You can never get tired of that. After bedtime we made a fire and I hooked up the TV to watch the Rays beat the Red Sox. Just the perfect temp for a fire. Our luck is about to run out as it is supposed to be cold for the next week.

Last couple of Saturdays

We went to the store today and talked about green and red apples and asparagus. Griffin helped me bag 1-2-3 jalapenos ah ah ah just like the Count and put the bag in the cart. He said hi to the check out person and asked him “whatchya doing?”multiple times. He is a talker when we are out. Always saying hi to people and we make sure he says please and thank you.

We went to the park tonight and he showed us how big he was by going down the largest slide there. We took turns pushing him on the swing and would tickle him when he sung near us. He laughed for 10 minutes like that.

We talked about the very warm sunset today and he repeated purple and orange and Griffin said the sky was blue. He was very happy to hear that we would be seeing mommy soon and dinner would be waiting. When we got home, he saw the Subaru said “Mommy’s car.”

I got Griffin 2 oversize sponge paddles with 2 sponge tennis balls. I was told to get a balloon for him to bounce on the paddles. We had lots of fun last night swinging at the balloon and chasing it across the yard. Griffin got mad this morning that I wouldn’t let him throw a balloon in a steep area of our yard so he said bye and grabbed his ball and tried to walk in the house. I’m afraid this is going to be a very disturbing trend.

We had 13 kids over last weekend all under the age of 5. The house wasn’t destroyed. We made a fire and roasted marshmallows. He had his first one on a stick. He didn’t want it at first but after watching Dad eat one he decided to try it. He wasn’t disappointed.

New Sidewalk

We just got our new sidewalk finally poured just before the rain and snow are to hit. Griffin put his handprint in the concrete and Dad signed his name and date. Bottom left corner of the larger picture.
When he saw his teacher today he immediately started saying eek eek, eek eek.
His teacher had a curious George smock on. She said he was very smart.

Someone pushed him from getting on a tryke on Wednesday and he fell on another tryke and opened up his stitched eye again. We had to go get it dermabonded but hopefully no scar.

33 and growing

Went to watch Race for the Cure today with friends Jack and Delcy. We went over to the football sculpture park at Invesco and everyone just loved to play on the pieces. We went to a couple of tailgate parties and headed home for a nap.
The family ended up playing in the backyard all afternoon and then we went downstairs and measured his height on the wall. He ended up being 33 inches tall.

22 months

This picture was from Tour De Fat in Sept in Denver. He had a lot of fun running around but when it was time to leave... Terrible 2s have definately started. A meltdown ofr about 5 blocks to the car. Everyone giving us the eye. He recovered and had a great time eating on the patio of a new BBQ place we found. He really charmed the waitress.

We’ve been a bit busy with a whiney baby. He hasn’t felt good in about 2 weeks and we certainly pay the price on weekends. This is an ominous sign as we near the winter months. Not good. I’ve been sick for about a week now as well. Not good either. Our break was that he got a 103 fever on Friday night and threw up most of the night. Friday night and not a week night. He has been especially clingy over the past couple weekends. A sure sign he is sick. Really clingy on Friday night and wanted to be carried everywhere. I should have known.
We have a big day tomorrow with Race for the Cure. The largest one in the country and it goes right by our house. We’re meeting up with Jack and Delsy twins in his daycare tomorrow to do the walk. It will all depend on the weather. A small cold front came through today so no more summer weather and its going to be a little chilly in the morning. We’ll see how the morning goes and how he feels.
We watched the Sunday night Bears game on the deck with Griffin on my lap. He saw a Ipod commercial that shows the various nanos one at a time lining up on the screen and then begin to drip color of their shell. When the commercial came on he said “Apple” a word I’ve never heard him say before. The only apple you see in the commercial is a brief view on the back of an Ipod. Weird.
He does a very good job of babbling of sentences now. He rattled off a whole story on the way home tonight and walked down to the cafeteria the other day and chatted with the lunch ladies until they gave him a cracker.
He pesters the cat constantly though they both are pretty good at instigating things. She must think any attention is ok and though he’s been a bit rough on occasion she hasn’t taken a swipe at him yet. He has tested her patience. I thought she was going to get him the other day when he was giving her head butt kisses.
Kim said she saw him practically crawling out to the crib today. We’re not sure what we are going to do when that happens. All bets are off.

We're going downstairs in the next couple of days and measuring him against the wall. We had to roll down a pair of pant legs that we used to have to roll up and a few others look like floodwater pants. Growth spurts. We just bought some 4s today.