Current Picture of Forrest

Here is Forrest about a week ago. Look at how proud he is that he can stand up next to that ottoman.

An Update on the Grittons

So a lot has gone on since I last updated the blog. Forrest turned one on November 27th. I still have a hard time believing that he is one. He is everywhere now. He has been crawling since a week or two after his birthday and can now crawl like lightening. He is pulling himself up on anything and everything. He will cruise around all the furniture but has yet to take a step or really stand for any length of time on his own. He does seem to be perfecting his "dismount". He practices falling just the right way on his bottom all of the time. He is a very happy baby. Always smiling and laughing. He babbles all of the time but doesn't seem to be saying anything at this point, although he does seem to say "mama" when he is frustrated with me or really upset about something. When we went to his one year appointment he weighed 20 pounds and was 28 inches long. This puts him in the 15th percentile against other kids his age (not on the preemie chart, but kids born at the normal time). This is excellent. He is progressing very well and there are no concerns with his development. In fact, they are really happy with his progress and how well he is doing and say that other than being a little bit small you can't even tell that he was born as early as he was.

Garrison turned eight years old on December 20th. That seems crazy to me too since he was three getting ready to turn four when I met David. He decided to forgo a birthday party with us and wanted to have a night with just David and I. We took him out to dinner, just the three of us, and then we spent the night at a really fun hotel. He loved being the only kid for just one night and of course staying at a hotel had its cool factor too. :)

David is working very hard so that I can stay at home with the boys. He had a few interviews with a great company here in Kansas City, YRC. They told him they are really interested and would be in contact. We are praying and waiting for an offer letter any day now. It would be such an answer to prayer for him to get this job.

I have gotten involved in MOPS, which is Mother of Pre-schoolers...which is for mothers of kids of all ages. We meet twice a month and I have met some really fun women. We do some fun stuff and get to have some great discussions. I am really enjoying it. I am also working on a project for 2011 called Project Life - Picture of the Day. I am attempting to take a picture every single day of something that is going on in our lives that day. Every one of those pictures will go in a big binder so that at the end of the year I will have one big scrapbook of our year. If you are my friend on Facebook, you have already seen some of the pictures that I have taken. I will try and post some of them out here too. I am really excited about this project since I have very little time to actually scrapbook events that happen.

I am really going to try and make an effort to do better at posting on the blog. I am making it one of my resolutions for the year. Hope things are going well for everyone.

A letter to Forrest at One Year

Dear Forrest,

I really wanted to be one of those mothers who wrote everything down and had scrapbook pages of everything so that you would have memories all organized and neat when you got older. I am starting to see that it is not a very easy thing to do. I am lucky to get things written in your baby book. I have lots of pictures of you and if you count the fact that IPhoto organizes them they are some what in order. I have only really written down the story of your birth. The one thing I do have going for me is I have an excellent memory.

I can not believe you are already one. People always said that the time would fly and I would say "Oh I know", but I really didn't. You can't possibly know until you have a child of your own. One day you have this tiny baby in your arms and the next day that same baby is crawling faster than you can catch.

Forrest you came into this world so quickly and so tiny. It was the scariest thing I have ever experienced. Even now as I write this I get choked up thinking about everything you went through in those first several weeks of life. You were a fighter from the very beginning, pulling out your own ventilator your very first day of life, determined to breath on your own. I think the nurses in the NICU went through more medical tape trying to keep your feeding tube in because you were determined to keep that out too. You were so fragile yet so strong.

I look at you today and don't even see that tiny baby. I see a boy who is curious about everything. I see a boy who still has a determination...to do things by himself. I see a boy who by any medical textbook should be developmentally behind, but is so close to walking and babbles my ear off everyday that no one would ever know that he was 2 pounds 9 ounces when he was born.

Forrest, you have overcome so much in your young life already. God has had His hand on you from the moment you were born. I can't wait to see what amazing things you are going to do with your life. I am so thankful to be a part of it.

I love the way you wave at everything...people, animals and even the trees. I love watching you grin so big when you see our dogs. You love your dogs. I love coming in your room in the morning to get you out of your crib and having you stand up and smile so big at me. I love how excited you get when Yo Gabba Gabba comes on. I love watching you grow up and I am so thankful I get to stay home with you and experience everything with you.

I love you so much Forrest John Gritton. Happy One Year Birthday.

10 months old

I can not believe that today Forrest is ten months old. It doesn't even seem possible. Everyone says that the time will go fast but until you actually experience it you really don't understand exactly what it is like. In two months our baby boy will be one.

It is so fun to watch his personality start to come out. He loves music and will start to "dance" anytime he hears any type of music. He loves the dogs and especially likes it when anyone says Daisy's name. He laughs hysterically at it...we aren't really sure why at this point.

He is basically eating almost all adult food along with his normal bottles during the day. He loves waffles for breakfast with some cut up bananas and he loves shredded cheese with whatever he is having for dinner.

He is drinking out of a sippy cup at each of his meals. He loves his water and loves being a big boy with his cup.

No crawling yet but believe me...Mommy is quite content to have him just sit and play with his toys for now because I know as soon as he figures it out there will be no stopping him.

Tubes are in...

So, yesterday Forrest had his tubes put in his ears. The procedure went great and was very quick. He was a little out of sorts in the recovery room which the nurse says is normal since they are only out for such a short amount of time.

Today he has been pretty cranky. I think he still is not feeling too great and is also working on some new teeth. He is pretty clingy and really just wants to sleep or be held.

Hopefully tomorrow he will get back to his normal happy self.

I did take some cute pictures of him while we were getting ready for the surgery. I will get those posted in the next day or two.

Going to try this again...

So obviously I have not been the best at keeping this blog up. Taking care of Forrest keeps me very busy. :) I am going to try really hard to do a better job of posting what is going on with him and keeping pictures on here, since a lot people don't get to see the ones that I put on Facebook.

Forrest turned nine months old on August 27th. I still can't believe it. I took him to his nine month appointment today and he weighed 18 pounds and was 27 inches long. He is no longer charted on the preemie chart but is compared to all other nine month olds even though he is a preemie. So compared to other nine month olds he is in the 12% for weight and 10% for height. His head still comes in at the 55%...but we know that is just because he is REALLY smart. :)

He is rolling over both ways. He is sitting up on his own pretty well. He has two teeth already and is working on a third. The doctor was especially impressed with the fact that he is already picking up food and feeding himself since this is more of a nine month skill that she would not expect him to have yet.

He really is doing fantastic. If you saw him out you would never know everything that he went through nine months ago. It is amazing.

The only issue we are having is re-occurring ear infections in the right ear. This is due to a narrowing ear canal probably from being a preemie. I have scheduled an appointment with an ENT for next week but we are probably looking at having to put tubes in his ear.

Here is a picture of him that I took on the day he turned nine months old. :)

So much this last month...

I am so sorry that I haven't been posting this last month. We have just been so busy. Right after Forrest turned 4 months he got his first ear infection. He did fine but I didn't discover anything was wrong until after the pediatrician's office had closed so we had to go to urgent care. After 10 days of anti-biotics he was MUCH better.

We have also started going to a Gymboree class. We can go as often as we want at either one of their locations. We are really excited about this because they work on a lot of developmental things in the classes which will be great in helping him to catch up. It is also a great place for me to meet some other moms.

The biggest accomplishment this last month is that about 3 weeks ago he started sleeping through the night. I feed him and put him to bed around 7pm and then at 10:30pm I feed him again before I go to bed. He will then sleep until 7am or 8am. It is great! The only problem is that he is not much of a napper. It is very rare that he will nap for more than 30-45 minutes. I guess I would rather have him sleep through the night than nap though.

As you can see from the pictures he has turned into a very smiley boy. He is also extremely talkative. He seems to always have a lot to say. We are trying to figure out where he gets this from. ;)

Aunt Abby was in town last week. She stayed with us a few days and we had a blast. Forrest loves his Aunt Abby. She also took about a million pictures so as soon as I get them I will share.

Forrest got to go to two big family parties the weekend of April 16th. My grandfather turned 87 and we had a great dinner for his birthday. Forrest did great at the party for his namesake. It was the first time some of the family had met him and his first visit to the country club. He loved looking at all the lights. It was really funny. The next night we went out to my Aunt and Uncle's house to celebrate my Uncle's 65th birthday. Forrest loved it and had fun playing with and talking to all his second cousins. At one point all five of them were sitting around him and he was smiling and talking to them.

I just can't believe he is 5 months old. It seems like the time has gone by so fast. It seems like forever ago that we were sitting in the NICU wondering when we would ever get to take him home. We have finally reached the point where he has been home longer than the time he was in the NICU. He is completely healthy and is gaining weight really well. As of today he is 12 pounds and about 22 inches long. We are so thankful for everything God has done in his life and in ours as well.