Team Player

When Grace started tossing a ball down our hallway, I started wondering what type of sports she might get into. She's got quite a good throwing arm, better than her mom (although that's not saying much). A few months ago I purchased a little plastic bat at a garage sale, perhaps against my better judgment. Anything with a bat and ball is very much outside of my realm of expertise or interest. (I am scarred by my co-ed softball experiences in high school phy.ed. class. Let's just say it wasn't fun.)

Of course, Jay likes sports -- both playing and watching. And I mostly don't mind sports -- sometimes playing, sometimes watching. Jay's always been play something, usually softball or volleyball, every since we met. He's even done a bit of soccer and football. Myself ... well I'm more of an individual sport type of person. Golf and racquetball are what I did the most (although I haven't done either recently). I'm also more of a work-outer (swimming, kickboxing, pilates, and running -- running is last on the list for a reason : ) I did have a volleyball team going for a few seasons though and found out I'm not too terrible at that. Jay and I even played on the same team for a bit and that went quite well too. So, what I'm getting at is she'll likely be playing something. Especially now. Girls' sports options have exploded since I was in school. It'll be interesting to see what she chooses to participate in.

What might be even more interesting is to see which teams she becomes a fan of on the spectating side of sports. Living where we do and given the parents she has Grace is very much a border baby, exposed to the Vikings and Packers, the Twins and Brewers, Gophers and the Badgers, the Timberwolves and Bucks, the Wild and ... oh, well. Right now we are trying to give teams equal opportuntity as you can see in the photos. For those of you that know us, it will interest you to know that it was Jay's idea to buy the Brewers' T-shirt and my idea to buy the Vikings cheerleader outfit. Our luck, she'll decide to become a Bears fan.

Toddler Tales and Tails

The subtle transition from infant to something more advanced snuck up on us. One day Grace was sitting in her high chair being spoonfed pureed green beans (nummy) and the next day she's Brett Favre, flailing fully-formed beans across the kitchen. The quarterback comparison suits her because those tosses are often intercepted (by a pug : ) Her appearance has changed from having just enough fine hair to cover her little noggin to sporting wavy curls which are often in pigtails. Grace has gone from watching the pug do ... well, whatever it is that pugs do in their free time ... to interacting with her, encouraging her to chase, share her meal or come downstairs to play.

All this has has made me realize, and this may sound odd to some, but I don't see Grace as being mine. By that I mean the following: When I watch Grace, I see her as this little individual person learning, chatting, absorbing the world around her. Sure, I'm her mom and need to parent her by giving her direction and guidance, but it's her individuality that makes me feel the most like a mom. When she puts a bucket on her head or hands me a sample of the substance coming out of her always runny nose or runs after a ball saying "giggity-giggity" like a crazy little wind-up toy, I am proud. Sometimes grossed out too, but still proud : )

This pride is often mixed with those melty mom moments when I realize how much she's made me grow. This often happens at bedtime. As I cradle and cuddle her in my arms before placing her in the crib, I am now aware that this tall girl will soon be too big to be held that way. While she might outgrow my cuddle capacity, she'll never outgrow the space she's created in my heart for her.

Smarty Pants (pun intended)

Even though Grace has moved past being on all fours for transportation purposes, she still is quite the doggy imitator and that started early on in her life. One of the first things she learned as a baby was a response to the question, "What does a doggy do?" Here's how it happened: I initially thought that I was going to teach Grace some baby signs to help her communicate and so we started reading her a book that showed her different ways to "say" common household objects -- one such object that was common in our house was the dog. The sign for dog was to stick out your tongue. I added panting noises for emphasis (and entertainment : ) Not too long after that Grace was making the association, and when asked what a doggy does, she'd pant. Never mind that Ella doesn't pant unless she's really in a hurry, such as when a Cheerio has dropped on the floor.

Grace also learned to pet Ella nicely pretty early on, a lesson she sometimes forgets when she gets excited and starts bopping the dog on the head. We have a very patient pug when it comes to Gracie. I think she recognizes Grace is great provider of nibbles and tidbits as you can see by the photo.

Oh, yes, I can't forget this. Our daughter fetches. We have always played a game of fetch with Ella where we toss a stuffed toy (named Mr. McFurry) down a hallway and Ella scampers and brings it back to us. Grace has loved to watch this and squeals with excitement as Ella trots past her as she retrieves the stuffed animal to me. After about five tosses or so, Ella tires of the game and Mr. McFurry is abandoned at the end of the hallway. At that point, Grace looks at me, looks at Mr. McFurry and then toddles down the hallway to bring the lonely toy back.

As you can tell, we think our daughter's probably the smartest toddler in the world. We were very proud when she pointed at the dogs on TV when we were watching the annual Westminster Dog Show this spring. She panted to demonstrate that she knew what they were. We were very impressed ... until she pointed and panted when we showed her the deer grazing in our front yard. Good thing this little doggy has time to learn some new tricks.

In Sickness and In Health

A certain pink, bubble gum flavored liquid sits in our fridge. Yes, we have our first bottle of amoxicillin. After more than a week of Gracie just not being herself we took her to urgent care on a Sunday morning. Aha, ear infection. She's almost 15 months old and many people are surprised that this is her first bout with one of these. We were very glad that we knew what was causing her fussiness, but we were also feeling like bad parents for not bringing her in earlier. We'd attributed the non-Gracie behavior to teething for about a week. She also was drooling and had a runny nose. Then we attributed her semi-restless nights to the fact that she'd started day care and was around lots of kids and lots of new situations. A lot for a Gracie brain to process. Still, even with all of that, she usually she slept through the night with a dose of Motrin, so when we had a rare intense night waking, we rethought our diagnosis.

We were happy to have Gracie's sickness pinpointed, because right around this time I started coming down with something AND the swine flu news broke. (Given that both Jay and I work at health-care organizations, health stuff is a constant part of our daily conversations -- and now even more so. We're well-informed worry warts.) I haven't gotten fully sick, although now I have a bit of a cough, a persistent tickle in my throat. (Why do they call it a "tickle" when it's so dang annoying?) Jay is staying healthier but we're now wondering if we've just all got allergies. Who knows.

Being sick hasn't slowed Grace down at all. In fact she's a confident walker these days. She's got a few pairs of "real" shoes now. The first pair I had her try on were some that a co-worker gave us. They had doggies on them -- perfect for my daughter. As you can see, she wasn't quite sure what to think of these crazy things on her feet. These 101 Dalmatians shoes were a bit big yet so we were scrambling a bit to get her a pair that fit before she started day care. I looked online to figure out sizing and good brands. While I care about her little tootsies, I wasn't going to spend $40 on shoes she'd wear for a month, so we headed to Wal-Mart.

Before Grace was born I'd planned on not buying her items with movie or TV characters on them. Well the best fitting -- and best priced -- shoes happened to have Cookie Monster, Elmo and Oscar on them. Heck, these guys were around when I was a kid (well at least Cookie Monster and Oscar were), so they can't be that bad. No Dora or Hannah yet, whew. Even though she has her own shoes now, it seems like her favorite ones are still mommy's. She loves pulling all of them off the shelves in my closet and tossing them in to the bathtub. She also has started trying to put my shoes on her feet.

It's fun to see her mimic the things we do. (To clarify, I don't toss my shoes the tub : ) Sometimes these actions are just amusing, like when she scratches her belly like her daddy does. Sometimes the actions are useful. One of the earliest things Grace mimicked were the motions we do when we wash our hands. That one might be coming in handier than we thought.

Getting Right to the Point

I know, I know. It's been a long time since my last post. So I thought I'd do an update on all the
"-ings" --

Sleeping: That crying-it-out weekend has had a huge payoff. We totally trust that Grace will get herself down to sleep. And if she doesn't, we know something is wrong (teething, sick or Bitsy Bear "escaped" from the crib).

Walking: This is the big one that everyone asks about. Grace still finds crawling to be the most efficent way of getting around. That said, she has taken a few steps on her own but not a full-out walk yet. Verrrrrry close.

Teething: A few weeks ago we realized that Grace had four molars coming in at once. She'd been a bit on edge, but was a real trooper. These teeth are still in process. Stubborn buggers.

Standing: She does stand for a short period of time unassisted, usually when she's somewhat distracted and playing with something (like her new cell phone).

Eating: Our girl is a great eater. She communicates well when it comes to how she feels about the food she's eating. "Numm, numm, numm, numm." And that's a direct quote. She is so the opposite of what Jay and I were like as kids from what we hear. When I gave her brussel sprouts for the first time I wanted a record of it. We videotaped it so we could tell Grace one day: "See, you used to like brussel sprouts!"

Watching TV: We watch a little bit of TV with Gracie, especially on Sunday mornings when some fun kid's shows are on. She likes watching and sometimes squeals a bit. Watching her makes watching Elmo tolerable.

Dancing: Our love for music has passed on to Gracie, and so have our dancing "skills." She does a little boogie when I put on some kid-friendly CDs. She also activates the many toys we have for her that are music based. On one toy she knows exactly which button to push to get songs to play. She often does a mix-master Gracie session and hippity hops a bit.

Flirting: Grace is a pro at this. I took her to a cafe recently and ended up being there for longer than we'd anticipated. I was worried that Grace would get ornery and bored. Instead she watched people and waved and smiled and played peek-a-boo, especially with the boys : )

Laughing: These range from giggles to hearty laughs. Grace's got some definite tickle spots which triggers some of the laughing. She also laughs when she realizes others are laughing and she wants to join in.

Talking: Grace sure can talk a lot, but what she is saying is still mostly a mystery to us. 'Da-da," "bye-bye" and "hi" are solid words she has a handle on, and sometimes "ball." But ma-ma is still pretty random.

Endearing: So this is not a true "-ing" is the sense the others are, but deserves an update nonetheless. Jay and I have our favorite things that Grace does -- often involving kissing and hugging. With Jay she does the goofiest, yet cutest kisses. As he comes in for a smootch she opens her mouth wide. (Jay said she better grow out of that habit : ) For me, my favorite thing is when Grace crawls over to me, pulls on my pants to pull her self up and stands up hugging my legs with her little face and big smile peering up at me. No words are needed.

Party Surprise

By the time most kids are one-year-old the parents have dealt with many sicknesses, but Grace has only had a few sniffly days and has been otherwise relatively healthy. We're thinking that we got a bit of a reprieve because we endured her stay at Children's Hospital when she was a few months old. But wouldn't you know it, the Saturday before her first birthday she woke with a fever. She wasn't herself, not especially crabby, just not as cheery. She was super sleepy and had very long naps -- something I would've cherished if she was healthy. Instead, I anxiously awaited her awakening so I could take her temperature. Given how I was taking her temperature, I don't think she was as anxious to have it taken. Or at least it was a different kind of anxious. The long naps gave me time to perfect her wonderful pawprint cake (with decoration by dad : )

We flipped through our baby books trying to recall what to do with an infant who has a fever. The resources all differed. One said to call the doctor when her temp was 102.6. Another said wait until it's 104 and a third said 103. Then I called the nurseline (a few times) to see what we should do. They were very helpful and eased my mind a bit.

We were thinking we had it handled for the night and were in the process of giving her some fever reducing medicine. Turns out that medicine was also vomit inducing, at least that was the case that evening. It induced, not once, not twice, but three times. And in rapid succession. Since that was the first we'd experienced projectile vomiting with Grace, we knew we should consider ourselves lucky. But we didn't feel so lucky that night -- especially since we were just about to eat dinner when the incident occured. A few hours later -- after clean up of the floor, feeding chair, clothes, baby, and pug -- Jay and I commented on how surreal that had been. I can only imagine what was going through Gracie's mind at the time.

She woke the next morning and still had a temp, so we started making phone calls to cancel her birthday gathering. We had a low key day, just grandparents and a few other stopped by. Not to worry though -- as you can see she did the requisite cake smooshing. She was a bit more chipper than the day before, but didn't have the energy to celebrate fully.

As we went to bed that night we decided that if she still had a fever the next day -- her actual birthday -- I'd stay home from work take her to urgent care. When she awoke that Monday, lo and behold, no fever. I was so happy she was better ... but a small part of me was disappointed that I wouldn't be home to celebrate her birthday with her. I remembered the nine months she spent with me in my tummy. Followed by the 12 months we've shared as a family. I realized that I thought about and still think about her birthday every day -- and I always will.

Taking a Stand

Grace has been such a great sleeper for the past 10 months. She’d soothe herself down and everything. But lately because we’ve either thought she was teething or sick (or wanted to avoid her crying when we were in a houseful of people on a trip to Texas), we’ve rocked her down to sleep, meaning she’s totally asleep or close to it when she’s placed in her crib. Basically we’d fallen into a routine of bad habits. As a result, she’s been hard to put to bed lately and for the last week she was waking up in the middle of the night. Well, actually it was often even before midnight.

On top of this, Gracie's developed a strong attachment to me and sometimes will cry when I leave the room. Not a very good thing when you’re trying to put her down to sleep.

After a challenging week, we concluded that she’s not teething, is getting enough to eat and is not sick. So that meant we could try something we’d been avoiding -- letting her cry it out. It’s called simply CIO for those parents in-the-know about sleep issues, and there are many opinions on this method, strong opinions both ways. We won‘t get into that here.

Jay and I decided I’d give this a try while he was gone for the weekend. We figured if both of us were around, one would convince the other to give in to her cries. I texted Jay throughout the days and nights to let him know how things were going. I also thought it'd be useful (to myself and others) to document my baby adventure. This is pretty much exactly what I jotted down throughout the sessions:

Friday

Today/tonight we begin the great baby experiment.

Morning nap

I started the morning nap process at 9:43 a.m. and she was down by 9:56. I didn’t put her down totally asleep and she was fine with that. A good start to the day. Will do the same process for afternoon nap and then the grand finale, tonight.

11 a.m. She’s still sleeping. I’m thinking the ease of this morning nap might be deceiving since she’s so tired.

11:22 a.m. Grace starts waking up slowly. A good nap.

Afternoon nap

1:38 p.m. We start the nap process.

1:51 p.m. I am out of room. She watched me leave, gave a shout out squirmed and flopped around. She was laying down, then standing up, and back down. Wimper. Cry. Sob. Stand.

Let the CIO begin.

Her cries are sounding like swears. Must remind myself that this is good for her. We want her to be able to go to sleep on her own. All my babies, independent.

Thank goodness for this video monitor. I am not sure I could do this with out being able to see she’s OK. Plus it’s somewhat entertaining.

Ok, now for the 5-minute check in.

Ooooh, that pissed her off just like they said it would.

Now the swears are worse.

Think I’m going to go see if the mail has come.

Wow you can hear her all the way in the garage. Oh, great, we got a parenting magazine in the mail. How handy.

Almost time for the 10-minute check. Heading in …

Now it sounds like she’s swearing in German. The tone of her cries makes it sound like she’s saying: “I’m so disappointed in you!” In German, of course.

She’s so determined to not fall asleep. Good thing pug is not phased by her crying and can be my furry sanity through this.

Hold up. She sat for a minute. Oh, now she’s up again.
Now she’s down.
Now she’s up.

This is an interesting way to pass the time.

Went in for the 15-minute check. She’s so exhausted but so determined to stay awake.

Next check in 20 minutes.

She’s sitting and sobbing. Looking around.
Makes a mommy’s heart hurt.

She’s quieting down …

I think she’s sleeping sitting up.

And we have sleep.

2:50 p.m. About an hour.

Not so bad to do during the day … now tonight might be a different story.

And the night has begun.

Started putting her down around 7:40 p.m. and it is now 7:51. She’s crying and standing.

Now it’s 5 minutes later and I will give her a visit.

She’s almost doing more bouncing than crying. Not sure what that’s about.

And I’m going in.

And I'm back and I hear the “disappointed” cry.

Back in around 8:10 p.m.

She’s so dang strong-willed and stubborn. Where did she get that from?

She’s sitting, and she's up.

Do I go in? Waiting a bit.

She’s sitting and whimpering. Wobbling like she’s about ready to …

Now sitting up silently, wavering. Not ready to give in yet.

And we have sleep! 8:19 p.m.

Awesome! About 30 minutes. Now my only dilemma is a night waking.

Saturday

She slept in ‘til 7 a.m. When I opened her door and she was sitting up just looking at me. We were both happy as you can see in this picture : )

Naps

The morning nap wasn’t totally uneventful, but she’s settled on her own after 20 seconds of crying. Then the afternoon nap happened in car.

And the night has begun.
Starting the nighttime routine at 7:21 left room and left at 7:36 p.m.

Starts out in the standing position crying. Looking like she’s going to toss her doll Bitsy Bear out of the crib. She’s dangling it over as if threatening me. “If you don’t come in here, I’ll drop her. Don’t test me, I’ll do it!” Makes me think she knows I’m watching.

I’m going in for 5-minute check unless she sits down.

Deciding not to go in. Seems it might escalate things instead of calm things down at this point.

She’s not screaming … so I’m making the judgment to not go in.

Change of plans. I had to go in to fix a crib malfunction.

Ooooooooooh she’s not happy. Not one bit.

She’s quieting, playing with her hair.

And we have lay down. 8:04 p.m.

Now lets see if we have a full night. I sense, no.

Sunday

But I was wrong. Ye of little faith. We all (baby, pug and I) slept in 'til around 7 a.m. again! A couple good nights of sleep has never been so meaningful. I think it was a confidence builder for everyone. Jay and I are more confident in our parenting decisions and Grace is more confident in being on her own. We'll she's not totally on her own, of course. Bitsy Bear is there for her, sometimes as a comfort object, sometimes as a hostage.