Graham @ 19 months

I meant to write this post last month, when Graham hit the 18 month milestone, but I'm kind of glad I didn't get it done because so much has changed in the last month.  

It's no secret that I tried to hold on to "Baby" Graham for as long as possible; I think I made it all the way up to the 18-month mark before he revolted, and declared in no uncertain terms, "I am no longer a baby!"

At his 18 month well-child visit, the doctor commented, "most children at this age have between 5 and 50 words."  "Hmmm..." I thought, "if I"m generous, we can probably get close to 5!" I wasn't worried because Bryce and Thane were pretty similar, and I knew his receptive language was excellent.

A week later, Graham decided to start talking.  Now he loves to imitate what we say, and has increased his working vocabulary 10-fold!  

One of his favorite new words is, "Buh!," meaning "book!" because around this same time he discovered a love of reading.  Initially, there was only one book he would tolerate us reading to him - "Mice Squeak, We Speak" - and he would demand it be read over, and over, and over.  Eventually, we expanded the "allowable books" to two or three, and now he's pretty willing to tolerate most board books.  When he sees us sitting down to read to Bryce or Thane, he's quick to grab one of his own books and try to push his older brothers out of the way.

Which reminds me, Graham's entered a jealous phase, and the jealousy is primarily targeted to Thane.  It's most obvious when Mark gets home from work.  If Thane happens to run over to see Mark, Graham can't stand it and immediately runs to work himself in between the two of them.  As you can imagine, Thane responds to this extremely well (ha.ha!).

The main way Graham has declared he's no longer a baby is his insistence on independence.  He absolutely refuses to let anyone feed him, which is fine except in those instances where he's eating something extremely messy (like yogurt or oatmeal) and we're crunched for time.  

He loves to go outside and play and knows that when we put his shoes on, it means we're heading out. But if we put his shoes on, then go get in the car?  He interprets that as complete deceit, and throws a massive tantrum.  He also refuses to let me put on his Robeez, because he knows those are "in the house" shoes, and he'd rather go out.

Even though he's clearly no longer a baby and sometimes throws fits, he still is a cuddler and is sweet as can be.  He enjoys giving hugs and kisses, is very easy going, and is quick to laugh and play.  He's at an age where he recognizes and gets excited to see his friends.  His favorite friend is Henry, and it's hilarious to see them chatter and play together.  When they see each other across the chapel at church, they both start pointing and laughing and yelling.  Which, though extremely cute, and also be very distracting to those around us.  

Graham, like his brother (Bryce) before him, was born with a very thick and tightly attached frenulum on his top gum, resulting in a diastema (gap between his two front teeth).  Despite frequently falling and hitting that (bloody) part of his face, the frenulum remained attached.  Until a couple weeks ago when we were outside playing and he tripped and face-planted on the sidewalk.  No more attached frenulum... 

Graham enjoys playing with his siblings and likes to watch them carefully and try to copy their tricks.  He saw monkey Thane pull up a chair to watch me in the kitchen, and now he's always pulling up chairs and benches and climbing on everything.

I've probably mentioned it before, but Graham seems to get sick a LOT.  The past month has been pretty good, but before that he pretty much had a constant cold for 4 months.  Unlike the other kids, when Graham gets a cold it immediately drops to his lungs and causes difficulty breathing.  He was prescribed a nebulizer when he was 5 months old, and we unfortunately are forced to use it regularly.  

When he's not sick, it's fairly easy for me to think calmly and know that he'll be fine.  But when he's struggling to breathe, and the nebulizer isn't helping ... calm thinking is often the first thing to flee.  

The last time he got really sick, it got to a point where I was quite worried and considered taking him into Urgent Care.  First, however, we called our Bishop (who is also our home teacher and an EMT) to come check him out and assist with giving him a blessing.  Bishop immediately came over, and despite the late hour and the fact he hadn't slept in two days, when he saw Bishop, Graham sat up, smiled, and gave him a feeble wave.  Bishop assessed Graham, thought he could wait till morning to see the doctor, and then he and Mark gave Graham a blessing.  Within minutes, Graham's breathing normalized he had a wonderful night's rest.  I took him to the doctor in the morning, but felt like a fool because he was so much improved!  

Hiding under the train table with Thane

When Graham hit 18 months, he started attending nursery.  I can't imagine there could possibly be a child who transitioned more easily!  He loved it from the start and is always happy and engaged.  

Oh, at the 18 month well child visit, Graham had dropped to just the 58th percentile for height, but stayed around the 15th percentile for weight, despite his constant eating.  His head, though?  95th percentile for that deceptively huge noggin!

We love this kid, tantrums and all!