Grace Watches 4 & 5 (Feb. 18-Mar. 2)

I kinda slacked off last week, so I'm trying to combine two weeks into one. Gracie did absolutely nothing new these past two weeks. The end.

Ok, not really! She's changing and learning all the time--we'll see how well I can remember it all!

New Word of the Week: Some of her new words have been "meat" (she's a big fan of ground beef and ground turkey now), "bubble" (pictures to follow), "chair" (pronounced "yair"), "paper," and "crayon" (pronounced "naw"--sometimes she says the last of the word if she can't say the whole thing!).

She really likes to sit in grown-up chairs now.

New Food of the Week (and Grace's reaction): This week Gracie sampled a variety of colors of crayon! Yuck! We've been letting her color more and more, which she loves, but the first few times she kept putting the crayons in her mouth, and a few times she bit off little chunks of them. We kept saying, "No, no! Yucka!" but she kept doing it. Even when we took them away for a little while (as "punishment"), as soon as she had them back she'd bite them. She usually spit out the little pieces, but I guess she kept hoping that there'd be one that was yummy. Oh well! At least they're non-toxic! (She doesn't bite them anymore, thankfully.) Oh, by the way, her favorite flavor is any crayon that is orange-colored.

Ah, the artist at work!

Showing off her latest creation

New Injury of the Week: When we give her a bath, we usually put her in her little bath seat (I think there's a picture in an earlier post). Anyway, one day I was trying to get her to sit in it and she didn't want to, so I tried to put one of her legs down in it, and I accidentally hit it against the side of the seat and she started crying and saying "owie"! It even bruised later in the day! :( Very sad! She hasn't complained about it since, so I guess I won't get taken in by Child Protective Services yet, but I felt pretty bad.

This isn't actually a picture of her owie, just a
picture I loved from this week!

New Skills/Tricks: Grace can now do all the actions associated with "Pat-a-Cake". I sing the song and she does all the actions, and even reminds me of some of them. Here is a script of how this goes:
Alicia: "Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man,
Bake me a cake as fast as you can!" (Grace and I are clapping these two lines)
Grace: "Roll!" (kinda pronounced "row")
Alicia: "Roll it!" (we roll our hands) "And pat it!" (we clap our hands)
"And mark it with a 'G'!" (Gracie traces on her tummy--that's where we draw the "G")
Grace: "Wah-wit!" (Toss it!)
Alicia: "And toss it in the oven for Gracie and me!" (Gracie and I throw our hands in the air)
This is such a fun age! She constantly amazes me with how much and how quickly she learns.

Adventure of the Week: Maybe we should change the name of this section. I don't know if this was an adventure, but it was a new, fun thing. Gracie and I have started playing with bubbles in our little backyard! We go out there and she gets to walk around and pop the bubbles as I blow them. At first she was a little confused, because she wanted to hold the bubbles, but she soon learned that bubbles don't do well with being held. She's content now with just popping them!

Oh, and we also got to feed the ducks! We have a lake behind our apartment complex, with lots of ducks who walk and fly around, so last week we took some bread heels to feed to the ducks. I threw about 10 pieces to the ducks, which they gobbled up, and then I handed a piece to Gracie and told her to throw it to them. So what did she do? She popped it in her mouth! It was cute. :) She wants nothing more in life than to touch those ducks, so she runs after them, but they want nothing more than to avoid being mauled by the baby human, so they waddle as fast as they can to get away. It's pretty hilarious to watch! Here's a video I took (but the scene didn't turn out nearly as funny as usual).

In other news, Gracie no longer likes to ride in the stroller. I'm glad she's finding her independence and loves to explore outside on her own, but it's been kinda rough on me! I love taking walks for exercise, but it's kinda hard to get a workout if you stop to look at every rock and plant. :) I try to take her out once a day for one of her leisurely strolls (usually to get the mail), and then other times I just put her in the stroller (against her will) and we go for a brisk walk around the block. She usually likes it after a couple minutes, but as soon as I pause or stop, she wants OUT! She's such a sweetie! I hope that this desire to walk outside all the time means she'll be one of those kids who loves running and playing outside--I think that's something a lot of kids these days are missing out on.

Ok, I'm done. Hope you've enjoyed this little peek into Gracie's (and our) world! :)