First Holiday Season

I love Momai's family, there is such a wide range of beliefs when it comes to spirituality and yet it has never ever been an issue. We gather at or around Christmas time, I call it Christmas time but it's more like Family Celebration.

This year was extra special for me for two reasons.

One, the obvious, is to watch Griffin play with paper, be given a box to open and do nothing but squish it and slid around on his knees (thinking wow! best gift ever....carpet slider!!), explore new territory, play with his cousins, play with his cousins animals, laugh with Grandparents, laugh with his Aunts, laugh with his Uncle, get pictures taken of us all in matching pjs (thanks to Nana) and I can keep going and going, we will post pictures soon.

Second, I got to watch my Momai's parents witness the love of their children. Momai's sister Jeanne came up with an idea to make a floor plan of their old house, and each of the four children were to make a laminated overlay to said map and mark places where they have memories and write them out with corrosponding numbers. They weren't suppossed to get together and work on the project, only at the end when the books were put together did Jeanne get to first witness the memories.

I sat back watching the love from Momai and her siblings as they watched their parents open up the best gift of all. Witnessing what their children remembered about growing up, the love, the humor, the tears, the fears and the comfort. Many memories had been forgotten, many memories renewed and many of the memories were marked by two, or three siblings but seen through different eyes.

I saw in that moment, myself and Momai, lucky enough that our son Griffin, and perhaps his siblings, will be so cared for and so loved that he will have memories, and we will have memories. Some memories will be shared here, shared with strangers as we reach out for support for the uncommon family.

To all the single mothers, to all of the single fathers, to all of the daddies, all of the mommies, the lesbian dads, the lesbian moms and so so many more labels, I wish you the best at this time of the year, and into the new year.

We are gardians of such treasures and hopes; and I for one am proud to stand and call each person who reads this family.

To memories old and new, Blessed Be.

Baba Oops

So remember those photos of the fauxhawk the other day?

Well it was at a request by Momai's coworkers and she was at work, so of course I took up the task.

As I've said before I take no where near as good of pictures as Momai's so I knew that I'd have to take /lots/ of them.

Ahem....soooo I went into our bathroom and picked up some of Momai's styling gel thinking I'd give his hair a hand in standing up for the photo shoot.

All of the gels and stuff say uber hold, ultra style, 12 hour spike and stuff like that so I picked the first one that I could reach thinking that "yeah yeah they're all the same."

So I styled the little guy's hair and sure enough it stayed up through the whole photo shoot and all the way up until Momai got home that evening... and through till that night.

As we marveled at the fact that his hair was still standing up Momai asked if I'd used something to help it stay up. Which I answered quickly (with pride at my own cleverness) about the gel (which now that I remember back was the consistancy of almsot dry elmer's glue) and then promptly got a giggle, then a laugh.

Apparently I'd chosen the most powerful styling product that we own, that also happened to be water proof.

Needless to say through all of Griffin's play, washings, hair brushings, sleeping he kept that fauxhawk for about 6 days.

Yes my friends, 6 days; even after it was slicked down it'd still dry and retun to resemble its former style.

I wonder if I should call the company and compliment them on their very effective product?

Editor's Note

I am retracting my previous statement regarding Griffin calling me Baba.

I am pleaed to announce that he has dubbed me Pbff pbff.

I wonder how well that'll go over at the social secruity office when I go to change my name.

Tee hee

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

Not as good as pictures taken by Momai.

Almost 8 months...wow!

No pictures with that post; that's usually Momai's department so we'll get some up for you soon.

So what's happened since we last shared:

-8 teeth in total
-Eating solids more than formula
-Pulling himself up to sit
-Pulling himself up to stand
-Lots and lots and lots of babbling and starting to take his turns in babble.

Whew...yeah lots has happend and I think (I hope) I got a fair video of Griffin standing up his first time. I looked over my shoulder because he was quiet and sure enough he was standing. So shocked me tried to go for the camera before I startled him and he sat back down (or fell).

So talking, babble and we've started to identify ourselves to him as Momma (Momai) and Baba (Mombi) so we'll see how that works. He hadn't really picked up on the different sounds and the family gets a bit confused so we're going to give these changes a go. Not quite ready to change my name on the blogs though.

Yah, back to talking.

Tee hee

So I do quite a bit of talking over the computer internationally and he has started to pick up on the cadence of a conversation. He knows that when a computer is talking he is quiet and when the computer is quiet I star to talk. Only issue with that is he usually babbles over me when I'm trying to respond, which gives everyone a good laugh. He gets a bit confused when there is more than a few people talking at once and I've been quiet for awhile so he just stares blankly.

So we've started watching a couple programs on Nick Jr. to suplement what I'm teaching him on my own. I've been really pleased with the programing, and wow we have come a long way since Sesame Street when I was a kid. There are four that I love (and some a love hate relationship) that he gets into.

Well I say gets into is he usually watches the first ten min or so of the show then goes off to play, and either listens while he plays and usually goes back to it in a few minutes.

So onto the list.

Blue's Clues
Nice slow scene transitions that don't make his eyeballs go crazy. Very good educational tool, I was impressed that their episode on colors consisted of the primary, secondary and terciary colors. I wish I'd learned how to identify magenta when I was a kid. Draw back for me is the songs, they're so easy to get stuck in my head and they're the kind that don't seem to really have an ending.

Backyardigans
Love this show and how it explores imagination. Right now he's only processing the colors, voices and music but the boy loooves music and the songs are fun as well as the episodes

Wonder Pets
Uber cute, almost too much cuteness but again the music, good themes (even though he might not understand them yet) and nice slow scene transitions. Major one for this show is their "different" song every show is really just the same song with only a few minor changes....so oooh yeah do I get this one stuck in my head.

Yo Gabba Gabba
Hmm...this one is my least favorite out of the four only because it's a bit too much for his age...and yet he giggles when he sees the puppets so if it happens to be on when we're at a stage that he'd like some entertainment other than Baba (yes shock and horror I do get boring after awhile) I go ahead and let him watch some of it. If you've never experienced the show... it is...well I'll try to sum it up in a few words. DJ, orange fro looking hat, orange 70's jump suit, magical boom box straight from the late 70s....nuff said.

Well I think my quiet time is over, I promise we'll get new pictures (and hopefully a video or two) posted.

Blessed Be,

Baba (just testing it out, Mombi)