Thermalgal’s Temperate Mumblings

My Grandma…

I’m so thankful for my grandma.  Growing up we would spend one weekend a month at their place and then a couple of weeks during the summer.  They even took us (my sister and me) on vacations to the beach a couple of times.  By far she was my favorite grandparent growing up.  And I am so grateful that Henry will have some time with her (hopefully lots and lots).  She has been through a lot.  My grandfather had a heart attack and quadruple heart bypass in his mid fifties (about a month after she got her driver’s license in case something happened).  She has glaucoma, has survived breast cancer (six years now I think), and has had a knee replaced.  My grandfather passed away twelve years ago and it has been really hard on her being without him.  Since I was raised in a broken family (dad - her oldest son - left when I was 2), I use the relationship between my grandma and my grandpa as example of a good marriage (more than 50 years!).  She is 86 years old, has all her teeth, and check out the hair!  That is all the gray she has, isn’t that awesome.  Early last fall we has a scare.  The doctors thought grandma had lung cancer and we were looking at less than six months… turns out she had a lung clot and is now doing great.  She still lives alone in her two story house (with her laundry in the basement).  She has been there for 35 years and doesn’t plan on leaving any time soon.

How much does my grandma mean to me?  If we ever have a daughter, she will have my grandma’s name as a first name.    My second favorite grandparent was my mom’s dad and Henry is named after him (middle name, Thomas).

The Perils of Being Cute

On Saturday we visited my grandma.  She hadn’t seen Henry since January and he has grown a lot in the last 2.5 months!  Our original plan for my aunt to drive her over for lunch (a nice drive in the country which they like to do), but Aunt Marj has been all booked up lately, so since grandma couldn’t come to us, we went to her.  Scott was trying to get Henry to smile for the camera.  After I took this picture I busted out laughing because his expression is soo funny!

And like I promised here is a picture of Henry snacking on some toucan toes.

Rollin’ Rollin’ Rollin’

Though the streams are swollen
Keep them dogies rollin’
Rawhide!

Sorry, but that has been going through my head since Saturday. Henry hasn’t perfected the roll yet, it was more of an accident. He can successfully and repeatably roll onto his side from his back. And just before 6:45 pm on Saturday he got stuck on his side and wiggled and wiggled and ended up on his belly… where he proceeded to fuss for me to help flip him back (I let him fuss for a little bit to give him some tummy time and not immediately come to his rescue, otherwise how would he learn to flip himself back).

I tried and tried to get him to do it again. He’d look up at me as I tried to coax him over with toys but his legs and hips wouldn’t follow. Or when his legs and hips were in the right position, they would go immediately to the floor when I tried to get his attention. He was really close when he grabbed the crinkle leaf on his “jungle gym”. He would grab the leave and pull himself onto his side. I was hopeful that he would keep pulling and actually end up on his belly. But alas, the leaf was in the wrong place and his arm prevented a full roll.

I’ve also determined that he is getting bored with the current set of toys. And since he loves it when we err “toss” him into the air (not really a toss since he never leaves our hands just more of an up and down) I went with the Rainforest Jumperoo.

I have some cute pictures that I took over the weekend. But while I remembered to bring my compact flash card with me to work, I forgot to bring the card reader. So, tomorrow you’ll get to see Henry snacking on some toucan toes (from his jungle gym).

Hammer Time

A boy and his bear

I meant to say “I’ll show one each day all week” in yesterday’s post. So, here is today’s picture.

Since I already have the conversion kit to attach the regular Avent bottles to my Medela PISA, last week I bought some Avent Via containers since I was in need of some 5+ oz containers. Yesterday when I was reading some reviews on Babies R Us about the VIA, I noticed some people complained about the lid and how it could leak during transport and when attached to the pump. I had noticed the few times I used them that they were a bit tricky to get the lid on correctly, but I didn’t have any problems when pumping… until this morning. Since Henry has been sleeping thru the night for a while now, I don’t pump between 10 pm and 6:30 am. This means I get around 12 oz at my morning pump. I usually get 7 oz from the right and 5 oz from the left. So, I had a 9 oz Avent bottle on the right and a 6 oz Via container on the left. I guess I didn’t have the Via container on the adapter correctly because when the container had about 4 oz it fell off and spilled all over the floor. So very very sad.

I now hold the record for most amount of spilled milk in one session at my house. Scott was the previous record holder when he forgot to put the bottom on the Playtex Ventaire bottle before he started to pour the milk in (about 3 oz ended up on the counter instead of in the bottle). But since I have about 39 oz in the fridge and 45 oz in the freezer, I’m not going to cry over the spilled milk this time.