11 Days Later

This plan is at risk of falling apart. Here's the expanded notes I've been keeping since the last post.

I had a cough for a few days, and Grace started mimicking it, but in a way that was almost satirical. "Oh poor dad!"

Grace has had a really sad bottom. This has put potty training on hold. She's actually pretty tummy sick, poor thing, and hopefully we'll get some test results back from the doctor shortly.

She is enjoying playing outside. It was previously too cold, wet, and icky for her. It's well into spring now in the Willamette Valley, so she's getting 2/7ths of a week of sun, and she's making the most of it.

Her sign for "flower" is improving. Actually, all of her signs are improving, except the ones she's decided she can say satisfactorily. They just disappear. On that note, in addition to signing "All Done", she now says "Aw Daw", which means we basically get to expect her to stop signing all done. When I wrote that a week ago, it was a prediction. Today, it's a fact. Getting her to sign "All Done" seems almost random at this point.

These last two weeks Grace has picked up these signs: Cow, Butterfly, Baby. Of course, all in the uncontrolled movements of a 1 year old.

Grace has started to call food, "Ffff", which is decidedly less cute than the previous "Mmmmmm". I'll be sad when "Mmmmmm" is retired for good.

I've been "Ma Da" this week, while Betsey has retained the title of "Ma Ma".

Napping and sleeping is working out really well. The training was harder on Betsey than me. I slept through it mostly, while she sat and listened to her favorite little friend cry out at night (Grace never cried for more than 15 minutes before mama checked on her, even when it was a 40 minute session). I'm not that strong, and now that my sleep debt is slowly going away (Grace is sleeping up to 10 hours at a time) , I'm in debt to my amazingly strong wife.

Grace is really grasping how drawings in her books relate to real world items. It's been fun watching that little part of her brain click.

Oh Yeah

I'm kind of remembering now that I usually don't have much to say after a work day.

Betsey tells me that she got the sign for "dog" down today. She's been saying "leaf" ("lee") for a couple days.

We went out to the backyard when I got home and enjoyed the sun for half an hour. Grace played with some "lee"s and dropped a few quarts of snot on the lawn. Her nose has been running spectacularly.

I think for the rest of the work week, I'll just keep notes, and then push out Tuesday through Friday all at once.

Late Night, Late Post

Grace didn't do too hot last night (Saturday night). We're trying to get her to sleep through the night by minimizing how long we'll comfort her. Betsey's doing an amazing job at it; I can't seem to help myself and always end up staying too long with Grace. As a result, Betsey has been doing most of the effort.

We had a fairly lazy day after that. Betsey was super tired.

I moved our Dracena to a lighter room. It's almost dead, but I'm hoping to revive it.

We took a family-walk around the neighborhood. My first time trying out our new Ergo. It's pretty cool. Grace seemed to have fun in it by, leaning back as far as she could, looking straight up into the sky.

As the evening approached, I got tired of looking at our neglected plum tree, watched some internet tutorials, and went out to prune it. The girls sat near by and watched as I took a saw and some clippers to it. It looks good.

I had a late night soccer game. We lost, 2-3. After the game, Nick and I had a beer and caught up on life.

I got home way too late, didn't post this, we had Grace's bed transition to deal with, and now I've woken up late for work. Stay tuned for Monday's post tonight.

Let's Try This

Short post, with day highlights, most nights....

Today, I woke up before the girls and mowed the lawn. Not a big deal, except we have a huge lawn, and I kicked its butt.

We attended the first peer-birthday party that Grace has been invited to. She had fun. The birthday boy was pretty unsure about candles. His Grandpa was proud of that. It was pretty cute.

Grace, indicated she needed to use the potty, we put her on it, and she went potty. We're very proud. Hopefully this keeps up.

Grace has got "barrette" down as a sign. I'm working on a Grace signs list so you can all be super impressed at her vocabulary.

Tonight is her first night sleeping in her crib. She's been using it for naps as a way of working her into it. So far she's been in bed for 3 hours, and only needed 5 minutes of re-assurance. Wish us luck.