Chunks!!!

Oh my! This week has been an incredible week of firsts for Grant!  I cannot tell you the transformation my little man has gone through!  Grant has always been my quiet, laid-back baby. Now he's my extremely happy and quiet, laid-back baby!  His smile could light up a room.  Yesterday afternoon when I put him in the pack'n'play in the living room to nap, he just laid on his back playing with his bottle and laughed and laughed.  I'm not sure what he was finding so funny but my heart just melted at the sound.  Prior to Sunday, when I would go to pick him up, he was indifferent.  When he'd catch sight of me, he'd watch me but his expression would show no feeling.  Now when I go to take him out of his car seat or pick him up off the floor, he smiles as big as can be, revealing those two tiny teeth, and wiggles around as if he is genuinely excited to see his mama.  That in and of itself is HUGE for me.  Grant has always shown such disinterest in mama.

Last Saturday Grant was finally able to figure out how to use those little legs and arms and started belly crawling. Paul and I were absolutely fascinated with how quickly he mastered the skill.  Just a week later, he began crawling.  It took Bryce nearly a month to master crawling but Grant was able to master it in just one week!!  God is so good!!  Paul and I have sat back and watched in wonder as the baby that for so long laid on the floor completely frustrated because he couldn't figure it out was now crawling all over the place and getting into things.  This in itself is enough to make my heart full to overflowing but God has poured out even more blessings on us!

Grant has struggled with feeding for the past 4 months. He did well at purees in the fall of 2011 but when we tried to challenge him with texture at the beginning of December he decided he wasn't going to eat anything for me.  We have spent the last three months trying to get him to trust us with feeding again.  In February we were able to get him to willingly take pureed jar food.  After a week we were able to add rice cereal to it and he took that well. However, he has been unwilling to progress beyond puree.  Though you can thicken his food up considerably with rice cereal, he does not like two different textures in his food.  Today God led me to a section of jar food that was labeled "textures".  The problem with most baby foods is that there is no transition from 2s (pureed) to 3s (pureed with large chunks of food).  Its too big of a difference in texture - even Bryce gags when we try 3s.  These "Textures" jars were labeled 2 1/2s. I decided to grab a few and try them with Grant. If he didn't like them, at least Bryce would eat them.  After I got Raegan settled down with breakfast (Bryce and Brooklyn were still asleep), I sat down with a jar of apples and mango that I'd mixed with rice cereal.  The chunks of mango were between 1/8 and 1/4 of an inch so he'd definitely notice them but  still smaller than the 3s so we gave it a try.  As always, Grant was very guarded but did very well and finished the entire jar!  What an incredible accomplishment for him.         ...... I don't mean to end this here but the girls are starting to get into things and we just got word that a friend's little one just passed away this morning so my mind is not really focusing on updating the blog anymore....   Hope that everyone is having a blessed week!