Height: 34.75 inches, which means he grew 2.25 inches since his birthday. Until now he has always been the same height as Jack was at the same age, but this is the first time that he measured 1/4 inch taller. Jack didn't grow much from age 2 to age 3, probably due to his health issues during that year, so we expect Graham to be taller than Jack was at the same age going forward.
Weight: Graham is 24.8 lbs, which is the heaviest of any of our children at this age, although it is still super light on the growth chart.
Size Clothes: He is solidly in 2T, although some of the 2T pants are super long on him since some brands are made bigger.
Night sleep: Thankfully he sleeps through the night almost every night. This past week he had a cold so he woke up a few nights, but our older kids do that when they are sick too. He continues to share a room with Jack, which has worked out wonderfully. They don’t keep each other awake at bedtime, and Jack knows to sneak out of the room in the morning when he wakes up before Graham. I think they both enjoy having a buddy at night.
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| He falls asleep with the most random things. I never would have let our other kids have toys in bed, but this time around I do whatever is easiest. |
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| On our most recent camping trip we realized he is outgrowing his pack n play |
Naps: Unfortunately Graham only naps 1-2 afternoons a week. Thankfully, though, he willingly goes into his crib at nap time and rests or plays quietly for 1-1.5 hours even if he doesn’t sleep, but I’m nervous that he won’t do this much longer. I depend on his naps for getting work done for my job while the older kids are at school during the week, so it will be difficult when he stops having his nap / quiet time. When he does nap, he sleeps for about 2 hours (or longer, but I wake him up so that he sleeps well at night).
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| On a day he actually napped he somehow fell asleep with his dirty socks on his hands |
Food: Graham continues to be a picky eater. Chicken nuggets, fruit, and almond milk yogurt are his staples. He also likes several kinds of bars and PB and J. Recently I’ve discovered that he’ll drink smoothies with celery and cucumber (and fruit) in them, so it’s been a convenient way to sneak in some veggies. Sometimes he’ll eat broccoli at dinner when he’s pretending to be a monster eating trees :). Since we fought Jack over food for many years, we have decided to be more laid-back about it with Graham in hopes that he comes around to trying more foods on his own.
Food Allergies: I took Graham to an allergist last month, but nothing conclusive was discovered. Dairy did not show up as an allergy in the skin prick test or the blood draw, but the doctor said he most likely has a milk protein intolerance, which would not show up on either of those tests. Thankfully, kids outgrow milk protein intolerances, so hopefully he outgrows it sooner than later. I do give him pesto even though it has cheese in it as pesto pasta is one of his favorite foods. We avoid straight milk, yogurt, and cheese, though.
Speech: Graham has been seeing a Speech Therapist twice a month since December. For awhile we didn't see much improvement, but something seemed to click for him this summer as when we got back from Michigan at the end of July his speech seemed to explode. He is still working on articulation, but he definitely has a lot to say. Last week he had his annual evaluation for early intervention and the only thing category he actually had a delay in was Self Help (getting himself dressed and undressed, eating with utensils, etc.). During the evaluation the Speech Therapist asked me if he said certain things such as: does he say mine, does he ask questions, does he say his own name, does he regularly put four words together? I didn't think he did any of those things, but in the days after the evaluation I heard him say those things!
- I got my haircut and when I showed it out to him he said, "Daddy cut it?"
- He was talking to one of his siblings about a toy and he yelled, "No, mine!"
- When driving down the road he started asking me to "Open window."
- When we picked the kids up from school I said to them, guess who didn't nap today, and Graham answered, "Graham."
- When he got up in the morning he looked at me and said, "Daddy woke me up."
New Things:
- Just in the last few months Graham has decided that he is totally fine with us leaving him in the church nursery or leaving him at a friends house. This is wonderful and freeing after struggling with leaving him for the first couple of years of his life.
- We have been doing a Parent / Tot gymnastics class and it has been fun to do something for him since he is usually just along for the ride for the other kids' activities. It's also been fun for me since I never had the opportunity to do a Parent / Tot class with the triplets.
- The older kids started Taekwondo a couple of months ago and Graham loves to watch. Sometimes Graham has the option to stay home with one parent, but he chooses to go to the class to watch. He can even recite parts of the oath that the kids say at the beginning and end of each class.
- He plays really well by himself, which really isn't new as thankfully he seems to always have been this way. Part of the reason he is probably so independent is because last year we did homeschool on Tuesday and Thursday morning so he had to play by himself those mornings. Our other kids still have trouble just playing by themselves as they think of it as a punishment.
- He no longer sucks his fingers as we bought a finger guard and used it for a couple of weeks in June. We were surprised at how quick and effective this was at getting him to stop sucking his fingers as we actually traveled to Michigan during the time period when he was wearing the finger guard, but he never regressed.
- He is an awesome little brother and I love it when I find all four kids playing together.
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| He doesn't always want to pose for pictures for me |
- He loves creating things. When we painted pumpkins he spent twice as much time doing it as the other kids.
- He is super goofy and does anything to make the other kids laugh.
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| A crazy noodle |
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| He wears these goggles all of the time |
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| His current favorite footwear |
Difficult 2-year-old stuff: I was just reading the 2 1/2-year-old blog that I wrote about our triplets, and it seems that Graham is doing the exact same frustrating things that they did at this age. I absolutely cannot believe that I had to deal with these things x3, but in some ways it was a little simpler as we didn't have to get out the door four days a week for school drop off and pick up. Graham goes through spurts of refusing to get buckled into his carseat, he still bites (although thankfully he doesn't really bite me anymore...just his siblings now), and diaper changes and getting him dressed are a fight (especially on school mornings). He also loves to chase his older siblings around the house with his big metal dump truck, which makes them run and scream...which is pure chaos. But now that I've realized I've dealt with all of this before with triplets and survived, I guess I shouldn't complain!
Overall he is a super sweet, loving, cuddly, mama's boy. He loves to ride his balance bike, look at books, play with trucks and cars, and just be outside.
