Wow, what a crazy week

Although there is pretty much no such thing as a sane week around here anymore, this one was one for the history books.

We finished up a big project this week with the relaunch of my (other) website.  Luckily for me and my business partner, Tabitha, we have husbands who are savvy at web design (Tabitha's husband) and software engineering (Matt).  Although still a work in progress, I think the new site looks great.  It will also, fingers crossed, be a big time saver for me, since events should be easier to manage. 

Friday also marked the start of a week of vacation!  Besa celebrated by escaping into the great outdoors around 9:30 PM.  We had no idea she had escaped until it was time for the kitties' late night snack.  Fuzz, in proper form, was meowing and rolling over and begging to be fed.  Besa was nowhere to be found. I knew she was gone when I went down to the basement to get their food dishes and she didn't come downstairs.  Panic ensued, with some crazy lady screaming BESA! at the top of her lungs at 10 second intervals (and, reportedly, "Fuzzy, where's BESA" although I don't - er, the crazy lady doesn't - quite remember saying that).  Thank goodness, after about 90 minutes, Besa showed up on our back deck ready to be let in.  She tried to play it cool, but her eyes were completely wild and her breathing didn't slow down for the rest of the night.  Fuzz was both annoyed and impressed with her sister.  She was quite scared when Besa left.  She refused food (this has literally never happened before), threw up a hairball, and then meowed out the back door until Bes came home.  It was not the way we were anticipating kicking off our vacation week, but at least it ended well.

The other big thing going on this week is the entire mouthful of teeth joining the previous 8 in Grady's mouth.  It looks like a war zone in there.  He seriously looks to be breaking in at least 8 teeth right now, including 4 molars.  He has been surprisingly calm about it, except for some fussiness on Friday (lots of NOs!).  And then there was last night, when all hell broke loose.  Awake at 2:30, finally back asleep around 3:30, and then up at 5 for the day.  After some Tylenol this morning, he cheered up.  And he fell asleep in my arms as I was singing him his lullabye before nap, which hasn't happened in as long as I can remember.

Despite the teeth, we have managed to have some fun this past week as well.

On Friday, Grady and I met up with a former co-worker and her kids at an indoor park in Lake Oswego.  Grady had a lot of fun walking and crawling (mostly crawling) from place to place, and being adored by two lovely little ladies.

Last weekend, with the sun making an appearance, we took a trip to Washington Park and the Hoyt Arboretum.  Excuse all the photos, I couldn't narrow down any more than this.

We have arrived!

 Getting the lay of the land

Exploring nature

Reluctant cuddles

Slightly better

That didn't taste good

Quick break

Break over!

Da-dee!

Enough daddy time!

That was fun! 

And the view - Mt. St. Helens

We also had a special treat on Thursday, and got to see Grady's teacher Briana, who is out on maternity leave.  Quinn, the new baby, is adorable and tiny.  I couldn't even feel his weight when I was allowed to hold him!  Grady didn't miss a beat, crawling all over Briana and exploring the new environment.  It was great to see Briana, who is doing amazingly well just a few weeks post-partum.

On Friday, Grady and I went to storytime at the library for the first time in a while.  Grady's favorite parts were the parachute, the bubbles, and the scarves.  Every other baby waited for the scarves to be handed out-  not Grady!  Can you see him?

We also checked out a new store in Sellwood, and were surprised to learn that they had goats, chickens, and ducks in the back!  (Only in Portland.....)  Grady enjoyed Maaa-ing at the goat and babababababa-ing at the chicken.

Yesterday, Matt and I had a date night while Grady stayed with his favorite babysitter, Andrea.  Matt and I were planning on seeing a movie, until we quite belatedly realized that a race Matt had signed up for was not Sunday, but Saturday!  Quick change of plans (and clothes), but Matt ran the race and did great!  Here he is rounding the finish line just before his 17:32 5K finish.

Despite his impressive time, he still ended up finishing behind about 75 other people.  It was a tough field!  He improved his time at this same race last year by over a minute though, and felt like he ran a good race despite starting out fast.

Okay, I still have a few videos to share.  Grady is finally "walking."  It's not all the time, and crawling is still his preferred method of getting around, but more and more often he picks himself up off the ground and walks to where he wants to go.  The real turning point was on Tuesday night, when he got to the top of the stairs, stood up, and proceeded to walk back and forth between his bedroom and ours for about 20 minutes.  Upstairs is still his favorite space to practice, I think because it's less cluttered than downstairs.  

Here's a shot of him walking to get to one of his favorite activities - taking all the DVDs off the shelf.

In addition to his walking, Grady's level of comprehension seems to improve each day.  The other day, Matt said "Grady, why don't you get your banjo," and Grady did.  Although he can't say any of those words, he knows what they mean apparently.  Here's another example.  (Oh, forgive the text message that pops up - this was taken on my phone obviously.)

A few exciting things coming up this week - a trip to the Coast and a visit from the Swap/Leonard grandparents.  Should be lots of photos in the next post!

A bunch of videos and some photos

Excuse the brevity of this post.  I've been feeling a bit under the weather.  But I've gotten too many videos and pictures to postpone writing a post any longer, so here we go!

I'll start out with the photos.  I mentioned last post that we were getting some professional photos done over the weekend.  Well, despite the weather being rainy and Grady having a meltdown when we ran out of yogurt drops, the photos turned out really well!  We've only gotten a teaser, but here they are.  I'll post the link to the site when the rest are up.

Grady has all of a sudden taken an interest in that toy where you put the shapes in through the same-shaped hole.  Er, that makes no sense.  You can just see it in the video. 

The rest of the videos are all Grady practicing walking, since I haven't put any of those up yet.  Last Sunday, he hit a milestone where he was standing up and then walking on his own initiative, instead of walking because daddy or mommy had cruelly placed something two steps out of his grasp.  Here are some videos of that.

After taking a few days off to think about whether walking was something he wanted to pursue, Grady was all over it today.  I started taking a video here, and, although it does involve some walking, it also involves him just being a goof (saying Baaawwwwl, sitting on his drum, playing along with the music).  It may be a bit long for the casual reader, but I couldn't bear to edit it. 

Ice cream and animal noises

A bit earlier than usual, but there were a few things that happened over the past few days that I wanted to share.

Yesterday Grady and I took the bus downtown for Sand in the City.

This is an annual event to benefit a charity where they cart tons of sand into Pioneer Courthouse Square, people make sand sculptures, and there are lots of kid friendly activities.  We didn't time it quite right (just missed Mr. Lizard's lizard showcase) but Grady did get to play in the sand a bit.

However, the highlight was Grady's first ice cream cone.  Here are some shots, and then you can get a sample of Grady's "NO" when I tried to take the cone away to stop the drips!

And the video -

Obviously, he was quite a fan! 

I also wanted to include this video of Grady oinking, neighing, and barking along to his farm animal book.

Tomorrow we are getting family pictures done by a photographer.  I will share any photos that are worth sharing!

How did this happen?

This is so unheard of but I apparently have not taken a single photo of Grady this week!  Bad mom!  Luckily, Matt took a few, so I've got a few shots to include.

This past weekend, I left Grady and Matt alone for a night so I could attend the NKOTBSB concert in Tacoma with my friend from law school and her cousin.  For those living under a rock!, NKOTBSB is the New Kids on the Block AND Back Street Boys, both together in one magical evening.  Of course, it was pretty great.

Although I did miss my two boys at home! 

While I was gone, Grady and Matt had a great time exploring a few different parks -

and practicing some poses for a future modeling career.

I got back early afternoon on Saturday and we went over to the Mississippi Street Fair in North Portland.  The Mississippi neighborhood is a funky, young, diverse neighborhood in the North end of Portland.  The fair was packed with vendors, food, and music.  There was even a man in a bear costume.  The bear tried to put his arm around Grady, and Grady shooed him away like a fly.  Grady apparently has a pretty heightened sense of his own strength!  Then we enjoyed pizza together and some music by a local musician to end the day. 

Grady currently has 4 teeth breaking through - two on the top (which are quite sharp!) and two more on the bottom.  Youch!  I think a combination of this and his daycare provider, Briana, going on maternity leave (she had a gorgeous, healthy boy and will hopefully be back in 2 months), he has been quite a bit more clingy than usual.  He had a breakdown at daycare when I left yesterday for the first time really ever.  And there have been tears at home a few times when I was not able to immediately pick him up for whatever reason.  Because he's such an independent little guy, I don't expect this stage to last too long, but we shall see.

Grady is taking a few steps every day.  And that's it.  No hurry to walk.  Rather than continue to give you these micro-updates, I'll just let you know when he starts walking!

Two cute things Grady has been doing.  Sometimes he will throw up his arms like "I don't know!" when I ask him a question.  I will try to get a video.  He also has been really practicing his animal sounds.  Here he is practicing his chicken noises at a house nearby that keeps chickens.

Happy 4th!

Yesterday we got into the holiday spirit by attending the 4th of July parade in neighboring Eastmoreland.  Grady really loved it.  Being as he is heavily into trucks right  now, the firetruck was a definite highlight.  LOTS of pointing!

There it goes!

The parade was huge - it went on for a good 30 minutes, and everyone was decked out in red white and blue.  It was a good start to a Wilkinson family annual tradition!

The evening was a bit dramatic.  Grady has two windows in his room, both of which looked out on two separate, loud parties.  The one going on closer to his crib included about 90 minutes of setting off firecrackers.  Grady woke up several times, but never cried.  He just sat up, looked annoyed, and then went back to sleep.  Definitely could have been much worse.  Matt and I (and Besa, look closely) got to enjoy fireworks from our living room couch, which is always a treat!

Grady continues to make small strides with his walking.  He took three deliberate steps on Sunday to get from me to his toy shopping cart: He spent about 10 seconds thinking about it, then did a quick three steps to the cart.  He is really enjoying walking holding onto our fingers, and has gotten good at walking just holding onto one of them. 

Grady has also been really into climbing into things - boxes, carts, etc.  Here are a few shots of him setting up camp in his cart.

He loves to read, that Grady. 

He also loves taking things apart - otherwise known as making a mess.  Here, I let him hold onto the (sealed) box of tea on our way home from the store.  Here's what I found when I looked down!

Grady's new trick is saying "Hi-eeee!" to anyone (or anything) within shouting distance - strangers, Besa, a robin, etc.  Other favorite new words include Ca-do (avocado), and cheee (cheese).  (Hmm, I'm seeing a pattern.)

I think those are the highlights for the week.  Hope everyone had a good holiday weekend!