6 months, 1 week, 4 days

Griffin's first Thanksgiving. It was very cool. We gave him a stick of celery to play with while we cooked. He enjoyed sitting in his high chair, and watching us. He sat with us while we ate, and played with his celery and his plastic toys, and was a good boy. It was an interesting feeling, having him there, having family there. Surreal, and yet one of the most solid and real moments of the past few months.

I apologize that this blog is late, but my mother is here, and I haven't had the chance to really type. As I speak, Griffin is hanging off my arm, trying to type, too!
He has a new carseat, as a gift from my mother and her husband. We haven't gotten the opportunity yet to go anyplace with it, but I hope to change that soon! He also has a walker, which he loves. He can't make it walk, but he loves being upright in a chair, and he loves the toys.
He also clearly wants to try to drink from a cup. He keeps grabbing for ours. I'm thinking maybe we should invest in a sippy cup for him. Sadly, his rapid advance towards being like us as far as eating goes, means he wants to breastfeed less. Life will be full of these small heartbreaks, but they still make me sad.

That is about it from me this week! Stay safe, all. 

Who put the overalls in Mrs. Murphy's chowder?

Every Thanksgiving when I was a kid, I would go to my Grandmother's house. I loved it, the olives and pickles, the turkey, the company. I really liked listening to the adults talking, the cadence of their voices was comforting and familiar, even if I didn't understand the subject matter. Around the table afterwards, they would sing all these songs they grew up with, and I think that was my favourite part of all. It's difficult to say why, but I think it's mostly because of the sense of history and deep family ties, combined with the joy of everyone being together to share the day.
I miss them all today, and I wish I could be with them, but I have my own small family gathering here at home.

The last few weeks I've been thinking of the name of the day. Thanksgiving. I can understand the ritual of eating a lot of food on this day. We at our base, resonate with food the best.. when we were babies, it was our main way of being comforted. It represents stability, home, hearth, family, safety. I have a lot to be thankful for today. My beautiful child, my splendid husband, our home, our extended families. We have enough (and more) to eat and we can feel comfortable that we won't starve the rest of the year. I can think back to years when we were barely scraping by, but we could pause to have this day with each other anyway.

I write this with my child laughing in the background, and think with great fondness of Thanksgivings past and with great joy to ones coming up in the future. I love my family, and hope that they can wrap this day around them like a blanket, to keep themselves warm.

Love always,
Autumn 

6 months, 2 days

Went to the doctor's office on Friday, his 6 month birthday. He is 19 pounds, 4 oz. He is 27 inches long. He got his shots, too, which went well. Staring into Griffin's eyes can really reassure him.. I still felt so sad when he got stuck with the needle, but it wasn't so bad. This is the first time I've gone for the needle sticking! Previously, Eric's taken him, and I've had the time to myself, but I wanted to go this time. They gave him Tylenol before the shot, so this time was mostly painless for us as well.

It was snowing when we went outside to go there. Griffin's first snow! He really seemed to enjoy the white flakes falling on him, and he got cheerful as soon as he hit the cold weather. He has a coat, but it's too big for his current car seat, he looks much like a baby stuffed into a car seat with packing materials. His "grandmoo" (as she wants to be called), is going to get him a new carseat, because he is growing out of the one he has now. The coat will fit in the new seat. Until then, we bundle him up in everything we have, and he seems very comfy.

Juice! He loves apple juice, is indifferent about pear juice. I admit, introducing him to new tastes is a lot of fun, and feeding him in the new high chair is so much better than how we were doing it before. He has taken to grabbing the spoon, and trying to feed himself with it. Also the same with the bottle, holding it, and feeding himself. His frustrations with breast feeding are increasing, and it makes me sad. I think it just is harder than the bottle, and he is being lazy.

Sometimes I worry that the things I say here will be redundant. The weeks are eternities that are over in the blink of an eye. These updates put them into perspective for me. So much happens within those seven days sometimes, it's amazing. Other weeks are a blur of ennui, but punctuated with things that seem new, even though he's been doing it for a long time. His attempts to feed himself, new noises, personality changes.. these are all landmarks for me while I wander about the land of Parenthood.

I do apologize if I tell you the same things, and hope you will accept that to me, they are in a new perspective. My tomorrows creep in a petty pace, but they do it too fast to clock. I cannot write as I want to, nor do any tasks. Every hour seems to have been emptied of minutes, and I turn around and around, dizzied and stunned. I fear when I am done typing this, for him to be able to talk, or to be in school, or perhaps college.

There will be a special Thanksgiving blog.

Be well,
Autumn

5 months 3 weeks 6 days

I'm always glad to get a picture of Griffin that doesn't require me to do a red eye removal, because you can see how amazing his eyes are. This is he, in the morning, grabbing at my camera. We gave him home-mashed bananas, and home made applesauce, both of which he liked. The applesauce had cinnamon in it as well, and was made of very tart apples, so he got a bit of a difference in taste and texture.

He has been requiring more and more sleep, often getting tired many hours earlier than ever before.. setting himself up on a 12 hour sleep schedule, and then a nap after he wakes up and feeds. This sounds great, but in fact, is quite tiring for me as well, as he gets annoyed if I put him down while he's napping. He wants to nap ON me, and doesn't understand that with my limited mobility, that means I'm confined to a chair. It's okay, but housework gets halted.

Observing him, I've come to realize that he now has moods. When he was very new, he would have modes instead; sleeping or tired, hungry, dirty, fussy (because of the others). He's slowly started to have actual moods, that he's in for his own reasons. Things that might be related to hungry, fussy, dirty, tired.. but also might be something else entirely. I will watch him sit quietly and hang on his father, just contemplating the world. Or he will spend the entire day refusing to sleep and shrieking at the top of his lungs just to hear himself shriek. He experiments with his hands, and pokes at our faces. He looks at individual things and is clearly considering them for what they are. He has an internal dialogue (albeit without a lot of vocabulary) of his own, and the bridge between us is so wide. Sometimes I boggle that we can communicate at all to each other.

Eric can work from home from time to time, and I really love that. Not just because I can see him more often, but because Eric gets to spend more time with Griffin in a state where he isn't tired and wanting to sleep. I marvel at Eric's ability to understand Griffin. They have a bond that I envy, and Eric often points out new behaviour that I just didn't notice. I often imagine them when Griffin is a little older, playing together. Eric has a sense of fun and wonder that so often gets ploughed under by responsibility. I think Griffin keeps us both young.

Griffin was given a fantastic high chair by his grandmother Maryanne. I have a link to a movie of him eating, below. It's a really incredibly slow thing to load.. again, I don't know much about how to streamline that stuff, and my camera is just a regular camera with a movie function. So be patient.:) I'm in this, and I realize I kind of look like a muppet.. please look past that!

Be well, everyone. Love each other.
-Autumn
Movie: Griffin Eats!

5 months, 2 weeks, 6 days

His little face was all scrunched up, and he was glaring at us. Betrayed! We had betrayed him! After we went through all the stage one vegetables, we decided to try him on chicken. So we opened up the bottle. To me, it smelled a little like cat food. Griffin, seeing the bottle, and the spoon, opened his mouth immediately, expecting good things. Instead, he got pureed chicken.

We only fed him part of a spoonful, before he shut our chicken operation down. To compensate him for everything, we immediately gave him some sweet potatoes.. but we had to convince him we weren't playing some cruel joke on him. Since then, we've given him more bananas, both from the jar, and from a banana itself. Eric was holding Griffin while he was eating a banana, and the baby smelled it, and made it clear to us that it was not Eric's banana, but his. So some was squished up for him. The taste of a fresh banana was interesting, but put him in a fantastic mood.

Eric sometimes puts Griffin on his shoulders, a situation that is just fine with Griffin. He's not quite big enough to hold there for a long time, but Griffin loves it. I forsee many times when his father will transform into a horse.

Griffin is also getting used to the gaming sessions every weekend. We go to a friend's house on Saturday, and he is slowly getting used to them, and the house. Although, it's hard to put him down for a nap there because he refuses to sleep. It's getting harder and harder to put him down when there's any light at all. Griffin seems to like the dice rolling, and the chatter. I also think he likes looking at the dice, because everyone gets such interesting looking ones. Griffin is much better during the times when we have games at our house, though.

His hair is coming in, but it is a light colour, so it's hard to see except as a shine to his head. It also isn't a distinct shade, sometimes seeming red, sometimes a tow blonde. His eyelashes are getting a nice copper tone, though. This is so like his father, whose own hair is gold, copper, silver and a very nordic white-blonde.

Watching him learn is a lot of fun. At these ages you can track when he suddenly understands a concept. Yesterday he tried to lift my shirt and get at a breast. When we talk, sometimes he'll place his hands on our mouths and just hold it there while we're talking, staring. One night when he really didn't want to go to bed, he started fussing when we turned out the light. He's starting to get the concept of lifting his butt and getting his knees under him while on his belly, though once and a while he still tries to explore the "surfing" method of travel (where he rocks back and forth on his stomach, legs and arms in the air), much to his chagrin. Soon, I predict crawling. We've seen him start to grab for things on purpose, and holding his bottle has become more common.

He definately likes it better outside when it's cold like this. We should take him outside before the leaves are all gone. Perhaps today will do!