Graham 11 Months

How is it that our baby is only one month away from turning 1?!!! I still refer to him as “The Baby” all of the time to strangers and acquaintances, which he is of course, but that makes him sound like he’s an infant when in reality he is closer to being a toddler. This has by far been the fastest year of our lives because we have been so busy with our four kids, and also Micah has been incredible busy at work. Plus I am working very part time from home and we’ve been making progress on our main floor update, so we haven’t had a lot of time to sit back and enjoy the days. But it’s been a memorable year nevertheless.

Newly painted railing and walls, and Graham climbing the stairs

The before (after I started painting a little)

Before and After of the kitchen cabinets

Age: 11 months

Weight: 17 lbs 5 oz (+ 11 oz)...consistently in the 4th-5th percentile for height and weight

Size Clothes: He’s finally starting to outgrow 9 month clothes, but they mostly still fit.

Night Sleep: Graham has had a hard time going to bed most nights during the past month. I try to put him down around 7:30/8:00, but most nights he screams until we get him back up. He usually goes to bed for real between 9:00 and 10:00, which means we don’t get much of a kid-free evening. He then wakes up 1-2 times during the night to nurse. Hoping this changes soon!

Yelling at the camera when he didn't want to sleep

Naps: Naps are still going well with him sleeping 1.5-2 hours both morning and afternoon. I have tried waking him from his afternoon nap earlier to see if it helped at night but it hasn’t.

Nursing: Graham nurses first thing in the morning, before his naps, and at bedtime. I also nurse him before I go to sleep at night and 1-2x during the night when he wakes up. According to my app, I now spend about an hour nursing in a 24 hour period.

Solids: Graham eats three small meals a day. For one he has a pouch and some Cheerios or some other finger food like fruit to keep him occupied. For another meal he eats a smoothie or just coconut milk yogurt in a straw cup with a little water so that he can drink it through a straw, plus a finger food. For dinner he generally just eats a little of what we are having cut up in small bites, and the rest of his pouch from earlier if he didn’t finish it. Overall he seems to enjoy food!

He loves eating from pouches independently 

Food Intolerances: Nothing new...still avoiding dairy, gluten, and soy.

Milestones: Graham has been crawling on hands and knees, instead of army crawling, more and more. He can easily get into the sitting position, he plays on tall knees all of the time, and he claps! He has also started to point and he can climb up half a flight of stairs. He enjoys pulling himself up on everything, although he still does it the “wrong” way most of the time as he pulls himself up by his arms instead of putting his foot on the floor and pushing off.

Getting his foot down to stand up the "right way"

Exploring the backyard

Teeth: No new ones...just the 8 he’s has for awhile, but I think more will come in soon by how he’s been acting.

Likes: Making silly noises like blowing raspberries, especially when we do it back. Being tossed in the air by Daddy. Being silly with the big kids. Eating food and drinking from a straw cup. Swinging at the park. Playing outside. Putting everything in his mouth.

Dislikes: Getting his face cleaned. Sitting in his high chair after he decides he is done with it. Having toys taken away from him.

Speech: No new sounds (mama, dada, baba, blows raspberries, makes gurgle noises in throat).

Places he’s been: We haven’t gone anywhere, but Grammy was here a few weeks ago to help us out, Grandpa and Grandma came a couple of days later for five days, and then Grammy came back the next day to stay for a week (partly to help me while Micah does a ski race he’s been training for). Because of all of the visitors, Graham has been sleeping in Jack’s room since his room doubles as the guest room.

His crib in Jack's room temporarily

Things he does to make us smile: Crawling over to me to be picked up as I don’t remember our other kids doing this until they got older. Feeding himself. Making cute noises. Playing with his siblings.

Graham 10 Months

This is by far the latest I've been posting to my blog for a month "birthday," and I even contemplated waiting another 11 days and just posting once for 10 and 11 months combined. But since I had already written a lot of it in the Notes in my phone, I decided I should just finish it (plus, I have some mom guilt since I was so on top of it with the posts about our trio!). This post is ridiculously late because the last few weeks have been extra busy for me, plus I was waiting to have Graham evaluated by Early Intervention since I had some concerns and I wasn't sure how to convey them in a post. It turned out that my concerns were valid and he is slightly delayed when it comes to gross motor (he is still not crawling on hands and knees all of the time, he doesn't pull himself up "correctly" on furniture, he doesn't clap, he doesn't reach his arms out to ask to be picked up, etc.), so Graham qualifies for services. Although it's disappointing that he's a little behind, there aren't any real concerns as he just needs a little extra push to help him along.

When writing this post, though, this quote from Theodore Roosevelt came to mind. "Comparison is the thief of joy." I have to admit that I find myself comparing our kids to my friends’ kids (and Google searches), and it’s easy to feel discouraged. Graham is a wonderful baby and he is growing and progressing, but I assumed he would be meeting all of his milestones on time since he was full term, but that hasn’t been the case.

When Alexis, Jack, and Faith were babies it was easy to believe that those with singletons had it “easier” than us, and that all full term babies around us were meeting milestones on time. And although it is true in many ways that one baby is easier than three, I never imagined we would be dealing with food allergies for Graham and I certainly never thought he would be tiny for his age or delayed in any way. When I look at Alexis, Jack, and Faith now I KNOW that these little milestones really aren’t that important to accomplish “on time” since I’m confident he will do them eventually, just as his big brother and big sisters did, but it’s human nature to compare ourselves and our kids to others. 

As a side note, Alexis, Jack, and Faith are actually completely caught up, despite being preemies, and we just enrolled them in kindergarten even though my earlier blog post said we were going to hold them back a year...but I’ll save all of that for another post! And, even though I feel a little disappointed that Graham isn’t a super chunky baby that is exceeding every milestone, the reality is that he is a wonderful baby with a charming personality, and there aren’t any charts or Google searches to measure that!

Age: 10 months

Weight: 16 lbs 10 oz (+6 oz)

Length: 27.25 inches (+.5 inches)

Size Clothes: 9 month

Nicknames: Grahambino, Bino, Bino baby, Bino bomber, Bomber

Night Sleep: Graham is fairly consistent with his night sleep as he typically goes to bed around 7:30, I nurse him before I go to bed around 10:00, he wakes between 2 and 3, and then he generally sleeps to 6:30/7. Some nights he has trouble falling asleep / staying asleep and I have to get him up for a little bit before we go to bed. Some nights he wakes up an extra time during the night. But for the most part he’s in a good routine.

Naps: Like last month, naps are still going pretty well with his morning nap from about 10-12 and his afternoon nap from about 2:30-4:30. Sometimes his naps are more like 1.5 hours, but still a good length.

Nursing: Graham nurses first thing in the morning (unless he woke up around 5:00 am and then went back to sleep as he isn’t hungry when he wakes up in the morning then), before his morning nap, before his afternoon nap, around dinner time, before bed, around 10:00 pm, and around 2:00 am. If he doesn’t have much solids he has a snack nursing session between those times during the day. I did try feeding him one day about an hour before his naps and he didn’t really have trouble falling asleep, so I don’t believe we have a sleep association problem (at least during the day), it’s just most convenient to feed him in a dark quiet room before his naps when I can first get the big kids occupied. It also assures me that he won’t wake up from a nap early because he’s hungry.

Solids: Last month I felt very discouraged with Graham’s lack of interest in solids, but this month things have changed! He's still not taking in many calories via solids, but the first step is learning to eat. One major milestone is that Graham has learned to drink out of a straw cup. I’ve read that this is better than a sippy cup for development, so I went for it! I started by giving him little sips from a straw that I had my finger over the end of, then I used a Take n Toss cup with a little water in it as it acts as a vacuum and I could squeeze the cup a little so water would come out of the straw without him sucking, and then he quickly figured out how to suck! (I read a blog that explained how to teach this and it worked so well). It only took a couple of days for him to figure it out and he loves drinking coconut milk yogurt and smoothies from the cup. He has also started picking up whatever I put on his tray and eating it (sweet potato, strawberry, black beans, cheerios, peas, etc). I figured out that he really likes to have control over his eating, so he is happier eating directly from a pouch that he is holding than being fed by a spoon (this is the opposite of our other kids so it surprised me!). 

Day 1: drinking a little water through a straw I was holding

Day 2: me helping him hold the cup while he drank

Now he's a pro at this straw drinking thing

I found vegan, gluten free mac and cheese and we both enjoyed it

Alexis wanted to feed him one night and it actually went well!

Food Intolerances: Nothing new to report. I'm still avoiding gluten, dairy, and soy for myself and with his solids.

Milestones: Pulling up on things to stand, sitting on tall knees, saying “dada,” playing peek a boo, waving, shaking head in refusal.

I took the couch cushions off like our Early Intervention therapists suggested with our trio and it's worked so great for him since he's tiny and it's hard for him to reach the top with the cushions on

Teeth: He now has 8 teeth!

Likes: Pulling himself up on the first stair, playing with the toy house / door, chewing on everything, sucking on his two fingers, being held, playing with his big sibs

He almost always has his fingers in his mouth if he's being held

He loves to play with this stool in the bathroom

Dislikes: He's just starting to get mad when toys are taken away from him (which happens often since the bigs don't want him sucking on their stuffed animals and such. Mostly he's easy going though!

Speech: He said 'dada' for a couple of weeks, but I haven't heard it recently. A speech therapist evaluated him this past week and he does seem a little behind on his sounds, but she wasn't really concerned since she felt like he was so focused on his gross motor skills right now and that speech would come soon. He does tend to be a little quiet, but I think that's just his demeanor and not something to be concerned about. 

Places he's been: Nothing new to report here. It's been a busy month but we haven't really been doing anything fun since I've been bogged down with obligations and house projects.

Things he does that makes us smile: Every time he practices a new skill. We also love seeing him play with his siblings.

The big kids love to help get him up in the morning and from naps. The girls had amazing bed head this morning. This was pre haircut.

His first time sitting in a high chair at a restaurant

Uncle Kent and Aunt Emily came out for a long weekend

Watching the rain

First Valentine's Day and even Graham got cards in the mail

The big kids do get irritated when he interferes with their games, but I had to laugh on this particular day since they blocked him out of tiny corner where they were playing and he had the whole rest of the room to himself 

Watching his first Olympics