1st Shiner

Gunnar vs. a toy dump truck.

Guess who won.

From Shiner

This one's for you, Patty!

Checking in at 18 months

From Chirstmas pics 2009

18-month stats:

• 29 lbs (75th-90th percentile)
• 33 1/4" tall (75th-90th percentile)
• 49.3" head circumference (75th-90th percentile)
• Great vocabulary for his age (dr. would have been happy with 5-10 words) - hat, sweep, more, thank you, please, no, shower, duck, dog, ka-ka (truck or coffee, depending on context), help, shoes, kocks (socks), cheese, hummus, up, blue, eyes, mouth, bubbles, mess, broom, mamma, daddy, potty, bus, airplane, moon, hiding, ball, draw
• Loves making animal sounds - woof woof, hoo hoo, tweet tweet, roar, quack quack, smacks lips to sound like a giraffe, makes a great elephant sound, sucks cheeks in to make fish face
• Knows what b-a-b-y spells
• Loves throwing balls, playing chase, going down the slide, drawing, reading, jumping on Daddy, blowing kisses and eating green gingerbread cookies (see photo)
• Hates having his teeth brushed, but we were told by the doctor that we must not give up, even if it means pinning the little boy down to scrub his pearly whites - I'm sorry, Gunnar!!!

Allergy update:

We visited the allergist a couple of weeks ago to check in on Gunnar's peanut allergy and eczema. All is well under control. This was my first chance to meet the doctor and get more details on G's test results from August. Though Gunnar's skin reaction to the peanuts was alarming, his blood levels for the IgE antibody were 0.85, which is relatively low. A negative reading for the peanut allergy is 0.35, and there are kids with readings at 20 and up to even 100 (those children cannot even smell peanuts without reacting!). We will have him tested again in 2 years to find out if there is a possibility that he will grow out of this, but in the meantime, we still face the statistic that Gunnar has a 30-40% chance of having a severe reaction if exposed to peanuts. So we all need to continue taking all possible precautions. The good news is that we have been cleared to eat at Chick-fil-a! The doctor has deemed their peanut oil safe because it is a "heat processed fully refined" oil that has been stripped of the proteins that cause the allergic reaction. However, all other peanut oils should still be considered unsafe. Gunnar, meet the Chick-fil-a cow!! And thank you all for helping us continue to keep Gunnar safely away from peanut products!

On a side note, please do not let Gunnar eat tomatoes. Though he is not technically allergic, neither his diapers nor his bottom appreciate the outcome. His teachers at school had a friendly reminder of this last week when they mistakenly let him eat ketchup. A tube of Triple Paste later, Gunnar is almost back to normal!!

Meet The Peanut

Today we had our 18-week ultrasound, and once again, we were able to resist finding out the gender! Nobody looked, not even the tech (or so she said). So we'll have to wait til June to know if Gunnar will have a football buddy or if we need to send him to karate classes to learn to keep the boys away from Daddy's little girl. I am still having vivid dreams that I have a girl kicking around in my belly, and so it has become natural to me to refer to Peanut as a she.

Here's a picture of Peanut when we first learned of her existence...

From Peanut ultrasound

And here are some photos of how she's grown!

From Peanut ultrasound

From Peanut ultrasound

From Peanut ultrasound

We even got a 3D photo. Looks like she's trying to suck her thumb.

From Peanut ultrasound

Some may think she looks a bit alien-like at this stage, but of course, her mom and dad only see perfection. (and how in the world did we achieve perfection twice?!!) :)

Merry Christmas!

We hope everyone had a marvelous Christmas! Gunnar started to figure out who Santa is, and we took him to school to have breakfast with the jolly fellow. Gunnar wasn't too fond of sitting in Santa's lap...

From Breakfast with Santa

...but he did give the guy a high-5,

From Breakfast with Santa

and even blew him a kiss goodbye!

From Breakfast with Santa

Gunnar also made Christmas cookies for Santa and friends - this year we tried oreo balls, which were a bit hit!

From Breakfast with Santa

And all of that was good enough to get Gunnar exactly what he wished for... to stay in NC near his friends and family! You see, Santa not only delivered lots of cool toys to our good little boy, but he also took something we've been wanting to get rid of for a long time - that ugly sign in our yard! Yippee!