Baby Carrot

Dear Garrett’s Genes,

We have done what we thought was the best for Garrett to help sway you to be kind with our family history. But no you gave us a big kick in the pants this week. Garrett has the beginnings of asthma; thanks for that. At first I was blaming Branden for his crummy contribution of the asthma gene. But then he reminded me that I had some asthma symptoms when I younger. Whatever.

We have a lot of wonderful genes that you could have tapped in to and spare us and Garrett the pain that it is to have a child with this condition. You could have given Garrett Branden’s gift that allows him to pop his toes or my ability to touch my nose with my tongue. Yes, I really can do it. Just ask my father as he made me do it all the time in front of company when I was a child.

You have prompted Branden to ask me if we should have another baby as he is afraid to pass something else on to the baby. I told him that we are going to be irresponsible breeders and take our chances. If we were dogs with our family history you would not want our puppies. But we are not puppies, Mr. DNA. We are not going to stand for this, we are going to deal with what you throw at us.

Hopefully, Garrett will respond well to Singular and won’t need further treatment. You don’t scare me, there are far too many medical advances in asthma treatment for me to get worried. So, thanks for the reminder that life is full of challenges. Now get working on getting Garrett to touch his nose with his tongue. Someone needs to carry on the family tradition.

I know that I am a little slow on this post, since Garrett’s birthday was almost 2 weeks ago, sorry about that. Each time I have a chance to sit down to write either I am too tired to think or I am not feeling very creative. I am handling Garrett’s birthday better than I thought I would. He is so much fun right now. We play, have conversations with real words and are best friends. For me the second year went by much faster than the first. If each year continues to go by faster than the first I will wake up tomorrow and will be getting ready for his High School Graduation.

But let’s not think about that right now. We did sign him up for preschool, he will start in September. It will be hard taking him to his class for the first few times, but then I will enjoy his time away. He needs to have something of his own. I am not expecting him to learn a lot academically while he is there, he needs to have social skills in a class room setting. He already knows what they are going to be teaching, but reinforcement will not hurt. Class will be two days a week from 8:30am-11:30am, not long at all. The school has a curriculum; it is not daycare or Mother’s Day Out. Branden and I were both very happy with the school and so was Garrett he wanted to go play with the kids that were in the class.

Back to the birthday…. Garrett and I went to help Nono on Friday, his birthday. She had minor surgery that week. We had been checking on her during the week and helping out around the house. Nono and Pop went ahead and gave him his tricycle while we were there. Garrett was very excited and is getting better at it each time he rides. When we got back home he received his gift from us, a train table and train set. I loved the look on his face. He was very happy. I will get those pictures up soon. We had a wonderful party on Saturday. We kept it close family and friends and we still had a houseful. To say that Garrett was thrilled to have everyone sing “Happy Birthday” would be an understatement. It was very funny. He received great gifts, but was much more excited to have all of his favorite people here at the same time. Sunday we had his buddies over from our playgroup. We loved having the little ones running around and chatting with the parents, who have become great friends. It was a great weekend and it went by very quickly.

We have been taking full advantage of the spring weather. He is going to miss our by-weekly visits to Nono and Pop’s house. He loves running around the yard, climbing the ladder and going down the slide. We go to the park but of course watch him closely and don’t let him get too far away. At their house he can go and I know that he will not be snatched up by someone other than Pop.

I posted the pictures from his parties. They are out of order but you will get the idea. We are currently in the “terrific two’s”, not the “terrible twos”. I am aware that it might change at any moment but right now I am enjoying my growing boy.

Life over here has been interesting as usual. Branden had a wonderful trip to London. It was a very exciting 18 hours for him. Garrett and I got wonderful souvenirs from the airport. Garrett loves his London bear that we named Charlie. While Branden was jet setting around the world Garrett had a little accident while he was playing. He loves to dive into piles of pillows. Well, he dove but did not get up very quickly. I called his name and he looked up with blood coming out his mouth. He bit his lip when fell. So, he had a fat lip for a day. His teeth were not hurt, just his little pride.

We went to Wiggle Play Center in Frisco last week with our friends. Since we LOVE the wiggles it was a hit! Garrett climbed over everything and went down every slide. He started going down the slides facing forward then he started sliding down on his tummy. Silly kid! Erin took him into a bounce house with a huge slide and he came down squealing and saying, “WEEEEE”. I had a great time in the bounce houses too!

Somewhere we picked up a retched cold. He started with a runny nose and cough last week and it is still here. I took him to the doctor on Friday because he was pulling at his ears and was not eating very well. I did not want him to go into the weekend with an ear infection. But everything turned out to be fine. He gave everyone hugs and high fives at the office. I called his doctor this morning since it is still here. They called in antibiotics so hopefully we will be on the road to recovery. Normally I would have let this run its course but he is having his surgery next week and he does not need to be sick. So, wish us snot free days ahead.

We received a little snow last night and this morning. Our family and friends that are to our south received A LOT more than we did. But we still had fun! I think Garrett was more excited to be outside than he was about the snow. I gave him his shovel and sand bucket and he went around and cleaned off all of the chairs. He cried when it was time to come inside. We will get out tomorrow, with any luck. We went to Target and Petsmart yesterday just to get out of the house. He loved Petsmart. We looked at the fish, birds, kitties and small pocket pets. The mice and hamsters were his favorite. They put on a good show for him. He was doing big belly laughs! It was great! He saw a very handsome Doberman and said, “Hi, Dog”. His owner heard Garrett and brought him over to see us. Garrett wanted to be picked when he saw a dog that was much larger than him coming his way. But the dog laid down and Garrett got to pet him. It was very sweet.

Branden and I went to his company’s holiday party on Saturday. We were not sure we were going to make it with the weather but the roads were fine. It was at the Dallas Aquarium. I haven’t been there before and it is pretty neat. They have these really funny monkeys. I enjoyed it. Mimi and Papa stayed with little G-Man. He always has a good time when they come over. He had fun; we got a night out good times for all.

There are new pictures up! Stay warm and enjoy the cold weather while it is here.

My mom came over today to play with Garrett while I ran errands. When I got back she asked me how long Garrett had been counting to 10. I told her she was a crazy old lady and didn’t know what she was talking about. She stood firm and told me he was counting his gummies at lunch. I just said whatever and went on with my day. When I got Garrett up form his nap I decided to see if my mother was indeed crazy and started counting to G. I started with 1 he said “tuuuuu, tee, tee, tee” I said four he said, “ive, sis, sesen, eigh, nigh, en” I was FLOORED!! He kept doing it, no prompting. Then he was counting his pretzels by himself at snack time. I stared in amazement. We went on with the afternoon and he was looking at a picture of my sister, brother in law with me and Branden and I was about to tell him who the people were and he pointed to them and said their names. Again I just looked at him and said, “What?” Then we went upstairs and were playing with his shape puzzle and he took them all out and started to put them back in, which he has been able to do for awhile, but this time he was saying the name of each shape like I do when he puts them in their place. The kid was trying to say octagon, pentagon, diamond, trapezoid and all the others. I could make out what he was saying and he just kept on going like he had been doing that forever. I had to call Branden who is out of town after he did that. After Garrett’s bath we sing songs and are silly while I put his lotion on and get him dressed. One of the songs we sing is his name song that my sister came up with for him. It is ‘G, A, R, R, E, T, T Garrett, Garrett, G, A, R, R, E, T, T Garrett is your name.” It is to the tune of “Mary had a little lamb”. And yes you guessed it, he started singing with me. I can not believe that he is doing these things! I told Branden he better hurry up and come home because I don’t know what he is going to be doing next. Branden thinks it will be him finding a cure for cancer, I on the other hand will be happy if he sings his ABC’s.

I heard that kiddos have a language explosion at 18 months but I had no idea it would happen all in one day! He is also replacing his baby words with real words. He did not say ‘Ducka, Ducka” when he wanted his cup this afternoon he said, “Mama, Drink” and pointed to his cup. I almost cried at that one.

He is turning into a real like toddler before my eyes. He continues to amaze me everyday, and I can’t what to see what he has in store for me tomorrow.

P.S. I did call my mother and tell that she was correct about Garrett counting, but she is still crazy.

We survived our beach vacation. Garrett did very well considering that he will not sleep in the car. On the way there we left at 2am and he slept off and on for a total of about 2 hours of the 14 hour car ride. On the way back we left at 5am and he slept for 30 minutes. We gave him benadryl to make him sleepy and it did not work. He was not really cranky just a little fussy at times. I sat in the back seat part of the way on the way back and Garrett and I watched videos on Branden’s laptop. He was SO happy when we got home. He ran around and played with all of his toys.

Garrett loved the water at the beach. He would stand at the water and have the waves crash on him, he would just laugh and wait for the next one. He learned how to walk in the sand and did not mind it on his hands if he was playing with it. If he was walking and fell he did not like to put his hands down. We took a baby pool to the water and it was the best thing that we did. He loved it!

He slept great! He took 3 ½ hour naps during the day and wanted to go to bed early. The sun and constant stimulation wore him out. We only took him to the beach in the morning after breakfast. We would go back to the house after lunch and he would nap. When he got up he would have a snack then we would go to the swimming pool or just play at the house. He was such a good boy!

The house was great. We were east of Destin on Sea Grove Beach near Sea Side. We had very few neighbors on the beach and did not have to deal with the crowds of Destin, it was very peaceful. www.seasidefl.com

The only member of the King’s that went was PamEla. We loved having her join us. And Garrett loved playing with her. Pam, Ashley and Wade were very generous and gave up a little of their time in the sun and volunteered to stay at the house while Garrett napped so Branden and I could have a little time on the beach together without chasing Garrett. We needed that. We also were able to go out twice while Mimi and Papa watched Garrett. Since he was going to bed early one of the times we put him to bed then went out. We found a really cool place that Branden and I fell in love with. http://www.graytonbeach.com/redbar.html We will defiantly go back.

Branden has wanted to go sea fishing for awhile. So, he talked Wade and Bert into going with him. They did not have very good luck. Branden did catch the first mackerel but it was 1 inch too small. Bert caught a keeper and we had it for dinner. I had not had mackerel before and it was good.

It was a good vacation but we were all happy to be home. The pictures that we took are up. http://www.brw.net/gallery/v/vacation/destin2006/

These are the videos that Mama was talking about. I still can’t get them uploaded correctly, so we’ll just do it this way.

Roll Over Movie 1
Roll Over Movie 2
Roll Over Movie 3

Enjoy!

So Momma is trying to feed him cereal this morning, and he is getting a little fidgety, so she finds this red plastic cup and starts holding it up and making it pop. Garret LOVED it. So I videoed 60 seconds of him laughing his ace off.

Baby Carrot, the crazy laughing 6 month old kid!

(Right click on that link and select “Save As” if you want to save it to your computer for late night laughter!)

Tia was pusing him in his new swing and he started laughing! We caught it this time. Here is a link. It is 17Meg.

Garrett Laughing!

OK folks. 2 new albums for you to enjoy on the photo site!

Mayfest ‘05
2 Weeks to 2 Months

Enjoy!

As I’m sure most of you have heard, we made a trip to the ER yesterday evening. Branden decided that he was going to staple cable on the roof and while he was up there the ladder slipped. “Down came the ladder Branden and all.” You can read more about it on Branden’s blog if you would like. We could not get in touch with anyone so I packed up the baby and got Branden in the car and off we went. He is fine nothing broken but it was a little exciting. Just a goose egg on his head and a wounded pride. Nothing we can’t fix. The baby was great, he ate back in the curtain area with Branden and was very quiet. I’m sure people were wondering why I kept him covered up but I did not want any little germs getting to him. If Branden asks to borrow anyones ladder the answer is NO! He has had his privileges taken away for 6 months. So, don’t let him tell you otherwise. I just hope that the baby was taking notes on what not to do.

He made the big move up to his own room yesterday. I likes his bed and watching his mobile, which is 4 sail boats and it plays, “Row, Row, Row your Boat”. It is evidently very interesting.

Hope everyone has a great weekend and be careful if you are on a ladder! They can be very tricky.