Parker's Move Up Ceremony 2014

The "school year" at the JCC ends June 30 and Parker will be moving up to a new room starting July 1.  We had a parents only "Meet the Teacher" night a couple weeks ago and learned about her new class.  We have heard such good things about the new lead teacher, Ms Moore.  They will be putting a lot of emphasis on independence...dressing themselves, serving their own lunches, etc.  Each day has a special class that they get to participate in:

• Play Gym, click on link to see photos from JCC website
• Gymnasium - this is just the big gym for the rec center.  They have been using it in her current class to play games like Duck, Duck, Goose and a simplified version of kickball, but it will become more structured in her next year with a designated gym teacher, Mr. Dave.  
• Shabbot Sing-a-long - This is on Fridays and Parker has been participating on it all along.  The exciting thing is that her teachers said they will often take the kids to stand in back of a Zumba class on Fridays after singing and they all follow along...how cute is that!?  Parker will love it.  The teachers said it is great for the kids after sitting still and singing all morning.
• Swimming - we are most excited about this.  They have swim lessons every Monday!  It is at the JCC's indoor pool and they have a real instructor and report cards at the end of the year.

Here is a photo of the notes from the developmental checklist her current teacher did for end of the year, hopefully you can read it:

And some photos and video from the "move up" picnic they had this week.

As a room parent, I organized a year end gift for her teachers.  I had all the parents send me a photo, created this collage and then had it printed as a mounted photo at Wal-mart.

Parker's closest friend is Mia.  They have been in the same room since they were one year old but will not be together in the new school year.  Aaron is another good buddy and he will be moving to the new room, as well as Dominic, Grace, Benjamin, Elanna, and Devin.  

They have been transitioning them to the new room by having visits over the last few days.  Parker's first visit was last Thursday and I heard from our friend, whose son told her that Parker cried when they went in at first but then she stopped and they had fun.  I asked her teachers about that and they said all of the other kids had visited for the first time the day before, which was Wednesday and Parker was home with me, so that probably made her feel uncomfortable...everyone else had already been there once.  But her teachers said since then she has been great and no more tears.

We are sure she will love her new room and new friends and before long she will be a class/teacher favorite just like she is now!!

   

Graham - 2 Months Old

Graham is two months old!  We had his check up yesterday and everything was great.  Here are his stats:

Weight 14 lb 6 oz, 97%
Height 23.75 in, 90%
Head 15 in, 25%

As evident from his size, Graham is still eating great.  He generally goes every three hours between feedings during the day, but sometimes longer.  We have had a couple night recently where he slept until 6:00 am, but that has not been consistent.  More often is a 4:00 am feeding, but still really good for 2 months old.  Graham has really started "talking" to us, we hear a lot of "goo"s.  The smiles are coming along as well, he doesn't smile very often, but when he does it melts our hearts.  The smiles are becoming bigger and more frequent so I expect to see lots more of them in the coming weeks.

I have put away all of the three month size clothes and we are solidly into the six month size now.  He is wearing size 2 diapers.  I am just getting out the cloth diapers this week to start using those again, more on that in future posts...    I 

Father's Day 2014

We had a very fun Father's Day weekend.  Parker helped me make the always popular Oreo Ice Cream Dessert.  Here she is crushing oreos.

We met up with Papa G, Sandy, & Pryse at the Red Wings game Saturday night.  

On Sunday, we had a good breakfast at home and then went out to run some errands and get lunch.  Parker never naps at home anymore, but will usually fall asleep if we are in the car that time of day.  She did fall asleep that day and then woke up and took more of a nap cuddled on her Daddy's lap...best Father's Day gift she could give!

Papa G and Sandy came over for dinner.  We enjoyed the gorgeous weather hanging out in the backyard.  Before enjoying the Oreo dessert, we had steaks with gorgonzola butter, grilled scallops, twice-baked potatoes, and a yummy salad that Sandy brought.  

Insult or Injury?

A couple weeks ago we took a little trip to urgent care.  It was a Wednesday evening and Greg was playing with Parker before dinner.  He was tickling her and they were kind of wrestling around.  Greg was holding her left forearm while she was laughing and pulling away and she suddenly started crying. She kept saying her arm hurt, wouldn't use it, and was very upset.  After dinner I took her to the urgent care up the street.  Parker was a little scared but handled it all very well.  They felt around her arm and she let them move her hand all around so they were pretty sure nothing was broken.  They did an x-ray and it looked clear.  They diagnosed a sprain of her forearm/wrist area and wrapped her arm in an ace bandage for support.  The nurse was awesome and let Parker pick her favorite color to wrap it in.  They also gave her a ring pop.     

She had a restless night of sleep that night and I kept her at home with me again the next day.  With only one arm, there are not a whole lot of activities we could do, so it was a lot of TV time.  Here is Parker and Graham hanging on the couch.

On Friday morning, Parker was still favoring her arm and complaining about the pain so I kept her home.  But we needed groceries, so I loaded both kids up and headed to Wegman's.  Turns out the distraction was all she needed, because as soon as we got inside she was acting totally normal and did not mention her arm again.  That afternoon we built a "house" in the living and as you can see by the video, her arm was not bothering her at all. 

Turned a Corner

The last couple weeks have involved lots and lots of baby holding.  Graham loves to be snuggled, very tightly.  He is easy to calm; once someone picks him up, he usually settles quickly, but we had a couple weeks where he needed to be held all day long.  This past week, around the 7 week mark, he finally is letting us put him down.  If awake, he will look around and kick his legs, wave his arms and just hang out for quite while.  Usually, he will start to fuss when he is ready to fall asleep again so just needs to be held for a bit.  Most times we can put him down after he is asleep and he will be content until he is ready to eat again.  He finally likes the swing and so during the day he either naps in that or in the Rock 'n Play Sleeper in his room.  He is on a pretty consistent 3 hour eating schedule during the day, but at night he can go much longer...last night was 7 hours!  The general eating schedule is 7:00 am, 10:00 am, 1:00 pm, 4:00 pm, 7:00 pm, 10:00 pm, 4:00 am.  Of course, this is subject to change at any given time!  Graham has taken a bottle a few times and twice this week and does great with it.  

Parker is doing so great with her baby brother.  Our routine has been for Greg to drop her off at school (daycare) in the morning and for Graham and I to pick her up.  As soon as I arrive to get her, she runs over and checks on him and tells everyone that "her baby" is here and to come look at him.  Graham gets lots of hugs and kisses from his big sis and for the most part, they are of the gentle sort.  

Now that he is more alert, Parker likes getting out toys for him to look at when laying on the floor.  Graham will look intently at our faces, really checking us out, but we haven't seen a "real" (meaning while awake) smile yet.

Here are some pics and a video from the last couple weeks:

Not much hair on front of his head, but the top and back of his head keeps growing

Memorial Day 2014

We usually go camping with a group of friends on Memorial Day weekend, but decided to pass this year.  We seriously considered it, but in the end decided the night time would just be too difficult with a 4 week old baby.

Instead we went for a hike in Mendon Ponds Park on Saturday...

Sunday evening we walked into Pittsford Village to grab dinner and ice cream.  Our plans were messed up a bit because the restaurant we wanted to go to was closed, so we went to a much nicer place next door.  After that we got ice cream cone at Pittsford Farms Dairy:

On Monday, we walked into the village again for the Memorial Day parade.  These photos are from after the parade, when we hung out by the canal and then grabbed lunch and frozen yogurt at Yotality.  Parker's newest obsession is finding rocks to throw into the water, so she was happy to hang out by the canal for awhile.