Gestures of All Kinds

I really enjoy taking Grace places and that's so the opposite of what I thought I'd say before she was born. Part of the reason is she's so dang sociable and chatty. So much so that it's hard for us to figure out when/if her first words have/had happened. Usually it's the parents that are trying to convince others that their kid's said his/her first word. But in our case, others have been trying to convince us. I finally got a library card at the Menomonie library and while I was filing out a form Grace looked at one of the librarians and made a "hi" sound. The librarian looked at me, and asked, "Did she just say hi to me?" I said, "Maybe." The librarian was convinced after Grace repeated the word a few more times and told me, "I'm going with it. She said hi." Then the next evening we had company and she seemingly said hi to our friends. They did a double-take and had the same reaction as the librarian, again convinced that Grace had just said hi.

Along with the "hi" is often a wave. She has two styles of waving right now. One is a graspy, grabby wave and the other is more of your homecoming queen-on-a-float wave. The first gesture that she learned though was from our nanny. The ever-popular "so big" with arms stretched over her head in a touchdown motion. She does it if we ask: "How big is Gracie?" (She also sometimes does it when I ask: "What do the Vikings never get?" Hee.)

My two proudest teachings so far are doggy related. Grace was initially grabby when it came to interactions with Ella, but I always would show her how to pet a dog nicely and I would say "nice pet" in a soft tone. So now Grace does smooth petting motions and says "Nice." Well not really. She says some sort of "word" in a soft tone though and it's super cute and an especially good lesson for her to have learned. Grace is quite the dog person already and loves to crawl after Ella. Poor pug who's used to napping 20 hours a day gets exhausted with all of this activity sometimes. The expressions on the faces of both of our girls in this photo really says it all. Gracie says: "C'mon, lets play!" Ella says: "Where's the off button on this kid!"

The other dog-related teaching occurred through me pointing at dogs in her books and pointing at Ella and saying "doggy" and then panting like a dog. Grace will now mimic that. Very cute, not very practical. Practicality can wait.

Little Things

I got up in the middle of the night one night last week ... well not in the middle of the night since it was quarter to 4 ... anyway Grace woke up. Since she goes to bed before 8 p.m., if she gets herself awake after 2 a.m. or so, she's going to be hungry. She only does this once a month or so, so I don't mind getting up too much. We are usually not totally sure why she wakes up. It could be that she gets herself into an awkward position, although she has the ability to fall asleep in the weirdest poses -- in fact, we call her yoga baby when we see her in the monitor sometimes. Then we were thinking that we may need to turn the heat up a bit. (She might have her mom's preconditioned coldness.) But after a few ornery evenings and naptimes we think it's just that she's getting a plethora of teeth. So on this fine evening/morning, I got a bottle made and went in. She was wimpery and I popped the bottle in her mouth. She grabbed the side of the bottle with one hand and held the bottle up. One hand. This was the first time she ever truely held her own bottle. After a few seconds she started to use the other hand too. As I sat there and watched, I was thinking that it was highly likley she needed a diaper change, as it had been about 8 hours. So I thought I'd tempt fate and put her down on the changing table. She kept holding her bottle througout the change. I was so proud. Proudness over "little" things -- noises, movements, looks, interactions. Those little things add up so quickly these days and are in fact a big deal.

Speaking of big deals. We've had trouble with our laptop computer lately and it just so happens that we download all photos of Gracie onto that computer. I save them on to disks in three-month increments so this was the weekend I was planning on doing just that. But last Sunday the computer locked up and wouldn't let us get our documents. At first I was ornery about it and mad at myself for not saving them more frequently. Then I was sad that we may lose all the photos we had of Grace from ages 6 months to 9 months. (Her Halloween pumpkin photo was taken after the computer meltdown.) The missing photos would be especially noticable because I'd purchased a little photo album thing which had a separate book for each of these quarterly increments of photos. Then I became OK with it. I figured it'd be just a story we'd tell Grace when she was older. "Back in 2008 we used this thing called a laptop computer where we stored digital photos of you ..." Jay was ultimately able to recover the images, but we've learned our lesson and are asking for an external hard drive for Christmas (hint hint). This will not be happening again ...

Sound of Silence

Gracie and Jay have taken a trip to Elk River to visit Grandma Patti and I’ve stayed behind to work on my dissertation. For those that don’t know, the labor and delivery of this 200-some page paper has been drawn out and painful. Giving birth to Grace was a snap compared to this task. I need to be disciplined because I know Jay will not be pleased if he comes home to a pug that knows 5 new tricks.

I have been so excited to have this 36 hours alone (well, with pug : ) to focus on my work, but I’m missing my little girl. It's so quiet and calm! Grace has so much going on these days with substantial changes in her mobility, vocality and size. She’s officially crawling. It took a few trial runs, but she’s got it down now. She especially likes to follow Ella’s tail. Good thing the dog’s still quicker than the baby : ) Since I can no longer trust that she’ll stay where I put her down, I take Grace around from room to room with me when I need to get things done. One place she’s come to like a lot is our walk-in closet. I bring her in there when I’m trying to get ready to leave the house in the morning. While I’m figuring out what to wear, Grace rearranges my shoes and sometimes pulls down a shirt or two. It's almost as if she's trying to tell me what I should put on. I never thought about wearing strappy, sparkly high heels with my pink "Got Milk?" sweatshirt. Might just have to give that a try.

Chatting, “singing” and clapping are now common sounds around the house. The clapping is awfully cute, the "singing," not as cute. ("Singing” is what I like to call her shrieks.) Now her chatting, on the other hand, is indeed cute. She's much more expressive these days. She really puts some emotion into her “words.” When she’s upset, I swear I hear some four-letter words in her babbles.

A big change lately is the transition to a bigger car seat. She was starting to look like a giant in the infant seat and seems a lot more comfy in this new one. No more infant seat means that when we go shopping she actually has to sit in the cart like a big girl as you can see in the photo. (Yes, when I went to Kmart last week I was the goofy mom snapping pictures of my daughter in a shopping cart.) She loved grabbing at things as we weaved through racks of clothes.

Speaking of clothes, I keep getting asked what Grace is going to be for Halloween. My answer: “Whatever costume is cheapest when I go shopping next Friday.” I keep looking for clever, easy baby costumes (any suggestions?). We’ll see how ambitious I get. Tune in next week.

Moving Forward – Looking Back

Last weekend we had the chance to get a glimpse of what life was like before baby. We had tickets to a concert in St. Paul and signed up Grandma Patti and Grandpa Dennie to watch Gracie girl overnight. (It took a lot of arm twisting : ) Then Grandma Jane and Grandpa Greg agreed to take Ella for the weekend, so we were totally “kid” free.

The weekend was good for us all. Grandparents had a good time taking care of our girls. And perhaps more importantly we were comfortable with being away. I even fully slept through the night – something I didn’t do at all the first night we spent away from Grace. (The restful sleep might have had something to do with the fact that when we were at the concert I had a few drinks, the first in over a year.)

On the way to pick Grace up we commented on how it seemed like we’d been away from her for much more than 36 hours. When we reunited it was great to see that little smiley face.

The whole family was smiley that weekend, because we just learned we got renters for our house in Apple Valley. Although we’re extremely happy we got renters, there is a bit of sadness about officially leaving the house. The main reason: it’s Gracie’s first home and our first home as a family. To prepare for the renters we needed to redo the nursery which had been custom painted with Snoopy and Woodstock. While we do feel a tinge of sadness, we’ve also come to realize how much (and how quickly) our house in Menomonie has truely become home. The open floor plan really fits how we function as a family.

Speaking of floor plans, Gracie’s exploring ours more fully. She’s so very close to crawling. In fact, the other night I was readjusting her crib mattress and set her on the floor close to me, but not right next to me. I turned my attention to the mattress for a few minutes and turned back and she was tugging on my pant leg. She's always surprising us with her mobility. In fact, I heard her wake up around 2:30 a.m. a few nights ago and turned on the monitor, expecting to see her kicking her legs a bit. Instead, I saw her sitting up, looking around and exploring her new view. (Thus, the lowering of the crib mattress.) As this video shows, she’s much more adept at sitting than crawling at the moment.

We’re excited for her to become more mobile and independent, but are also a bit melancholy and nervous. And it’s only the beginning …

Take a Look

Jay and I always get comments about who Grace looks like. The resemblance can’t be based soley on hair and eye color because all three of us have brown eyes and brown hair. It seems like the “She looks like Jay,” comments outnumber the “She looks like Kate” comments by a slim margin. (Regardless, everyone agrees she's a cutie as you can see : )

Here are some other themes:

Newborn -->Infant: Personally, I think she looked more like me when she was a newborn and is starting to look more like Jay now.

Features: Another comment is that the top half of Gracie’s face is all Jay, and the bottom half is all me.

Mood: The resemblance seems to shift depending on what mood she’s in. When she’s thoughtful and contemplative, she looks like me. When she’s laughing and mischievous, she looks like Jay. (This isn’t based on just my opinion, but I can’t divulge my sources : )

Speaking of family resemblances, I did this Yearbook Yourself thing that has been on a few friend’s blogs. If you haven’t seen it, it puts your photo into yearbook photos of different eras. Quite interesting and such a good use of my free time, I might add. A few photos were eerily familiar because they looked so much like relatives, especially my mom. Others also showed me what I would have looked like if I’d have developed my styling skills in high school.

For your entertainment:

Bet that some people (i.e. Jay) would say the glasses in this photo (1966) aren't that much different than ones I acually wear today.

This looks a lot like my mom at that time, or so I think she did, since I wasn't around in 1966 : )

And finally, this (1990) is how I would've looked if I could've ever gotten the hang of how to use the dang curling iron. Truely a skill I've never mastered.

And that might be for the best. That said, I was the recipient of many a perm in the late 1980s, so I'm not sure that's any better. I'm hoping Gracie never learns what the perming experience is all about and I'm crossing my fingers that she doesn't ask her mom for curling iron tips.

The Perfect Storm

A disclaimer: I still realize that we are super lucky and have a great baby – and we are so fortunate that she’s as good as she is, especially when it comes to sleeping. That is why when she was difficult to get down last Thursday night, it took me off guard. This sleepless trend continued and intensified over the weekend, through Wednesday.

We started off with a fun "girls' night" (Jay was in Vegas). As you can see by the photo, Grace was fine during the day, but come bedtime – yipes! She’d be near sleep or fully sleeping as we placed her in the crib. But when her head hit the mattress those eyes flew open and the yowling began. Since she’s been so good, we hadn’t heard that type of cry since before we moved.

I realized that a number of things were going on in her little world and caused what I like to call (dum, dum, dum): The Perfect Storm.

Here’s thoughts that might have been going on in her cute little head:
* My daddy’s out of town.
* I’m eating a green food with a funny texture (green beans).
* Everything around me is sooooo fun to look at (pug) and grab for (pug).
* I fill my pants right after Mommy puts me in my crib (perhaps because of that weird green stuff she feeds me).
* My Grandma Patti is visiting me this weekend! She’s fun. She gave me a cow and sings to me.
* I’m went to a party (happy adoption day Dominic!) with two big dogs, four kids, one baby, many toys and many adults.
* I like my mommy and I kinda like to know where she is at all times. Mommy?

It’s a lot for even an almost 7-month-old to process! Given that Jay and I tend to be analyzers/overthinkers/obsessers, I wouldn’t be surprised if Grace had that trait too. Maybe she just had a lot going on in that little noggin and wouldn’t let herself go to sleepyland.

Then Sunday night I discovered another factor that contributed to (dum, dum, dum) The Perfect Storm: A tooth pushing through. Aha! She’d been fine when her first two came in, but apparently this one was different.

On Monday night, Jay was introduced to the bedtime struggle and we discussed when/if we’d try any cry-it-out options. We decided if the sleep struggles continued after this tooth came through, then we’d give them a chance. I warned Jay that I might need to leave the house. I don’t deal that well with Gracie’s yowling. Crying I can deal with. Howls that sound like “Mommy!” … not so much. This was obviously tooth pain, so we gave her some pain reliever and added a few things to the bedtime routine – a book and a fella we like to call G. Raffe. (He's been mentioned and pictured in previous posts.) We read/gnawed on a book. Then when we put her down, her giraffe stuffed animal accompanied her. After a bit of wimpering she grabs G. Raffe and drifts off to sleep. Whew.

Is that another tooth I see coming through? Good thing we can count on baby Tylenol, Oragel and Mr. G. Raffe to help us weather this storm.

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.