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
"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
Uncle Charlie and Baby Grace
Gracie's Uncle Ryan...he said he "isn't really a baby person"
Great Uncle Todd and Gracie
More cousins, Gabbi (above) and Maddi (below), meet Gracie.
Gracie and her Pappy Dowdell...she missed him and his songs.