The Good, the Bad and the Funny

As all parents know, there are definite ups and downs in parenting, and sometimes the boundaries between/amongst these highs and lows are blurred.

The Good/Bad:
No more ear infections for Grace! That's the good. We got ear tubes for Gracie and we had been told how great it would be. But that night and the 10 or so days after weren't so great. Grace would not go down to sleep without a fight, a screaming, shrieking fight. In fact I was going to write a blog post right around that time but thought better of it. To get a sense of the how we were doing, here is what I jotted down … "Usually our blogs are cute and clever … I just don't have the energy -- mentally or physically -- to be cute or clever right now. Actually the lack of sleep doesn't bother me. It's the lack of being able to figure out what's wrong.”

While the tubes were ultimately a good thing, the timing might not have been the best. Grace had just gone through a big week of newness, as often happens in the life of a toddler. She had just transfered to a new room at day care, she attened her first Minnesota State Fair and had gone through her first (and hopefully, only) surgery. All that on top of exponential learning and development and making of connections. Some of those connections might have been part of the sleeping problem, and thus, part of our sleeping solution. Grace had made friends with all of her stuffed animals (all of which she called “babies”). Her room was pretty well stocked with these babies and at night she’d often stand in her crib and sob, saying, “babies, babies, babies.” One night we decided to remove these distractions and that happened to be the night when we got our good sleeper back. This was just in time for her first trip to Grandma and Grandpa Gorman’s cabin. As you can see in the photo she was always in motion. Days filled with playing in the sand on the beach and watching a friendly squirrel made for an exhausted Gracie -- not to mention a well rested mommy and daddy too.

The Funny:
So, the more words Grace can say, the funnier she gets. And sometimes what she says isn’t as funny as how she says it –- we’ll that and the fact that Jay and I hear Gracie's funniness in ways many others might not. For example, Grace is finally saying “Mama.” When she says it, it is often in that tone that sounds similar to part of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, you know where it talks about killing a man and how life has just begun … OoooOoooO. So sometimes an exclamation of "Mama!" can start off a Edenborg household mini-karaoke session.

Another word she says a lot, a lot is “colors.” She’s got a book she can color in and a magnetic board that she “colors” on. So she’ll often walk around repeatedly requesting to partake in the activity by exclaiming “colors.” So it happens that there is an rap song called Colors, where part of the background is the rapper saying “Colors” in a repetitious manner. So sometimes this leads to a bit of an Edenborg freestyle rap session. Such amazing creativity that Grace inspires!

Now, I’m not comparing our daughter is Freddie Mercury or Ice T, but she sometimes demonstrates a vocal range (at least the high-pitched notes) of the former and the beat-box ability (accompanied by some spittle) of the latter.

So, these days we're back to normal, albeit a new normal. But who knows, by tomorrow I might be singing a new tune.

Fancy Foowork and Footwear

So, Grace just did the cutest thing ever. Again. And again. And again. Wait, did I become one of those moms who's enamored with everything her child does? (Disclaimer: There are a number of not-so-cute things about Gracie. In fact, some of these are so prevalent they've led to nicknames: "What's up, ear infection baby? or "How's it going diaper rashy butt?" or "Hi there buggery nose." OK, now that's out of the way, on with the cuteness.)

I was on the phone with Jay, telling him how Grace had just tried to put shoes on the pug. I started the description by saying Grace had done the cutest thing ever. It was then that I realized I'd just used the "cutest thing ever" phrase the night before. Still, a toddler trying to put shoes on a dog ... that's cuteness squared.

Some other cuteness which you may (or may not) appreciate ...

British (yeah) baby: Grace often sounds like she's British and it cracks me up. When we put her shorts on she says "shoats" -- so cute. Um, maybe you have to be there.

Hearty laugh: When she's being tickled or is particularly amused she has this really authentic laugh. Definitely not a girly "tee-hee-hee."

Assume the tickle position: If Grace wants to be tickled she'll lay flat on the floor and wait for someone to tickle her. If we don't take the hint she'll tickle herself and say "didle, tidle, didle." The pug often wanders over and looks at the kid like she's crazy.

Dancing machine: Lately we've been dancing around the house a lot. While Grace likes lots of different songs (some of which aren't even children's songs, yea!), lately she's preferred some of the classics. We stay with the basic steps for our acoustic version of Ring Around the Rosie, but she pulls out some freestyle moves to a CD version of the Hokey Pokey. Some of them look somewhat similar to dancing I did on speakers at bars in college. Yipes.

Weeeee?: No, this isn't about peeing, it's how Grace requests to slide down my legs or be tossed in the air by Jay. She'll walk up to us and ask, "Weeeee?"

Melmo: We let Grace watch 10 or so minutes of Elmo's World a few days a week. This has led her to believe that Elmo (or Melmo, as Grace says) lives in the TV. Every TV. I have to say I rather enjoy the show, I'm sure that will change once I see Mr. Noodle be goofy for the umpteenth time. That said, I think I'll always giggle when Elmo asks a baby something.

Shooos: This girl loves footwear. Grace could play and play and play with shoes -- especially mine. I have to say, this obsession with shoes likely comes from me. Many of you who know me, might question that, but it's a repressed obsession (due to the fact that I'm a thrifty person). We went to the mall this weekend with "Auntie" Kim and walked over to the clearance shoe racks. Grace was almost vibrating with excitement at the display of such an array of shooos. By the way, she also likes bags -- handbags, backpacks, purses, you name it. Again, my fault : )

Busy, busy: Just watching her go-go-go is entertaining. She's constantly busy with one thing or another. As you can see in the photo, her hands are always in motion. And the same is very true for her legs. She tries to get to places so fast that she falls over. Thus, we've signed a plethora of injury reports at her day care. Despite our hopes that her name would bestow coordination and balance upon her, Grace seems destined to follow in her parents' (stumbling) footsteps.

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.