Merry Christmas!

This year has proven to be much more merry and bright than the years past.  I am defining "family" a bit differently now, and to me, that's the most important part of the holidays.  This morning (Christmas Eve) Griffin woke up with wide eyes and just kept smiling--I think he may just know what's going on.

Merry Christmas!  I hope yours is filled with lots of love and yummy food.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Griffin may not realize it now, but we LOVE Christmas.  Especially his dad.  If he could he would light our entire house and yard with lights.  I really can't wait to see Griffin get excited about Christmas too.  I can't wait to see him and Dave on the roof hanging lights or for him to help pick the year's tree or hang his own ornaments on the tree.  I know that I'll be seeing all these things happen before I know it. 

I believe that my favorite part of the holiday season is tradition.  I love counting on certain things to happen their certain way each year.  My family didn't really have any Christmas traditions that I remember, except that we had to stay at the top of the stairs until Dad got the camera cued. But I enjoyed that.  Sometimes I find myself missing waking up early Christmas morning running down the hall to wake my parents; but soon I'll be the one being woken up.  Soon I'll be starting our own family traditions, and that excites me.

Dave's family has tradition of giving each child an ornament every year.  Dave has all of his including his first.  So we've continued the tradition with each other.  Our tree is mostly all Dave's ornaments and only a few of my own that I've acquired in the last five years and the dogs even have a few.  And now Griffin has his very first ornament hanging from the tree.  This is just the beginning of his collection that I am excited to add to.

Last year Dave and I did Christmas pictures of us and the dogs.  It was our first Christmas as a married couple, so it was fun to do.  This year I almost didn't want to send cards, then I kicked myself and realized what holiday it was.  I would have been sad for ages if we had not taken pictures of our first Christmas as a little family.  I will post the final picture of this year's card soon, but for now I'll give you an outtake.  I didn't even think of how difficult it was going to be to pose a baby and two dogs.  Difficult, but worth it.

Griffin, who had been calm for the whole weekend, decided he wasn't happy about the camera being out.  Jack, who's usually the photogenic one, wasn't in the mood either and kept trying to run away or lay down and sleep in the middle of a shot.  But Lucy was pretty good, except for getting easily distracted by Dave or Griffin or the voices in her head.  After what felt like 1000 pictures, we finally got ONE that worked.

Griffin has been impressing us with his development lately.  Not only is he making eye contact with us all the time, he's following objects with his eyes more consistantly.  I didn't realize that one day I would be so astonsished with someone staring at things like I am with him.  I've also caught a few smiles.  In the evenings while Dave is working on his homework, Griffin and I will have conversations that consist of him cooing and we'll work on his leg and neck muscles, and a couple of times he's smiled right at me.  Can't wait for that smile to be permanently glued to his face. 

What makes me smile?

My little family.

Griffin looking at me, which is happening more and more often these days.

Dear Griffin...

...please slow down!
I took the first picture at one week, and the second one was taken at five weeks.  Looking at this just about takes my breath away.  I had heard everyone say, "oh, they grow so fast...yadda yadda yadda."  However, seeing is believing.  I hadn't ever imagined that a person could literally transform in just a couple of weeks.  I am going to need to hit the gym and do some weight lifting just to carry him around if he continues on this track.  (Or he may be carrying me pretty soon.)

I am learning that right now there is no such thing as a norm.  For a while, he had been sleeping from around midnight to about 6 in the morning.  He was also just fine being laid down wide awake.  I had hoped that this was just the way he liked it, and a nice foundation to sleep a full eight hours.  But...he has seemed to change his mind.  He is now waking up around 4:30, however I am feeding him a tad bit earlier.  He really really wants to get up when he wakes up; no crying it out for ten minutes.  I am about to start reading (oh, I've said that a million times) The Happiest Baby on the Block that my dear friend, Emily, got for me.  On Amazon it has four and a half stars out of 708 reviews, and one calls the book "pure magic."  He is also getting fussier during the day and I'm not too sure what to do about it.  I don't want have to hold him all the time, but at the same time I don't want to traumatize him either. 



Griffin had his first snow day the day after his first I'm-staying-up-all-nightlong-night.  So I wasn't thinking clearly and thoroughly.  G's Uncle Jacob was spending the day with us since Dave was in class for eight hours.  Jacob asked if we could take Griffin outside to see the snow and I responded by saying something like, "NO!  It's cold out there."  Then out of the corner of my eye I saw the camera and realized how awesome Jacob can be sometimes.  I would have hated to have not captured Griffin's first snow day on film a memory card. 

Thanks Jacob!

What's in a name?

So I'm not very good with abbreviated names, for people or for objects.  Not just abbreviated names but also nicknames of any kind.  I normally call people by how they've been introduced to me.  I have always been called by my entire first name and it's never successfully been shortened.  So when people told me that Griffin's name would be shortened to "Griff," I shook my head and laughed.  So within a month only a couple of people have called him Griff, but some only to annoy me.  Slowly it's doesn't matter as much as it did, but it still makes me laugh.

Many times I have been reminded how clueless I am when it comes to this parenting stuff, especially the lingo.  Everyday I feel like I learn something, if not a million things, new.  The other day I was asked where Griffin's "binky" was, to which I had no clue what that was.  Thinking it through I assumed it was a blanket, then I learned that it's the pacifier.  Where did this name come from?  Back to my problem of not using nicknames, I can not bring myself to call the pacifier anything other than "pacifier."  I can't say binky or winky or passy--I just can't do it.  I've also learned that blankets can be minkies or possibly a million other names, but what's wrong with "blanket"?  I like just having a clear and concise nomenclature for things so I am not grabbing for Griffin's blanket instead of the pacifier. 

I'm coming around though, and I keep an open mind.  So don't judge me ;) 

*Both pictures were taken two weeks ago.  Griffin is now a little bigger and a whole lot cuter.