Grady- 6 Months

Grady in the 12 month onesie

Grady next to his birth length golf club

6 Month Grady & Layla picture

Grady @ 6 Months

Weight: 20lb 2oz (90th percentile)

Height:  26 inches (25th percentile)

Clothes: Grady is in a mix of 6-9 month, 9 month and 6-12 month clothes right now.

Diapers:  Still cloth during the day and disposable at night.  We have found that for trips overnight, cloth is tough so disposable is what works best for us in those situations.  Grady is in a size 3 disposable diaper.  He should definitely be in the 4's but Ryan accidentally bought a HUGE case of 3's so we are trying to get through those first. 

Sleep:  Grady is a very consistent rough sleeper....like how I put that??  He is up multiple times during the night.  On a good night, he wakes up to eat 2-3 times and then goes back down.  On a bad night, he is up and will not go back to sleep.  Those nights are really tough.  Layla was such a good sleeper that this is so different for me.  I am thinking that the early teething has a little to do with it and the rest is just Grady.  He does nap pretty well during the day.  He takes 2-3 naps, depending on what time he is up for the day.  Grady is sleeping in his crib at night and is still in the rock-and-play for naps.  I need to work on naps in the crib.  Maybe by month 7!!

Eating: Grady started food!  We are offering him both pureed foods and finger foods.  His doctor is not a big fan of rice cereal (it can be a bit binding on baby bellies) and is a huge advocate of finger foods (tiny pieces of sweet potato, avocado, banana, etc) from the beginning.  I know it is a completely different way of feeding a baby, but for Layla it worked really well.  She was a good eater and developed a nice pincer grasp from self-feeding.  We are offering both options, pureed and solids, so we will see what Grady takes to better.

 Likes: Grady loves kicking on the ground, having his diaper changed, baths, being held, playing peek-a-boo, his big sis and teething toys.

Layla is always a good helper during the monthly pictures.  She is my smile assistant.  She can get Grady to smile very easily!

Dislikes: He really does not like being set down in the evenings.  He also can be a bit of a unhappy camper in the car.  I am hoping this will diminish once his Doc Band is put away in the memory box.  He was much better in the car pre-helmet.  Grady had a big dislike day today.  He cut his 2nd tooth and received four shots, it was a rough day for a six month old.

New tricks: Sitting up (with a toy in front of him he does really well), eating solids, started a sippy cup, sleeping in his crib, reaching arms out to be held, growing teeth (two now!) and rolling from back to front

Doc Band update:  We were told last week that Grady has only three weeks (which really means three weeks of head growth) left in the band.  I know he has only been in the band for five weeks, but I am very ready to be done with it.  Honestly though, the whole process has not been that bad.  The toughest part has been regulating Grady's body temperature.  The Doc Band tends to warm up the entire body and Grady gets little hot flashes.  You will often find him in minimal clothing, especially for long car rides (lots of Baby Legs!!).  His head looks great and very improved, it is pretty amazing how it has improved with the Doc Band on.  I am very anxious see Grady's face again all of the time.  I cherish his hour out of the band a day and the pictures we have of Grady out of the band.  It is always a shock to me when I see Grady across the room or when I see pictures of him without his helmet on.  Grady looks so different and pretty smushed in the band.  I know it is just temporary and that things could be much, much worse but I am still ready to say "sayonara" to the Doc Band. 

A half a year already.  I cannot believe it. 

Happy 6 months to our sweet Grady!  

Thanksgiving 2011

We had a very nice Thanksgiving this year.   I was so excited we actually got a family picture this year.  I had been eyeing the kids' turkey outfits they have on in the picture for awhile now...since right after Halloween.  Ryan surprised me with them and I was so excited as I have a feeling Grady and Layla will not be huge fans of coordinating forever!

We of course have a lot to be thankful for this year.  I made a thankful tree with Layla this year.  Everyday in November during breakfast, Layla and I  came up with someone/something we were thankful for.  It was fun and funny to hear what Layla would come up with. 

Layla's first thankful leaf was for our pets, "Howie, Blue, Rocket & Buster."  We had just finished pet-sitting Buster and Layla must consider him one of our pets :)

We spent Thanksgiving day with Ryan's family.  We had a nice, relaxing day.  Layla played and played with the toys in the toy room and Grady napped and was in good spirits.  I love this picture of Ryan's dad and Grady.  It captures Grady pretty well at 6 months.  He is a smiley, happy & easily amused little guy.

Here are Layla, Kelsey and Grady after our Thanksgiving dinner and during Grady's dinner. 

After spending the day with Ryan's family, we headed to my uncle Danny's house for dessert with my family.  Grady spent most of his time with my cousin Rebecca (Becky remained calm during a major blowout) and chewed on lots of toys.  The gatherings on this side of the family still are constant reminders of my grandpa.  I think he would have gotten a kick out of Grady and his helmet. 

I can only imagine what he would have said :)

And lastly...after eating the turkey and A LOT of dessert, Cassie and I prepared ourselves for Black Friday.  Ryan and Jamie did a quick first round of shopping and then Cassie and I were excited to go out (no pregnancies for us this year = no sickness!) and we got some good deals.  Cassie was the rock star, getting out of bed very early after we shopped the midnight round of sales!  And I am not sure why we had the sunglasses on....we were excited to get started!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

November

November has been busy.  I keep forgetting to take out the camera.  I definitely need to take more pictures of Grady because before I know it he will be moving and harder to capture.  But it is hard to get a good angle with the Doc Band on.  It is a lot of plastic to compete with!

A couple pictures of things we have been up to...

Raking leaves, jumping in leaves, raking some more leaves. 

We have some BIG trees that dropped their leaves this week.

Practicing our smiles for family pictures. 
Layla loves to smile for the timer on the camera...a real photographer, not so much :)

 Chewing on everything...well, Grady has been.  Everyone told me he was teething, I insisted that Layla did the same thing three years ago...with no teeth to show for all the hard work.

By the way, this picture was deja vu for me.

But lo and behold...what did we find in his mouth on Thursday night?  A tooth!!  I was shocked, because Layla did not get her first tooth until she was 11 months and 3 weeks old. Grady has been drooling, chewing and waking frequently but his spirits have been good and the only fussy day he had was the day before the tooth popped through.  Hopefully he will remain a happy camper, because I am pretty sure there are more coming!

A boy and his helmet

Grady was in the Doc Band two weeks as of this past Thursday.  We are hoping he will be out of the helmet (Doc Band is to helmet like Kleenex is to tissue...I may switch back and forth between the two words often!) by Christmas.  I thought I would post a little information on how Grady ended up in what will probably be the most expensive hat he will ever wear :)

Grady's doctor noticed neck issues and early flattening at Grady's two month appointment.  We intervened with neck stretches, repositioning and more tummy time at that point.  By four months, things were looking worse and Grady's doctor referred us to Cranial Technologies for further evaluation.  Between pictures, measurements and examination of his head, Grady was found to have plagiocephaly (a flattened head on one side of the head) on the left side of his head. Due to the flattening, he was starting to have some associated facial asymmetry.  Grady's case was caught very early by his doctor and is considered to be a moderate case.  To help protect the flat spot and reshape his head, Grady was recommended to have a Doc Band. We were given an estimate of 6-9 weeks that Grady would be in the band. This was very exciting news as we had thought 6-9 months would be more likely.  Grady is very young and growing quickly so our hope is that the condition can be fixed quickly too.

 Causing the flatness is Grady's torticollis.  Here is information from BabyCenter on torticollis: "Torticollis means "twisted neck," and if a child has this condition, her head will be tilted to one side while the chin is turned to the other side. It's also sometimes called wryneck. While it may look painful, it usually isn't. When a baby is born with the condition, it's called congenital torticollis. About 1 in 250 infants are born with torticollis." Grady's torticollis is causing him to turn his head to the left most of the time which is then causing the flat spot. We do neck stretches with Grady at home (every time we change his diaper, Grady gets a mini therapy session) and Grady goes to the chiropractor weekly.  In order for the head to stay round after the helmet comes off, the neck needs to make improvement too. 

The Doc Band during Halloween week

You may be wondering why it matters if Grady has a flat head...don't worry, we wondered too!  What could happen is that his face could start to look distorted, he could have more frequent ear infections from ears being out of line, and could develop TMJ and other jaw problems from the jaw being out of line and while they don't have a lot of research on how the brain is effected it still makes me nervous. I don't like to mess with the brain!

 

Grady has made good progress in the first two weeks.  Last week, during the visit, Grady's head looked great and was on the right track.  It was very rewarding to see progress in so little time and let's hope that we are a quarter of the way through the treatment!