More Gracie-isms

Grace to Daddy as he takes her baby doll from her at dinner, spoken with a great deal of concern for her baby: "Take care of Lisa! Try not to hurt her."

While watching the intro to Winni the Pooh

Grace: "Where's my rocking horse?"

Mama: "We don't have a rocking horse."

Grace: "We must buy one."

Mama was checking Facebook this morning while Gracie was eating breakfast. When I turned back to her, she peered at me intently and asked, totally out of the blue, "Do you play with fire?"

Don't remember what she saw, but this morning Grace told us, "How curious!"

At dinner tonight: "I'm thinking... I'm thinking... I'm thinking of... my... birthday!"

Gracie-isms

From Grace to Daddy, after her bath and wrapped up in her hooded towel:

Grace: "I'm a vegetable!"

Daddy: "Oh really? What kind of vegetable are you?"

Grace: "I'm a... I'm a... I'm a quash!"

Mama Diaries - Dec 15

9am - Wake Andrew up to nurse him while reading my Bible. Enjoy some snuggle time before hearing the brush pick-up truck. Hear Grace a few minutes later; I snatch her out of bed and run downstairs to see if we can see the crane picking up brush, but we just miss it. Grace isn't worried - "we'll see it next time, maybe". Dress Grace, diaper Andrew, dress Andrew, diaper Grace.

Grace is pretty clingy this morning; I'm guessing because I haven't had a "normal" day at home with her since last Friday. It's been a fun, but busy couple of days (well, excepting Monday when I was so dizzy I had to spend most of the day in bed), but it often throws her for a loop after too many days without more regularity.

10am -Get Grace's breakfast started with a banana, while I work on laundry and bring Andrew downstairs. She gets really upset though that I didn't let her sit on the counter and help make her oatmeal. After breakfast, she helps me pull the clean diapers out of the dryer and into a basket. She's getting to be a real help!

11:00 am - Andrew gets a bit fussy while I'm trying to clip his fingernails (definitely easier while he's asleep!) and Grace tells me its his "eating time" and "feed Andrew and he stop crying". I nurse him a few minutes, then put him down for his nap.

11:30 am - I run upstairs to grab socks to take Grace outside to play. When I come back down, I find her in the study kneeling before our (Caleb's and mine) chess game. Grace wants to know if she "can look at them". Caleb forfeits the game (finally! ;-) ) and tells her she can, and Grace says "I'm growed up!" We'd been telling her when she's older we'll teach her out to play, and now she's happily playing with the chess pieces, enjoying her "growed-up-ness".

She then finds Daddy's magnetic building set and asks if she can "please play with it?" So we sit on the floor and play for a good while. Grace wants to build a house and make a person out of them, and then enjoys putting all the little balls back in the boxes.

12:00 pm - We snuggle on the couch and watch Barney. Then Grace helps me make her pb & jelly sandwich; she carries everything to her little table for me, then I let her practice spreading the pb and jelly, then put the sandwich together for Mama to cut in two.

1:30 pm - Put Grace down for her nap, and rest a bit myself while both the kiddos sleep. Sweep the house, work on laundry and do a bit of Christmas shopping online.

3pm - Andrew's awake, so nurse him while Christmas shopping, change his diaper and play awhile. We play peek-a-boo while Mama folds a couple loads of laundry.

5pm - Put Andrew down for a nap and get Grace up. She helps me put her laundry away - I sit in the floor with a pile of hangers and as I put a shirt on a hanger, she hangs it up in her closet. Then she put her pants and pajamas in the little nightstand I set up for a small "dresser" for her. She really is getting to be a good helper!

We then spend a long while playing "put the laundry basket on Mama's head". Grace would pretend it was a drum, wait for me to say "what's that drumming on my head?" and burst into giggles. Occasionally she'd steal my line and say "whose drumming on my head?" before I could, followed my more giggles. We then head dowstairs where she plays with the chess pieces in the study, then we go outside and run until Daddy finishes work.

5:50 pm - Daddy's done! And Mama fixes a quick dinner of mac & cheese and baked beans, with hot dogs in both dishes (a merging of our two family traditions for a mac & cheese dinner).

7:00 pm - Daddy bathes Grace while Mama & Andrew fold more laundry, then Mama reads stories with Grace while Daddy bathes Andrew.

8:40 pm - Both kiddos in bed, and Mama & Daddy get some time to finish laundry, cleaning the kitchen and computer work.

10:40 pm - Mama decides it's time to stop blogging and head to bed!

Ready for Christmas!

Daddy Diary, 12/04

8:00 AM -- Got up

8:30 AM -- Heard the Saturday morning garbage truck in the apartments behind our house. Heard Grace cry out a second later. Scooped her up, and reassured her that it was a friendly garbage truck. She wanted to go see it, so I wrapped a blanket around her and we went down the alley to peek over the fence and see it. We caught up to it a ways down the alley and peeked through a crack in the fence to watch it, but "it was stuck" for a long time and not doing anything. Watched it eat some more garbage, came back to the house. Grace wanted to be wrapped up like a baby, so I swaddled her, and we played "My Baby"

11:05 AM -- Planet Earth has finished, and Grace has wandered off to the playroom to go get something. I set Andrew up on the couch and take his outfit to the

11:16 AM -- We hear a garbage truck. Grace is scared and wants to hide. I wrap her up in a blanket ("My Baby"), and we read and sing some songs on the couch. She suddenly remembers that she wanted that orange from breakfast after all.

Ate the orange, finally took that applesauce to Laura, who was asleep with "How to be a winner at chess" and "The story of Christianity" next to her. Oh, I love my wife!

Mimi called to see how things were going. It's ironic that the first time that we're all sick and both of our moms are sick too!

Grace found the napkin that I dropped on the floor while I was updating, and she made it into a baby blanket. I got her a clean napkin.

12:03 PM -- We changed Purple Baby's diaper, Grace stubbed her toe.

geomag

trhomas

Origami

5:00 -- Laura went back to bed, Grace awake

Played outside for a while

Came inside, played Play-doh while I heated up the soup that Laura made last night

Ate supper together, Grace told us that Andrew "has an Andrew award"

Laura took Grace, I changed Andrew's outfit (outfit #4, fleecy onesie with snowmen on it)

Epiphany about "Wear snug-fitting not flame resistant"

Tickled Andrew, tummy-time with Andrew

Laura took Andrew upstairs, played with Grace

Sleeping through the night!

Andrew's officially sleeping through the night now! Or if not, at least he's down to one 3am feeding. Several nights now he's slept from 10:30 or so until 6:30 in the morning, and the rest of the nights this week he's woken at 3:30 and 6:30. Sheer bliss! I think it's largely due to the fact he can finally successfully get his thumb in his mouth. For the last couple weeks he's been sucking (rather loudly, I might add) at his fist in hopes of finding that thumb, and once I watched him as he'd simultaneously turn his head to the side, dart his fist towards his mouth, and open his mouth. Over and over again. It really looked like he thought if he just did it fast enough, he'd catch it! I'd really meant to avoid thumb-sucking with his pacifier, but as much as he's liked it before, now he frequently spits it out and goes for the thumb. And it's kinda exciting seeing his personality and motor skills develop. We're open to advice! :-)

I do really enjoy our night-time snuggles though and will miss them when they're gone, but it's alot easier to handle both of them during the day when I get to sleep in those 3 hour blocks! Caleb's been great about watching him from 7 till 9 on the mornings I really needed the extra sleep (like, every morning for those first 10 weeks!), but it's sure nice being able to get my day started earlier.

He's started really engaging his toys lately too... this afternoon, I held his (hand-me-down from Grace; thank you, Joel & Sarah-Jean! ) carseat mobile over him while he laid on our bed, and he'd happily bat at the dangling bugs (they're really cute bugs!). Then he started grasping at one of them and just held on for quite a while. It was pretty sweet just watching him figuring it out.

Halloween 2010

We cheated a bit this year and did some costume recycling, but the kiddos hardly minded. Especially once we asked Grace if she wanted to dress up like Buddy, the lab belonging to a lady down the street - she loves to run out and pet himwhenever we see them walk by. I figure there'll be plenty of years to come to get more creative in our costuming! :-)

It was fun though; the Methodist church a street over from our house was hosting a Trunk or Treating event, with a hotdog supper and an organ concert. We timed it for just half the concert, not certain how long Grace would enjoy sitting and listening, but it was alot of fun. At the end, they did a Disney sing-along, and she was just catching on to Chim-Chimeney from Mary Poppins when they finished, and she was a bit disappointed they weren't going to sing it again. But then she got really excited when they started When You Wish Upon a Star - she said, "I know this one!" I think she was remembering Twinkle, Twinkle, but she still enjoyed hearing words she knew.

We did some Trick-or-Treating on the way home; Grace enjoyed getting things in her bag (thanks, Leslee!), but was a little confused why we weren't going in anywhere. When we were almost back to our house, we saw Pappy & Mimi who'd stopped by on their way home from Arkansas with a big bag of candy to satisfy all the trick or treaters who dropped by. (This was the first year Caleb and I've actually lived somewhere that kids came by, and totally forgot to stock up on candy. Oops! We'll be stocked up come next year though.)