Grayson: 9 months

This month went as quickly and was filled as fully as the ones before it.  Our little boy is a happy, sweet and busy little bee and I love him to pieces.

Grayson is:

• Scooting like lightning and making more effort every day to get moving on his hands and knees.
• Not pulling himself up on anything yet or close to standing unassisted.
• Easily switching from sitting to crawling.
• Back to three naps a day once his reflux was under control again, usually an hour in the morning and evening and around 2 hours in the afternoon.
• Stretching his schedule a tad, able now to stay up until 7 or 7:30pm and wake around 7am.
• Still refusing any food off a spoon.  He will now pick up cheerios and put them in his mouth, he will sometimes gum them but appears to then spit them all out and not actually swallow any.  Thankfully though he has yet to show symptoms of reflux from those.  He's also tried puffs, peas and bananas but wasn't a fan of any of those finger foods and was not at all interested in the mesh bag baby feeder.
• On the other hand he WILL eat leaves, paper, cardboard, magazines, wood...
• He is showing signs most days of being unsatisfied with the amount of calories he's getting from just breast milk and I've had to start pumping extra to meet his demand.  At his appointment next week we'll discuss other ways to fill his belly. 
• Sleeping through the night but still breast feeding around 10pm.  Though I look forward to being able to drop this feeding, for now he still needs those extra calories.
• Will copy clapping and patting in an uncoordinated but exuberant fashion and can roll a ball back and forth fairly well.
• Still loves being startled and tickled, playing peekaboo, and hide and seek.
• Into everything and much prefers all of Ava's toys to his own.
• Still very laid back and content, relatively quiet, flexible and easy going.
• Taking baths with Ava in the tub now that he's sitting and stable.
• Does well being dropped off at the church nursery and has behaved himself for two stranger-babysitters since we moved.
• LOVED his first swing ride!
• Still no teeth though we are beginning to teethe again I think.
• Had his first ear infection and antibiotic regimen which did not go well and ended early with a prescription diaper cream and probiotic.
• Will will have a weigh-in next week but he is in size 3 diapers and wearing size 12 and 12-18 mos.

Comfortable

It took a month but lately Ava and I have both been missing home.  I thought she was doing remarkably well, almost too well, and then it hit about a week and a half ago.  She asked if we were going back to State College to live again and when I said no her heart sunk.  She loves it here but she's begun to realize that it's not just for a little while, it's not just vacation, and she misses her home.

She regularly talks about the Stube's, her best friend Ruthie, her grandparents and other family, but most of all her home on Shellers Bend.  She told me she likes the floor tiles in our old kitchen much better than the ones in our new house because they had more colors and shapes in them.  It almost made me cry!  Those little things about her home that I didn't realize she took notice of but to her they were so familiar and comfortable.

Some days she has become quite depressed and after some exploring I learned that it centered around her room.  She misses first and foremost her pink walls (her walls are currently camel brown and we are renting) with the rest of her room following closely behind.  It has been heartbreaking for me to feel powerless to fix this for her--no matter what I do she just won't be in her old room again or her old home.

Since I couldn't make her room any more like her old room, I decided to surround her with things that would make her happy and give her a comfortable place to make new memories.  It isn't that I believe in flooding sadness with 'things' but I do believe in the power of thoughtful decor--that is, filling your home with things that make you feel at home.  Ava and I took a trip to Home Goods and Target and picked out new sheets and pillows to dress her bed.  When we moved her room also became the guest room so she got the guest double bed and the mismatched sheets that went with it.  When we initially re-did her room before Grayson was born, our budget was minimal and she got such a hodge podge of hand-me-downs that her old room wasn't much to speak of to begin with.  Add in a cross-country move, a smaller room turned guest room and you've got an eclectic mess.

Her room is still a work in progress but I wanted to share a few of her favorite things.

Desire #1: Sparkle

She has gotten on board with the sequin trend right now and loves anything that has glitter stuck to it.  After telling her she couldn't get the $30 pillow from Home Goods that had huge ugly multi-colored rhinestones sewed on it, I went for one better (in my opinion).  In college I learned to knit and knitted a purse to which I sewed hundreds of white sequins.  It has since been sitting in my closet so I decided to turn it into a pillow for her.  Voila.

I also surprised her with a glittery Christmas tree perfect for her bedside table so she's been celebrating that glorious season a little bit early.

Desire #2: Flowers and butterflies

These are a few of her favorite things.  Here's what we came up with!  Flower sheets in her favorite hues and a butterfly pillow to match her mobile.  Since this photo was taken we also hung her curtain which added a ton of warmth to the room.  Next on my list is to hang pictures and to come up with a way to make her forget about those drab brown walls...  

Desire #3: Light

One of her biggest complaints about the room was it's vaulted ceiling.  Though a great design feature for me, to her it was spooky and not at all like home.  So, we did our best to light it up and bring it down to her level.  I took a bird cage I'd gotten at Target many months ago, filled it with clearance Christmas lights and hung it from the highest peak in her ceiling.  Voila, you've got a comforting night light and a built in de-spookifier.

Though a definite upgrade, I asked Ava how she liked her first night with her new things and she said, "They are nice but then I realized they aren't mine."  "What do you mean?" I replied.  She answered, "They are pretty but it's just not my room."

We've been spending a lot of time talking about what it means to feel loss, loneliness and sadness and how sometimes we just need to be patient, wait, and let things get easier with time.  I had not anticipated how heart wrenching it would be to experience this with her and to be able to offer little comfort except to hold her and whisper, "I know, I know."

Last night she asked me to pray for her.  We have been praying fervently that God would start to make this place her home, our home, and that we would not only enjoy it here but feel comfortable here.  We pray for friends who really know us and people to share in the every day with.  Most of all we pray that God would teach us the true meaning of home, being wherever we are, all together, regardless of our surroundings.  It is hard to let go of so many familiar things but as I hold my daughter with tears in our eyes, I know we both are learning what truly makes a house a home.  Each other.

But a little sparkle never hurt anyone.