Many of my friends with kids say it just gets better as they get older. Every time I hear that, I wonder how it could be possible. I always love the stage that we're in, but then the next stage comes and it's just as fun. I must say, life with a one year old is awesome. It is so wonderful watching Grace grow, learn things, and develop into her own little person.
Speaking of growing. Grace is doing a lot of it. We took her to the doctor's on November 16th because she had pink eye (ugh!). She ended up having an ear infection too. That day she weighed 22 lbs. 7 ozs. We went back 2 weeks later to make sure the ear infection was gone (it wasn't!) and to do her one year check up. At that point she was 23 lbs.--even. Half a pound in just 2 weeks! It's not a surprise because she definitely eats (more on that later!). As for the ears, she just finished her last dose of antibiotic and we go back this coming Monday. Keep your fingers crossed. If they're still infected, I think we'll be getting tubes! On top of this, Grace got four more teeth the two weeks after her birthday to bring the grand total to 12. She has 3 more working their way in. At this rate, she'll have a full set of baby teeth by her second birthday. You can see the chompers pretty well in these pictures:
The pictures above and the ones below show Grace and I on her new favorite toy--my exercise ball. She loves to push it around the house and try to climb on top of it and then roll off. She giggles the entire time. Another current favorite game is for Mark and I to sit on the floor between our breakfast bar and couch. Grace will leave us and walk around the corner into the living room waving and saying, "Bye bye!" We sit there for a few second and then say to one another, "Where did Grace go?" or "Do you know where Grace is?" She then comes back around the corner with her arms wide open, a huge smile on her face, and gives a big "Ahhhhh!" She comes, gives us a hug, and then starts again. After about 5-10 minutes of doing this she decides not to come back and we have to go find her. She usually wanders into her room and starts pulling all the books off of her shelf.
Grace also loves walking around the house with her dolls or stuffed animals. It's pretty funny since some of them are half her size. But her favorite thing to carry around is her cow bell (something I got when Mark ran a marathon a few years ago and we brought out for the Omaha marathon). She walks around jingling it and chatting--she talks all the time! So far the words we have been able to make out are: Mama, Dada, bye bye, puppy, Daisy (Day-zee), and hi.
As I mentioned before, Grace is quite the eater. She is eating pretty much everything we are and has pretty big portions. She likes just about everything we have put in front of her, including salmon and just about every type of fruit and vegetable. Her favorite food is cottage cheese. She usually eats 2 helpings of it after she has eaten all of her dinner.
Grace has also moved into the one year room at "school". The first week was a little rough with her crying whenever we dropped her off. I'm not sure if it was separation anxiety, the ears, or the teeth. Whatever it was, it has passed and she now barely even looks back at us when we leave. The classroom is great. There are 2 teachers and 7 kids. They have a schedule with play time, crafts, lesson times (stories, flash cards, songs, etc.), music/rhythm time, and wagon rides. They also have three hours set aside for a nap and Grace has been managing to sleep 2-2 1/2 hours of that. They sleep on cots and I really want to sneak in some day and see her sleeping on her cot! The long naps are a welcome change for us. In the infant room she wasn't napping well (too much going on) and was falling apart whenever we picked her up. The long afternoon nap is really making our evenings more pleasant.
As you can see, we are definitely in a different stage. And we definitely love it just as much as we've loved all the stages before!
On our drive up to MI we stopped at a rest area. They had these wonderful seats in the stall so I was able to use the facilities too!
Mom and Mike met us half way so I wouldn't have to drive the whole 6 hours by myself with Grace. We met at a mall in Battle Creek. Grace loved the ride with "Cat."
