Saturday, November 22, 2008

Fun at the Aquarium

Ryan and I took Grace to the Aquarium in Baltimore today with Connie, Jelani and Aliana. I kind of expected Grace to generally be fine because she enjoys being out and about, but also expected her to be indifferent to the experience. Well I couldn't have been more wrong. I was shocked to find that Gracie was completely engaged and thoroughly enjoyed the aquarium.

The first thing we went to see was the live dolphin show. I didn't even think she could see that far. But she never took her eyes off the dolphins and actually reacted to them. She was mesmerized by them! We took her up to each of the fish tanks, and she just followed the fish around the tanks with her eyes. She was so quiet and just looked around each time we went to a new tank. It was awesome! Both of the girls had a great day, and were very sleepy by the end of it all.

I know Gracie won't remember the experience, but it was much more of an experience then I thought it would be for her at only three months. I can't wait to do more. We're already trying to think of all the places we can take her. Thanks Connie, for thinking of such a cool experience for us all to enjoy!

Here are a few pictures....





Search for Sitters

I'm really not making fun of anyone...but the responses we've been getting to our ad for a sitter are mostly comical. And then sometimes, I just stare at the response and don't know what to say. So I have to share one sentence from a response....

"It also up on the family like I do my job." Context clues within the paragraphs don't make this anymore meaningful.

This is turning out to be more difficult then I expected.

Our First Surprising Milestone!

Grace seems to gradually do most things. For example, she lifted her head slightly, then held it up and was wobbly, until she could finally hold it steady. So, while these milestones are certainly awesome and memorable, they haven't really been surprising so far. But last night, Ryan turned on the sweeper, so I tried to distract Gracie to keep her from getting upset. I laid on my back on the floor and held her up above me. And instead of crying like I thought she was going to, she laughed! She actually laughed. I was so surprised, that I started banging my foot on the floor so that I didn't startle her (by yelling), but could get Ryan's attention. I thought, there's no way she'll do it again right then so Ryan could hear her. But I repeated the motion and she laughed again, twice! It was so cute! I spent the next 20 minutes making a fool of myself trying to get her to laugh again, but she just looked at me like I had two heads and did her own thing. I can't wait to hear more!

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Happy 3 Months Gracie!

Here are a few pictures that I took this week of our beautiful girl....



Happy 3 months old Gracie Girl!
....she was soooo sleepy


Another of Grace's favorite mobiles



This is the typical face we get when we put Gracie in the car seat...
A picture is worth a thousand words!
(I believe that is the look I used to give my brother when we were little...
he'd always say...."stop giving me the evil eye, Erin!" :-)
She gets it honest.)

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Gracie Pix

Here are some pictures of Gracie from the last week and a half or so...

Grace loves storytime with daddy!

She's getting pretty strong from all the tummy time.


In the last week or so, Gracie started holding on to things.
She's starting to enjoy her toys.


She's such a happy girl...

...but still loves that serious face too!

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Back to the Grind

Monday was Gracie's first day at daycare and my first day back to work. It was extraordinarily difficult, and I'm still emotional at times about it. But all in all, I think everything will be just fine once we all get on a schedule and get used to the idea of being away from one another all day.

Gracie isn't eating well during the day, but I think it is my fault. We have been giving her a bottle a day since she was 3 weeks old, so I thought she'd do fine taking a bottle while I am away. But we usually gave her the bottle in the evening. Now she has it in the morning. I also made the mistake of asking Ryan to put her vitamins in the first bottle he gave her on Monday. Oops! These are the mistakes we learn from I suppose! But now she gags at the vitamins and has only eaten about 5 ounces while I'm away.

When I get home, we just sit on the couch and she eats...for over two hours...literally. She will eat, then we will "talk" for a few minutes or read a book, then she remembers she should keep eating. And that pattern continues until she goes to bed at 7:30. Tonight, she feel into a deep sleep at 7:00, so I put her to bed. At exactly 7:30, she woke up crying (which she never does), so I thought maybe she needed to burp. Nope, turns out she was still hungry. Talk about a girl and her schedule.

It makes me feel good since we worked so hard toward a stable breastfeeding relationship. But I feel terrible that she doesn't eat while I'm away. No more vitamins for a while...I'm actually going to look into getting a prescription for a more concentrated dose so she doesn't have to choke those down.

I just hope she adjusts soon. I'm sure it'll only be a matter of time.

I know you're waiting for new pictures...I promise I'll post new ones tomorrow!

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Get Out and VOTE!

Ryan, Gracie and I got up at 5:15 to go wait in line to vote this morning. The polls opened at 6:00. We were at the polling place by 5:45, waiting in what seemed like a decently long line. It was one of the most organized productions I've ever seen. We were back home by 6:50am. Every election is exciting for me (even the local ones), but today was especially cool because even though she won't remember it, Gracie took part in her first election!

We took this not-so-clear family picture with my camera phone, in the dark....so she can see that she was in fact out part of the excitement!


Sunday, November 2, 2008

Our Little Punkin

I haven't posted in a little while, but we've been very busy lately. Grace loves to chit-chat and is amazingly animated when doing so. She is not at all interested in toys, even though she can hold them now. All she wants to do is sit up and "talk" constantly. She tries so hard to imitate sounds we make (clucks, raspberries, animal noises, singing), much to our amusement. She also makes some hysterical faces and watches the mouth of anyone who is talking with great intent. One of her favorite things is now to sit and listen to us read books. She will sit through 5 or 6 after she eats, looking at the pictures and cooing as we talk. She still loves when we sing, and I've never sung, whistled and hummed so much in my life as I do on a daily basis now.

I'm quite sure based on her pattern of babbling, that she actually thinks she is participating right along in our conversations. She gets very frustrated when we don't understand what she is trying to say. For example, she kept getting fussy when she was eating last week, and I finally figured out that there is now a difference between the babbles she is making when she needs to burp and when she is finished (she also sticks out her tongue and lowers her eye brows when she's done, which is pretty funny). Up until last week, she just wiggled when she needed to burp but kept eating and stopped eating when she was finished. So when she began to stop eating to "tell me" she needed to burp, I assumed she was finished which really ticked her off. It's an amazing experience to say the least.

Gracie is also getting stronger every day. She insists on working out every time we put her down or hold her hands. She tries very hard to make herself sit up straight if you put her on her bum. She also pushes with her legs wanting to stand and pulls herself up when holding on to our fingers. No, we're not forcing her to do all these things too early (we don't even let her stand for more than a second), she just started doing it and wants to do these things.

She had her two month check up last Monday and she weighed 13 lbs, 9 oz (over the 95th percentile), and was 23 and 1/2 inches long (75-90th percentile). She also did well with her first shots (better then mommy).

So, to play a little catch up, here are some pictures of Grace over the past two weeks, including Halloween:

Cuddling with Daddy


One of her Many Workouts


She was made for this costume :-P


Don't You Just Want to Pinch'em?

Cuddling while Waiting for Trick-or-Treaters
"Oh, Daaad....Your Whiskers!"


In Heaven, Lovin' Her Daddy and Her Thumb


Our Gracie Girl, Smiling in Her Sleep
...no she doesn't sleep on her tummy all the time, only when we're watching
because she loves it so much. She's trying hard to roll from back to tummy,
so I don't know how much longer we'll be able to prevent it anyway.



In Arlington, Doing a Little Christmas Shopping Yesterday

Snippets of Grace's Day

Here are two quick videos: