Oh Yeah, I Definitely Love Him.

As if there were any doubts!  LOL.  My goodness, Griffin is a sweetheart.  Extra chromosomes are awesome! :-)

We awoke to cannons firing off in our village this morning...and since our windows are cracked due to not having A/C in this country, Griffin heard them, loud and clear.  I got up and took him directly down stairs for a diaper change and breakfast.  I was a bit concerned since I didn't have his breakfast prepared ahead of time like I normally try to do.  I gave him his diluted juice and some fruit puffs directly onto his high chair tray and decided to cook some eggs for him.  Again, they just cool quickly, and I'm still experimenting.  Since he has oatmeal issues, I really just feel that it's a breakfast thing in general. :-)  I decided that I would let him feed himself the eggs and see if we could get a better response.  And we did!   Bite after bite, he would do very well, and I would help him with his juice to wash the eggs down since he is still stuffing his cheeks.  Toward the end, he started to get fussy but I was prepared to intervene with some yogurt.  So I started giving him bites of that between continuing to allow him to feed himself the eggs.  Worked like a charm.  He's a very smart boy because he can sense when the food time is coming to an end.  I was very careful to not scrape the bottom of the yogurt bowl with the spoon but he could tell anyway.  Maybe it's because I tipped the bowl up to get it from the edges but anyway, he knew.  He started fussing, I turned his chair, and within seconds he was fine.  I cleaned him up and let him explore.

He cruised over to the window where he likes to sit every morning.  He took the moby wrap with him and did a bit of cleaning and then laid down on the floor in the sunlight.  I eventually moved him because I didn't want him to get too toasty.  I could hear that Little G was waking up so I got her in her high chair, scrambled her an egg, and then I could hear the tv turning on and off.  Dude was messing with the plug!  So I get him away from the electronics (which I will  have to figure something out about blocking him from that area), and redirected him to the stacking rings.  Before we knew it, a random parade came marching by, along with more cannons firing their crazy loudness into the quiet Sunday morning, so we watched that go by.  Then we all decided to play.  Dude was just kind of lounging around for the most part, and this morning I actually noticed that his big toe nails were blue.  So I'm a bit concerned about the lack of oxygen that he may be getting while he is sleeping...As far as I know, he does not have heart issues, but I know that sleep apnea is an issue with Ds.  I decided to give him his sippy cup of juice as he lounged on the floor.  I realize that he doesn't really drink with his meals, which makes sense because at the orphanage, they had juice time as a snack.  So as he laid on the floor, I put my hand on his forehead so that he could feel my touch, helped him hold his sippy cup even though he can do it all by himself, and made eye contact with him as he drank down the entire cup of juice without stopping.  I'm hoping that this will help him bond even more with us.  Eventually, I would love for him to allow me to hold him the entire time he drinks his juice.  He does pretty well when I hold him for his juice, but he never finished the entire cup, so we will work our way up to this. 

After his juice was done, he got a burst of energy.  He was very happy and so I stood him up against the couch and asked him to walk to me, and he did!  He did that over and over again and I was so proud of him!  And he was pretty proud of himself, too.  Little G was even encouraging him!  She walked up to him once and started lightly rubbing his head, saying, "Bayyyy-be!"  After that, I took him to the recliner and he positioned himself the way he wanted to lay... he likes to lay with his back in my lap, and his head on top of my knees.  I started rocking him and before long, he moved his own body to keep the chair going.  He would use his feet to push the back of the rocking chair to keep it going.  Very smart little guy!  He stayed like that for probably 30 mins as he looked at a book.

I decided to give them a snack and have them in bed by 11 for a nap.  I decided on prunes.  Fun, huh?  Well, come to find out, both of the little ones love them!  So after they gobbled those down, to sleep they went.

Well, that's a snippet of our day... another snack and juice time has come and gone, along with lunch and dinner and we had no food issues at all!  He drank another entire sippy cup, while laying in my arms this time.  He's changing more and more, literally from one hour to the next.  Amazing what a little boy can do if only given a chance!!!

More tomorrow!!!  <3