One month pictures

So I decided to finally post Graham's one month pictures. So lazy, I know. We went to JC Penney's and I would highly recommend them. You can pretty much find a coupon for them in any parenting magazine or even in a JC Penney store. With the coupon, I got a free 8x10 and then every sheet of pictures after that was only 3.99. So both times I've been, I haven't paid more then about 12.00 for several poses worth of pictures. I love how these pictures turned out. He was crying during almost the entire thing so I'm surprised we ended up with a few good ones. The photographer would blow in his face and it would surprise him and then she would snap a shot. Genius (or possibly kind of mean).


And guess what?? I found some baby pictures of me in some of my stuff and, good news!! Graham does look more like me then I thought (sorry Elliot). Here are the pictures of me (they are terrible copies but it was all I could find) and then a picture of Graham in a similiar pose.Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We leave tomorrow afternoon to head to my parents house. Wish us luck. We will definitely be needing it (along with some serious doses of baby tylenol).

Almost forgot his stats

In case anyone is interested, here are Graham's stats from his 2 month appt:

12.8 lbs

22.5 inches long

and here's another picture because I just can't help myself:

Shots and highchairs

On Friday, Graham had his 2 month well check (what does that even mean? Why can't we call it a check-up visit?) I was so worried for him about the shots and how he would respond to them. Here is what he looked like right before we left. I love this picture. How can you resist that double chin?

When we got to the dr's office, the receptionist advised me to put a blanket over Graham so it was completely covering him because there were some sick people in the waiting area and she didn't want the germs getting to Graham. Elliot was holding him so I put the blanket around him and then noticed it looked like he was nursing him! We both couldn't stop laughing about it and luckily I had the camera with me so I got to capture the tender moment.Here's Graham right before getting his shots. Poor little guy.  He got really red in the face when he got the first shot and held his breath for a little bit before letting out a loud scream. Surprisingly though, he didn't fuss much more then a few minutes after the whole ordeal. I expected him to carry on and on about it but he seemed to be ok once he was being held again. That is until we put him back into his car seat to go home.  Apparently he didn't want to waste his tantrum energy on the shots and was saving up for the moment his little butt hit the car seat. He had definitely saved up enough energy. He screamed bloody murder the entire way home, and of course went back to normal once we were home and took him out of the car. What baby is more upset by a car seat then by two sharp needles being jabbed into his leg? Weirdo. I suppose this is a baby who had a spinal tap at 1 week old. He just may think these vaccine shots are child's play.
In other news, we have discovered sanity saver #2 (the first of course being this). I put Graham in Carson's highchair the other night while I was eating dinner and low and behold he sat quietly in it through the entire dinner!! It was pretty fabulous not having to pass him back and forth while we ate. And then to sweeten the miracle, he fell asleep in it halfway through the meal!! That is the first time I have ever seen him fall asleep on his own without being held. Who knew I could feel such love for a highchair?
I went and saw Twilight on Friday too. I went in thinking it was going to be a fairly cheezy movie that wasn't anywhere near as good as the books (what movie ever is as good as the book?) but that it would be entertaining. I ended up absolutely loving the movie though! I thought it was really great and followed the book really closely. All the characters seemed pretty dead on to what I envisioned them to be when reading the book, and call me a 13 year old girl, but Edward was so dang sexy my heart raced a bit during different parts of the movie. 

Car seat trauma

So as I mentioned in my last post, Graham absolutely detests his car seat. He can be acting perfectly happy and then I'll snap him into it and he goes berserk. Even when I get him completely asleep before putting him in it (thinking I am so clever) he immediately wakes up, surveys the situation for a minute or two and, after realizing he is in the car seat, screams incessantly until the second I take him out (then he acts like nothing happened, the little bum).
On Tuesday, I took him to the mall (which is about 15 minutes away) to get his 2 month pictures taken and he screamed all the way there and all the way back. That 15 minute drive turned into what seemed like 6 hours. On the way back he was screaming so hard and loud, I seriously considered pulling over thinking something was wrong, but decided against it because I didn't want the drive to have to be any longer then necessary. He kept coughing mid-cry because he was choking from crying so hard. As soon as we got home, I took him out and what do you know, complete silence. What a strange little boy.
For the most part, the car seat hatred has not been much more then a slight annoyance when having to drive the short distance to church or to run quick errands, but next week we have decided to put to the test exactly how much he really does dislike that car seat. We are making the 9 hour trek up to Indiana to see my family for Thanksgiving. Oh boy. I have no idea how this is going to go and honestly, I'm a little terrified of what 9 hours of screaming is going to be like. Surely he couldn't actually cry the ENTIRE 9 hours.....right? I've never had the opportunity to see just how long Graham will cry for in the car, but I figure even an adult could only carry on for so long, so a baby must get tired after 1/2 hour? 45 minutes? an hour of screaming? He'll have to get tired eventually. Oh please tell me I am right.
We are going to leave on Monday night as soon as we get him to sleep. A nice hot bath, a bottle of warm formula, and I am hoping we can get him deep enough asleep that it will take a few hours before he realizes we have tricked him into the car seat. The last week, he has been sleeping between 7-9 hours a night (knock on wood that this keeps up) so if I can get him into the car seat after he is asleep and we leave right away, I think we might be able to make it at least 3/4's of the way to my parents house while he is asleep. Let's just pray that this is really the case. My fear is that this is going to turn into a 15 hour car ride from hell and Elliot and I will both be too traumatized to ever take Graham anywhere again.
Does anyone have any advice that could make this experience any easier? Or perhaps some baby narcotics? I would accept either with open arms.
Graham has his 2 month shots tomorrow morning. I am already sad for him. Poor little guy has no idea what is coming his way.

Taming the beast

Not sure if I've mentioned it before, but Graham is quite temperamental. In face, he can be down right grumpy most of the time. When he was in the NICU, the nurses kept telling me that he had quite a temper but I thought they were being wimpy about him crying sometimes, and since I only saw him about an hour each day, I happened to think his little baby cry was the most adorable sound I had ever heard (oh my short lived naivety). If he is not sleeping or eating, it is a fairly good guess that he is crying. I try bouncing him in my arms, putting him in the swing (this one leads to lots more crying. He in no way appreciates the soothing effect of the swing that every other baby in America seems to absolutely love), using the baby bjorn, taking him for a walk, singing to him, the list is endless and none of it works for very long. Until I found this gem of a baby toy:



I borrowed it from Megan one day to see if it worked and low and behold it does!! He is mezmorized by the flashing star that plays the music and will lay there staring at it for up to 20 minutes at a time. People, do you know what you can do in 20 minutes if you have both hands free and you no longer have to attend to your ears that were previously bleeding from the high decibel screaming?
Oddly enough, since the discovery of this babysitter, Graham has started really mellowing out. I'm not sure if the flashing lights have put him into a permanent trance or what, but I would say for the last week he has been quite calm. I have been able to lay him on the couch and play with him and he has started cooing at me and smiling back sometimes! He is so much fun. Not to say he doesn't still freak out sometimes for what appears to be no reason, but what baby doesn't? (if you were going to say your baby doesn't, don't bother, I have no desire to hear about it).
That being said, he does still ABSOLUTELY hate his car seat and acts like he is being stabbed everytime I try to put him into it. That is a blog for another time though. I have a baby crying in the other room.

Should I be concerned?

Last Sunday as part of the lesson to my beehives, I told a story about a woman who had lost her husband in a car accident and how painful it was for her, but how she got through it based on her faith. We started discussing how hard it would be for someone to lose their spouse and what kinds of feelings you would have. One of my beehives, wanting to make sure the class really understood what this would be like, raised her hand and said "you guys, remember when Bella lost Edward for awhile in the second book? Can you imagine if he had never come back? That would have been devastating." All the other beehives nodded their heads in understanding and murmured sounds of agreement.

Not quite sure when the Twilight books starting completely taking over our lives.

Rock on!

YEAH!!!!

Are we all not so ecstatic that Brady got the boot last night!? I personally did a little victory dance.

Now if only we could convince them to remove one more hindrance to the show....

At 7 months and 7 weeks, they are already destined to be best friends

Guess it's back to weight watchers

Since Graham was born, there have been three conversations that I have been lucky enough to take part in:

1) 3 days after giving birth I am walking back to my room in the hospital on the post maternity floor (I don't think that is what it is called, but I can't think of the name of the floor right now) and a nurse passes me and asks "oh, are you having twins?" Seriously? You're a nurse who works on a floor where people stay AFTER THEY HAVE ALREADY HAD THEIR BABIES!! Come on lady. So I politely said that I had already had my baby and no, it was just one baby. She said "oh" and kept on walking. I can't believe I went 9 months with everyone I met asking me if I was having twins, and then gave birth and still had to deal with it. (in slight defense of this lady, I was still HUGE after giving birth, but then that brings me back to the point of what floor we were on.)

2) 3 weeks after Graham was born I was shopping at Burlington Coat Factory (where I used to work) and I was talking to a lady I used to work with and she asked how old he was. I said "3 weeks" and then she said (you're not even going to believe this, but it is absolutely true) "Wow, you had him 3 weeks ago and your stomach hasn't gone down at all?" I was so appalled, I didn't even know how to respond. Who in the world says such a thing?

3) This last one is the worst for me because it just happened 3 days ago. I was at Panda Express buying about 6,000 calories worth of food and the lady working there asked me "So, when are you due?" whoa. I was not expecting that. I had about 1/2 a second to think about my answer and for whatever reason, I spit out "5 months" and smiled while touching my belly. Stupid, I know, but I didn't want to have to deal with making her feel stupid when I said I wasn't pregnant, and I also didn't want to have to walk out of there carrying my fried Chinese food right after someone just told me I was fat enough to be pregnant. At least this way, I could call it a craving :) I realize that I must have some sort of mental problems. Anyways, I started regretting my decision to save this poor girls feelings when she followed my answer of 5 months with "oh, you look further along then that." Oh my gosh. I am never going back to Panda Express again and I would suggest that those of you out there that are my true friends help me in this boycott.

Like father like son

So here's a little secret. Since I got pregnant, I have been really hoping that I would have a baby that would look just like me, whether it be a boy or girl. I literally wanted it to be the spitting image of me. Not because I think I am a great looking specimen (not that I'm not a fantastic piece of woman, that's just not the reason I wanted our kid to look like me) but because I thought it would be really cool to look at my child and see myself.
Since I was adopted (in case you didn't know, I was adopted when I was 9) I didn't have anyone in my family that looked like me. I do happen to blend into my family quite nicely and you would never suspect I was adopted because we all have the same pale skin and brownish hair, but no one looked JUST like me ya know? Like in those families where all the kids are the spitting image of each other and their parents? (i.e: Elliot's entire family) We also have a friend Kathryn whose little boy looks exactly like her and it is so adorable.
Anyways, so when Graham was born I kind of thought he was starting to look like me when I was a baby and I got pretty excited. I couldn't find any baby pictures of myself so I found some of Elliot's to compare and low and behold...
they look a lot alike. Darn that Elliot. I know they don't look like twins or anything, but there are definitely some strong similarities. The picture of Elliot is from when he is 5 days old (I don't know what kind of monster 5 day old he was but that is what is says on the back of the picture. Seriously, isn't his body pretty huge for a newborn??) and the one of Graham is taken from this morning (he is 7 weeks old today) so it isn't a great comparison. I haven't been able to find anymore of Elliot's baby pictures from when he is little older but if I find them, I will post them on here to see what you all think. I do think it will be pretty cute if Graham ends up looking just like Elliot, but I'll tell you what, if our next child is a girl and she ends up looking like Elliot too, that isn't fair and I will have to consider having the rest of my children with someone who isn't so selfish.

Edit: I just found this picture of Graham at 2 weeks old and thought it might be a better comparison.

For your viewing pleasure

Graham's blessing

Graham's blessing was today at church. He looked so cute in his outfit (props to Megan and Debbie for picking that out). We took a few pictures outside the church since the weather was so wonderful. I didn't get any pictures of just Graham and forgot about it until after I had already taken him out of his outfit so I will have to do that another day and post them later.
Graham was not pleased to be woken up for the photo shoot so we decided to join him in his misery. Elliot does a pretty good impression of a screaming infant. hmm.....
After church, Debbie made a fabulous celebration dinner. Here is the wonderful spread (with me looking mildly drunk in the background).Everyone was there to enjoy the festivities. Adam:

Megan:Elliot:
Grandpa, Grandma and Carson:and Grant:

A really great family shot. I love how my head looks 6 times as large as Elliot's.
Unfortunately the guest of honor slept through the whole thing.

Trunk or treat