Grace Elizabeth - 11 Months

It's hard to believe that in one month Grace is going to be a year old already! How time flies! This last month has been a harder one for poor Grace. She's had persistent cold and teething issues and closed the year out with a bang - an sinus/ear infection. Poor kiddo....We're lucky that she's such a happy girl. Just a quick little update on what Grace is doing...

1. Teething: In the last two weeks we've had the appearance of three teeth - both top molars and a third tooth on the bottom. I also noticed today that her gums are really swollen where her bottom molars with be making their appearance. Ouch!

2. Waking up at night: I'm cutting her some slack here because of the cold and teething.

3. Obsessing over mommy: Per Brian's request, I'm trying to take the mommy obsession as a compliment. I'm sure someday I'm going to wish all she cared about was spending time with her mom. If I'm in the room, Gracie can be found somewhere between 1 foot to 1 inch from me and/or crawling all over me. I am expected to pay attention to and play with her at nearly all times, and if I don't, I can be expected to have a complainer on my hands. I will say it is quite nice to be so obviously loved.

4. Cuddling: Special cuddling started just around Christmas. I am the recipient of most of the cuddling which can include Grace resting her head on my shoulder, laying in my lap, and falling asleep in my arms after bedtime bottle. Cuddling was a constant from the beginning with Olivia, but until recently Grace was more a "just lay me down and leave me alone" girl. I'm enjoying the cuddles!

5. Getting into sitting position: For most kids this physical skill would have happened a while ago, but Grace didn't follow traditional order. Although Grace was pulling herself up, she couldn't go from being on her belly to just simply sitting without the aid of a pull up object. Now, though, she's a sitting queen. Why did I spend all that time worrying???

6. Working on leg strength: Grace is a huge fan of "jumping" (not off the ground of course!) and constantly pulling herself on everything possible. Grace can climb the stairs, and she's also started working her way around furniture. Occasionally Grace likes to hold our fingers and walk a bit, but I highly doubt she'll be walking at a year old.

7. Making messes: Gracie's big into making messes including but not limited to: pulling all the books off the shelves, knocking towers of blocks over, pulling apart any folded laundry she can get her hands on, throwing food on the floor , and pulling as many kleenex as possible out of the box (her way of telling me how much she hates getting her nose wiped).

8. Eating: Grace is not picky - unlike Olivia who still wouldn't touch a "bread" product to save her life. While at the doctor for the ear infection, Grace weighed 18.4 pounds with her clothes.

9. Exercising her sounds: There have only been a few (and possibly imagined) instances of mama. More common sounds are dada (for daddy and lots of other things), baba, gaga, guck (for a couple of days this was anything Grace was pointing at), ahhh and ehhh (for whatever it is I'm supposed to do for her - play ball, turn on a toy, pick her up, let her pull every magnet off the fridge or every blanket off her changing table, etc...), and ouuu (for things that are cool to her). For a while I thought we had a first word - uck (for duck), but I think I imagined that too!

My perfectionist self tells me I should have 10 items on my list, but my brain is fried. Too many late nights with too much schoolwork! Coming up: a 2 1/2 year post for Olivia and a happy 1st birthday post for Grace....

PS - A few more random interests/talents of Grace I thought of while editing this post: "so big," waving, rolling the ball back to you, turning pages in books, and peek-a-boo.