What's New?

Things here are good.  Gracie is continuing to amaze me daily with her language skills.  Now when I call her name she calls back What Mumma?  This morning I asked her where her cup was and she said in da kitchin.  When she couldn't find it in the kitchen she ran around yelling Milk, where are you?  The other morning I was running around like a crazy woman getting ready for work and she said hey mum, you pay me pease?  She's never asked me to play with her before.  She might bring me a toy to indicate she wants to play but she never said it before.  When I tell her I'm leaving for work she says oh, mumma wok, mumma go car.  Car room room room.  I literally come home to something new every day which is fun. 

We went back to the nutritionist a couple of weeks ago and I'm happy to say that she has started gaining again.  She was up over a pound from the previous visit so that was good.  I also met with the GI doctor who was happy with the progress but also always seems to want to remind me of the worst case scenarios if she were to back slide.  One of those is a night time feeding tube.  I very calmly told him that I consider that to be an absolute last resort and unless I have a child who is in medical distress, is losing weight and not meeting her developmental goals, I don't consider that something we need to discuss right now.  He said oh, no, no, I wouldn't do that now.  I said well, I'm glad we're on the same page.  I appreciate him being cautious but she's not unhealthy.  She's long and lean.  It's who she is.  And I'm proud of myself for finally speaking up in a very, very clear manner.  She is back on the appetite stimulant which I think is clear that she still needed.  She is definitely eating better but she will still take longer to catch up weight wise but everything else is going really well.  She is officially out of all of her 12 month clothes because they are too short.  18 months are roomy but we need them for the length so I just roll over the waist if I need to. 

Last month we took a trip to Ohio for a baby shower and to visit friends.  It was a great trip.  The plane ride there wasn't so much fun.  It started when my sister dropped us off at the airport.  I got out of the car to get Grace out of her seat and she thought that meant I was leaving her and she broke into hysterics.  Then she turned into a screaming mess.  I dropped the bag off to be checked and she just sat in her stroller screaming.  We had dinner and the restaurant didn't have crayons so that made her scream.  I let her walk as much as I could and that seemed to help but then when I needed to carry her down the walk way, because I wasn't going to hold up a plane full of people for a slow walking almost two year old, she screamed.  Good times.  I did spend the extra money to upgrade to business class and that was a good idea since we had a bigger seat with more leg room.  However, after 5 minutes on the plane she looks at me and says mumma, I down.  We hadn't even taxied from the gate yet.  Then she told me mumma, I my seat.  Yeah, well, sorry sweetie, mommy is your seat.  It was a rough ride and she finally fell asleep about 30 minutes before we landed.  But the weekend itself was great.  We had a lot of time to hang out and relax at Auntie Andrea's and we met their new puppy Tucker.  Gracie was terrified and infatuated all at the same time.  The baby shower was fun and it was in a church hall that happened to have a nursery off of it so Grace was able to play with the toys while I stood in the door way and saw all the great things that Robin received.  Then Sunday we had brunch with Robin and Ben.  Such a fun weekend.  And then two weeks later baby Noah made his entrance early but he was over 7 pounds and he is a cutie!  We can't wait to go back and meet him in person.  The ride home was far more pleasant with very little screaming. 

So I discovered last weekend that I really need to change our weekend schedule.  I have been using Saturdays to get all of our errands done and Grace showed me that she can't really handle that.  Even though we come home for a nap, it was too much and our weekends were becoming difficult.  So now I know that I have to figure out different options.  It doesn't mean we stay home all day, it just means we pick one or two things and that's it.  That also means that I have to be smarter about getting the rest of the things done.  Maybe I should actually take a lunch hour and do some things then.  I also need to start doing things like grocery shopping after she goes to bed.  I have an unusually great living set up.  My sister and brother-in-law live upstairs so they're happy to take the baby monitor and listen for her if I have to run out.  We have a split level house so I just open the door from my house to theirs and give them the baby monitor.  Anyway, we started this weekend and while we had one issue yesterday while buying a birthday present, in general I think it's working much better for her.  She had more time at home to play and was generally much happier and so was I. 

Well, that's about all I've got but here are a few recent pictures.