Graham is six months old today. Happy half birthday!
Recently in Graham Category
Here is Graham dressed up like a pumpkin/jack-o-latern for Halloween this year. Perhaps we'll use him as a mascot for our pumpkin ale ;)
Danika found a hat and some mittens for Graham to wear this winter when we visit his Grandpa in MN. He seems to like them. I wonder how we will keep them from freezing since I have a feeling he will be chewing and drooling on them non-stop?
Graham was very excited and happy to meet his great aunt Pat and uncle Tony this last weekend. They were on there way to Victoria, BC (driving from MN) and were able to spend some time in Seattle. We got to have dinner with them on Friday and hang out most of the day on Saturday.
Graham is at it again. We are no longer swaddling him, but he continues to be fairly active at night. When we put him to bed at night, we place him in the middle of the crib. Most mornings when we go to check on him he is no longer in the middle of the crib and usually has moved all the way to one side or the other with his legs and hands hanging out the side. Below are some images from the last couple of mornings. Sorry for the poor quality, it was low light and I didn't have time to set up a tri-pod. I recently got a laptop and camera setup to do time lapse video and hope to capture Graham's sleeping to see how much he moves around. I still need to figure out how (or if) to set longer shutter times on the camera.
We brewed on Saturday, which was the first time since Graham was born. We brewed our maple porter and our extra pale ale. Everything went much smoother than expected. After the four month break I thought we would for sure screw something up, but nothing to crazy happened. Someone asked if one of the beers would be named in Graham's honor. Since the maple porter already has a name, that left the extra pale ale, which seemed a bit fitting seeing as he has such pale skin, unexpectedly pale skin you may even say, so we decided on "Graham's Unexpectedly Pale Ale".
I was also able to get the Latitude C400 setup with gphoto2 and took photos at 8 second intervals so I can make a time lapse video of the brewing session. So far it appears to have worked (I haven't had a chance to create a video yet) except for some reason it stopped 20 minutes before we were done. The last 20 minutes was all clean up (washing pots, putting stuff away) so it didn't miss much, but I was a little disappointed to not have captured all of it. Oh well, I can always do it again if it ends up being interesting. I will post the video once I get it put together. In the mean time here are some photos with the newest helper monkey.
Graham inspects the brewing stand
Our neighbor succeeded in making Marc and I smile,
but not Graham, he takes brewing very seriously
Pretty much since he was born Graham have been very good at getting his arms out of his swaddle. I didn't find it too surprising when he could get out when swaddled in a blanket, but when we started using contraptions designed specifically to keep him swaddled I became more impressed. The last two nights he has become even more impressive. Both mornings when I went in to check on him, not only did he have an arm out, he had also moved himself from a starting position of 12 o'clock to somewhere around 7 o'clock. I wonder how long it will be before I go in to check on him and he's out of the crib sitting in the chair reading Green Eggs and Ham. I may need to set up a spy cam to figure out how he's doing it.
Here he is swaddled and placed at 12 o'clock
In the morning - one arm out and at 7 o'clock
Graham's pretty lucky, he doesn't have just one awesome quilt-making aunt, but two! Here is a photo of the quilt his aunt Sara made him. If look closely (and are familiar with how Sudoku puzzles work) you may notice something about the quilt's pattern. Thanks aunt Sara!
I have been meaning to post something since my sisters (and niece) left, but just haven't had time. They were in Seattle from the 9th to the 14th. We had a great time. Graham got to meet a few relatives from the Litke side of the family and we all got to go out to some of our favorite restaurants. We also visited Carkeek park and the Aquarium.
Octo-Kiley
Graham and Aunt Lizz
Graham and Kiley
Graham and Aunt Sara
Those of you who know my dog, know she doesn't "talk" much. Most of you have probably never heard her bark. So far she has been relatively indifferent with Graham, she occasionally licks him, but that's about it... except when he gets to the point where he is really wailing. He seems to get the most upset on the changing table and sometimes when he really gets going, Dax chimes in with the most pathetic howl you ever heard. It's pretty funny.
Graham's aunt Khya made him this beautiful planetary quilt. I just wanted to share it with all of you and say, "Thanks, aunt Khya!".
Graham has been sleeping through the night, which is great for us, but we were concerned it might not be so great for Graham. We decided to check in with the doctor again to make sure there was nothing wrong with Graham sleeping for such long periods of time. We had an appointment yesterday, and I am happy to say the doctor said everything was fine. Graham is continuing to gain weight (he is up to 8 lb 12 oz) so the doctor said it is fine to let him tell us when he wants to eat and to let him sleep if he wants to sleep. This was especially good news to hear since I went back to work this week and when I start to lack sleep I get cranky, and I don't think my co-workers appreciate it much.
Just wanted to post an update on the cloth diapers. We have been using them for about a week now. I have to say, they are way easier to use than I expected. I would even go so far as to say that I think they are easier to use then the disposables we were using. There are a couple more steps involved, but it is much less complicated to get them to fit properly, plus you can experiment with different folds! Perhaps the same genes responsible for my affinity towards origami are responsible for my preference for cloth diapers.
Danika had a massage yesterday, so Graham and I got to hang out alone for a while. We went for a drive over to his cousin Zoë's house to return her car seat and when we got back home we hung out with the neighbors for a while. All in all we had a pretty good time. Near the end Graham started to get hungry and was very happy to see his mom when she got back.
I cannot believe how much "crap" you have to buy when you have an infant. The amount of stuff marketed to new parents is overwhelming. I am pretty sure most of the stuff did not even exist when I was a baby. Some of it, like car seats, are definitely an improvement, but so much of seems unnecessary. It is quite a struggle to figure out what is important for your child's safety and what is overkill and marketing hype. Luckily we have the internet to help. Danika has done a lot of research and is also on some mom groups.
We had been discussing getting a swing for Graham, mostly it came down to if we really wanted to shell out over $100 and in the end Graham might not even like it. Well, shortly after discussing the swing, there was a post one of the mom groups from a mom who was giving away a swing. It was one of the models Danika's research showed was safe, so Danika emailed the mom and we now have a swing for Graham to try once he is a bit older.
We are using a car seat the Zoë and Sol both used, but now that Adria and Jeremy are expecting another in September, we knew we would need to return it before Graham had outgrown it. This is another item Danika and I discussed. Kids go through many different phases of car seats and there are many different styles each with their own list of pros and cons. They all work for a range of weights and sizes, so we were trying to figure out what would work best for a four month old. We decided we would wait a bit longer to see if the advantages of having the infant car seat would still be useful when we need to return Adria and Jeremy's seat. Well, a few minutes after the swing was posted someone posted the same model car seat we were borrowing (which is a really good seat) for half price. It was new in the box and the owners had ended up with two. Danika emailed that mom and we now also have our very own car seat.
I sure hope we can continue to find second hand gear, since it saves us money but also helps the planet.
