The Huinker Family Blog: A Grady Update: 6-8 Weeks

With Christmas, traveling, New Year's, and four days without internet, it's been a while since my last post. I had a secret end-of-year goal of beating my record of "blog posts in one year," but, unfortunately, that didn't work out. And, just to keep my stress level low (because that is my one and only New Year's Resolution: To stay calm and serene), I don't think I'll set an official goal for 2014; however, I do really like this whole "baby/toddler/little girl" baby book thing I've got going on, and I really want to keep it regularly updated!

Anyways, on to the point of this post...Grady and what he's been up to these last few weeks. To start, Grady had a doctor's check up at 6 weeks - he weighed in at 11.1 pounds and was 23 inches! A pretty impressive growth spurt from his 2 week check-up where he was 8.13 pounds and 22 inches. Dr. Menke said he was looking great! We go in on Monday for his two month shots...I decided to wait until he was 8 weeks old...6 seemed too little - still not looking forward to it though.

Otherwise, there's not too much new to update other than the milestone of smiling which is starting to occur more and more frequently, the start of some longer stretches at night (and by that I mean 3.5-4.5 hours instead of the very consistent 3), and the onset and hopefully completion of a tough and trying stage of incredibly short naps (seriously, like 10 minute naps while being held only). This last dilemma definitely had me stressing...good thing it occurred before New Year's because I would have already broken my one resolution in that case! Yesterday and today, Grady took a really nice morning and afternoon nap with some shorter snoozes in between...here's to hoping this trend continues! I love holding the little guy - but with the girls home too, doing so constantly is just not easy and/or possible, so it's been nice to have a few hours where I can devote time to them and doing things around the house. While I'd like to think I'm an AB personality, it probably should be a capital "A" and a lower case "b" in my case because I love schedules, and even though I can be patient in the meantime and flexible when necessary, I can't wait for my little guy to be on one! :)

Here's a number of pictures of our little man (and our little ladies) from the last couple of weeks and from today's impromptu photo shoot. Thank goodness my sister-in-law Beth had her phone handy for the smiling pictures! I love the ones from today especially...we weren't exactly color coordinated, so that's why the pictures are all in black and white, but I'm pleased that they turned out so well and show how much Grady's big sisters love him!

Grady - 5 weeks