Grafton Meets Santa

We found out that Santa Claus would be making a public appearance at Yankee Candle at a time that would perfectly coincide with our drive back from a day in Brattleboro. We arrived at around 4:30pm, waited a short while (while watching Christmas movies on multiple large screen TVs), and by 6:30pm Grafton was the first in line to see Santa! Grafton told Santa everything he wanted for Christmas, which included a green garbage truck and a white pickup truck. I guess we'll find out soon if Grafton has been naughty or nice!

We posted some pix from their encounter. And here's one for the blog:

Happy Holidays, all!

Potty Trained

For the record, Grafton has officially earned his "potty trained" badge. He pretty much had it by his 3rd birthday. But with a month of "proof" behind us, it's clear that Grafton knows when he's gotta go, and where he's gotta go to take care of business. We still use a diaper overnight, but they are generally dry in the morning. I'll also note that Grafton gets a kick out of using "erinals" in public restrooms.

Party #3

Gymnastics-themed birthday party for Grafton, in photographs.

III

Yup, Grafton turned three. If you ask him now, he'll still say he's two, but we're working on that with him. In order to remember what the little guy looked like after three years of life, Dad took a few photos of him on his big day. To save you from having to click on that link, here are a few of those photos now:

On the morning of Grafton's birthday, Dad had put on his fleece pants and sweatshirt after getting out of bed. Grafton sees Dad's attire and says, "We don't wear comfies on birthdays!"

The Deal with Bananas

I made a deal with Grafton this morning. I told him that if he tried one bite of a banana, I wouldn't put any banana slices in his cereal. You see, he always refuses banana slices in his cereal, and so I never dare lace his cereal with this most offensive produce. But I offer this to him at least once a week anyway, in hopes he will have a change of heart. It has been this way for maybe a year. He simply wouldn't eat bananas--in any form (unless I secretly minced them up and threw them in our waffle batter). But he hates the idea of banana slices in his cereal so much that he agreed to the deal. He would eat one bite. After taking this one bite, he said "hmmm...this is pretty good!".  I couldn't believe it. Mom couldn't believe it. He proceeded to gobble up the half banana I had given him. And then he even agreed to having banana slices in his cereal. And he eat them all up. Bananas are back!

Accident-Free Sunday

No diapers today, just underwear. And no accidents!

Also, another bike ride around the neighborhood. And no accidents!

And we flew a balsa-wood, wind-up propeller model plane in the pumpkin patch behind our house. Oh wait, actually there were a few accidents there...

Street Pedaler

Grafton had not been showing any interest in riding his bicycle this summer, and the bike we bought him has been gathering dust. The last time we were at Nana and PopPop's house, they gave us another toddler bike to bring home that was sitting around in their garage. So this morning, which was bright and sunny, we reminded Grafton about the new bike with the hope that he would want to get outside and enjoy the day. To our surprise, he was uncharacteristically excited about taking it out for a ride. So Dad slapped on the training wheels, filled up the tires, and told Grafton to take it for spin. And Grafton was pulling it out of the garage as soon as Dad opened the garage door. Mom took her bike out too, to help encourage Grafton. Dad decided to walk along with Grafton to help out, as necessary. Well, Grafton did great! He got going with no trouble, and except for careening out-of-control toward the curb on a few of the downhills, he rode flawlessly through the streets of our neighborhood. And he was motivated too! He rode the entire 0.9 mile loop without looking back. And when we got back to our home, he wanted to keep going. And we did. 1.3 miles in all.