Way To Be Tall

We went to our new pediatrician for the first time a few weeks back and wouldn’t you know it – Grace is in the 97th percentile for length. She’s thriving according to the doctor.

Speaking of being in good health, as some of you know, I recently got motivated to try running/jogging/moving on my feet faster than I would by walking. I’ve been trying the “couch to 5K” workout – yes, that’s actually the name of the program – which eases you in to the whole thing. The program's advice says to not rush the process and that’s fine by me. My last experiences with running were ones from track and field week in high school, and they involved searing sideaches and intense wheezing. To make this go around more favorable, I’ve taken Grace with me on at least one “run” a week. It’s a great motivator to look down at that little grinny face. Sometimes she even appeases me by grabbing on to the side of the stroller as if to say “Whoa, mommy. Slow down! You’re running so fast that I have to hang on for dear life.” My own little personal trainer!

The runs I’ve gone on alone are those that I've done around our house. Those have been fun, too, but for different reasons. The first time I gave it a go I had just walked around the corner of our driveway in time to see a doe and fawn crossing the road about 15 yards away. And then a few nights ago I was going to go out for a jog close to dusk. Then I heard a grunting sound coming from the wooded area around our house. Ummmm. Right then seemed like a good time test out our elliptical machine that we just got set up in our basement.

Regardless of how I do it, it’ll be good to get myself into shape because soon I’ll be chasing Grace around the house. She’s accomplished the freestanding sit and I imagine the crawling and walking will be here. In this photo she look likes she's trying to transition from the seated position to one of more mobility. Her face seems to say, "But Mommy, all the other babies are crawling!" Not so fast little one ... not so fast.

Dive In

A few weekends ago we were once again reminded how lucky we are. We were in for a long day on a road trip to St. Cloud for Grace's baptism. We were on the go from 8 a.m. until 7 p.m and Grace didn't fuss for more than a few seconds throughout the entire endeavor (thanks in part to Grandma Jane whose job it was to keep her occupied during our drive … something tells me she didn’t mind the “job” too much.)

Grace didn't mess her beautiful dress (photos coming soon) and looked so cute with her little barefeet kicking about : ) She also did great afterward, being passed around and hanging out with family. She was especially interested in hanging with Uncle Adam. It was an eventful day as she sampled some of the sweet and sour things in life -- some lemonade from Grandma Patti and a taste of frosting thanks to Grandma Michelle.

Even though she tends to have a devilish little grin on her face most of the time (see photo), Grace was an angel during her baptism ceremony. She was especially intrigued by the basin of water and looked like she wanted to dive in and splash around.

Speaking of water-based adventures. Grace loves baths now. We stopped giving her baths in the plastic tub we had over the kitchen sink and transferred the event to a inflatable bathtub that we place in our master bathroom. It makes for a funny site – a big jet bathtub with candles placed around it, complemented by an inflatable rubber ducky tub in the center of everything. We made the transition because she’d gotten so splashy and grabby in the sink that we had more water on us and the floor than we had in her tub. Now she can splash away to her heart’s content.

No wonder Grace found the baptismal basin so appealing.

Girl Power

We have one strong little girl. Strong in many ways. For one, she’s strong when it comes to pain tolerance, as she produced two teeth with ease, something that we really appreciate. That said she isn’t very attune to how to eat with them. When we sit down to have rice cereal meals, she sprays food all over her new feeding chair. Even with the mess, she looks like such a big girl sitting at the table with us.

Grace is also quite physically strong and uses her little fingers to pull hair and pinch the heck out of my arm. In fact, I had little baby finger-sized bruises on my arm for a bit. It’s hard to believe the girl with this sweet little face can do that.

Then there’s the strong voice. She likes to do a shrieky sound a lot, especially if she’s encouraged to do so. (Jay’s not a big fan of this sound, but I’m guilty of cheering her on : ) The other week she decided to shriek through the grocery store … just because. A sound Jay’s a bigger fan of is Grace’s hearty laugh. She’ll do it if you tickle her or amuse her in just the right way. For awhile it was by grabbing her knee or tickling under her chin. Then it was when she played tug with a burp cloth and most recently it was when Jay tickled under her arms.

Grace will make both the shriek and laugh sounds when she watches her favorite pal: Ella. She really likes Ella a great deal and that makes Kate very happy. Ella still isn’t totally chummy with Grace, but will lick her every now and then. She will also appease Grace by sitting while she pets her. She always looks like she’s just tolerating the little tyke. Grace will win her over soon enough. Once those Cheerios begin flying they’ll be the best of friends.

Online / In line

Part of the reason we moved to Menomonie (other than Jay's great job offer, of course) is because we realized we wanted a simpler, less hectic lifestyle, We are very happy with our choice. That's not to say there haven't been some growing pains during the past month. One is the lack of Internet until now. Jay and I are both people who have become accustomed to checking online for many things: email, weather radar and most recently, Facebook updates. When we had to resort to dial-up for a few week or so I decided to postpone most online activities. To be honest, it wasn't that bad, especially when you have a 5-month-old to keep you busy : ) That said, I still did a little dance when we got reconnected.

I became aware of the second smalltown adjustment when I was in the checkout line at the grocery store. The lines are definitely shorter so I thought I'd be just zipping in and out. But then I noticed that the cashier got into conversations with everyone that went through. This was something that I hadn’t seen in years. Definitely not what we’d experienced at Cub or even Byerly’s in the Twin Cities. At first I could feel myself getting frustrated, thinking “C’mon, c’mon. Let’s go!” But then I remembered that I was really not in any hurry to get anywhere and calmed down. I didn’t even flinch when each person in line in front of me pulled out their checkbooks to pay for their groceries. Again, something we rarely saw in the metro. Now I’m used to, and even appreciate, the slower pace.

So now I know you’re probably itching to know what’s new with Gracie. Well, a few things. She’s gotten a taste of some food – the wonderfully tasty rice cereal mixed with breastmilk. Mmmmm. When I try feeding Grace, Ella gets so excited and begs for the cereal (she does love rice and cereal so it makes sense : ) So, I look at her and say, “Ella, you don’t want any of this, it’s yucky.” Then I turn to Grace and say, “Want some of this? It’s so yummy.” So I’m lying to one of my girls. Grace hasn’t really gotten the hang of the swallowing thing yet, especially when she’s distracted by Ella as you can see here:



And now for some breaking news, Gracie’s first tooth is coming through. Tonight she wasn’t really interested in eating and so I put my finger on her lower gums and sure enough, a little bit of tooth was poking through. So far, she’s a teething trooper … but the night is still young.

Out with the Old, In with the New

We're officially living in Me-no-monie. (We're really residents of the town of Spring Brook, which I call a suburb : ) Everyone's adjusted well. Gracie is growing so much and doing new things every day. I don't see her much on the days I work. That's hard, but it makes me enjoy those late-night feedings more. Plus I get to spend much quality time four days a week and I can't ask for much more than that! We thought you'd enjoy seeing one of the fun activities she's taken up lately -- sucking on her foot.

Here's a little recap of our lifestyle changes:

New house: We love it! The great room is truely great. Everytime I walk into our living room/kitchen/dining area I smile.

New electronics: We "needed" (I should take the quotes off of that, because we did need these items) a new TV, new speakers, new satellite dish ... all of which make the place seem even more like home. The "local" television stations are still Mpls./St. Paul so we can watch our regular evening news and most importantly (to the head of our household) the Vikings games. The main issue we're struggling with is internet access (one of the reasons I haven't posted in so long). No broadband available, so we're going the wireless route right now and that's been inconsistent. It's a hard shift for a couple who's gotten very used to highspeed connections.

New neighbors: We haven't officially met our real neighbors, other than chatting with them for a minute here and there. But I'm talking about our other neighbors - the wildlife. There's a family of rabbits that we see a lot which I find to be very cute. But I know if I attempt to do any gardening they'll become not so cute. Then there's the tree frog that I found on our deck. I thought he had passed on to froggy heaven, but nope, he was just sleeping.

New commutes: Jay's got a nice drive to Eau Claire where he says he sees more cows than cars. I see my share of cars on my drive to St. Paul. It hasn't been too bad so far. Not sure I'll say that in winter though. The new iPod set up that Jay's promised me should help too.

New child care: We now have a nanny. We loved our in-home daycare in Apple Valley and were especially sad to leave that behind. But we had the idea (actually Jay's reminds me it was his idea) of hiring a nanny for the summer to help us transition into our new schedules. It's been working out very well. She happens loves doggies too so Ella's super happy.

Usually people are remiss in posting to a blog because there's nothing new to say. Not the case here! There's been so much to say this past month, but so little time to say it.

Now she's a big "G"

Grace, being the mature four-month-old that she is, is so over the activities of youth (birth to yesterday : ) She's beyond just being held, changed and fed. She's moved on to bigger and better things, like bouncing, jumping and grabbing. Her bouncy seat is finally be used for it's intended purpose -- bouncing. And as for jumping, as you can see in the photos and video, she's a big fan of her Jumperoo. Then there's grabbing. Purple elephants, cardboard pictures of Snoopy and Mom's clothes are all common targets. She also likes to grab her own clothes, especially when Mom is trying to get her dressed.

Seriously though, she's matured quite a bit. For example, she's a better napper and quite a good little traveler. This weekend Grace and I went to Menomonie to interview some nanny candidates and then on to Eau Claire for cousin Brady's graduation party. She was super good. Just a bit of fussing now and then, but overall she made a great impression on everyone. She marketed herself well to the prospective nannies and grinned at her cousin. (Since he's going to Madison on a golf scholarship, we're hoping he can teach Gracie that skill so she'll have college paid for too. We're thinking ahead ....)

Hold on a minute, I'll be right back. Bedtime has turned into awaketime.
Correction: It's wide awaketime ... I'll finish this post tomorrow.

And I'm back (the next morning).
Good thing this post was about maturity. After two attempts at putting Gracie to bed in her Miracle Blanket we realized that it had finally lost its usefulness. Within minutes of putting her down, her leg started to emerge and that was the precursor to escape of the arm. So we decided to give a new sleeping implement a try: the sleepsack. Since it's basically a blanket that zips up, the sleepsack allows her a lot more freedom (i.e. access to her arms). We thought we were in for a long night. While she did wake up three times throughout the night, she also fell back to sleep before I even had a chance to turn on the video monitor.

Our little girl's growing up : )

Lowercase "g"

Gracie's new thing -- beatboxing (a.k.a. making raspberries, a.k.a. making use of drool). We're quite the proud of her, case she's quite good at it. She's got the arm gestures down and everything. Yo, we do indeed have the coolest kid around. See for yourself.

While our beatboxer doesn't have any bling yet, she did wear a dress for the first time this weekend. Shockingly we didn't take pictures of it, but I have a feeling it will be a summertime outfit staple. It's green, it's cute, it's easy to get off and on, and most importantly, it offers quick diaper-changing access.

Our little hiphopster rounded up her entourage (i.e. Ella and I) for a walk this Sunday. This was the first walk with baby in stroller and pug on a leash ... together. I'm sure we were interesting to watch, swerving around the sidewalk when pug wanted to go one way and baby and I wanted to go another. But all in all it was a decent trip. A few close calls, but no stroller-pug fenderbenders this time around.

Grace is riding in the most basic baby transportation for the time being, a nice simple, reliable and practical stroller. But before too long I'm sure we'll be adding accessories and/or upgrading. Perhaps some big speakers, a GPS and a drop down TV screen or two ... that's how we roll.