Looking Forward, Not Back

Every day I get a "Moment Garden" email, that shows me pictures and videos of Grace from exactly 6 months ago today and exactly one year ago today.  When this picture was sent today in my Moment Garden from one year ago, it just slightly broke my heart.

March 2016

How can I simultaneously be head over heels in love with my current toddler, and yet mourn actual tears for this baby who she once was?  This sweet sweet innocent baby who I just love with my whole heart.

My mind has already erased the hard parts of that time of life, one year ago exactly.  She was almost 4 months old, and she was sleeping for no longer than 2 hours at a time at night (3 if we were lucky).  Which meant she woke up at 10pm, midnight, 2am, 4am and then I had to get up for work by 6. I was working in a complete zombie state, and missing her every moment of every work day.  She got her first cold after only one week of daycare.

March 2017

That time of life was exhausting, and yet I ache to hold her as a baby just one more time.  I cannot believe how fleeting that year of her life went by.  How did each day seem to feel so long, and yet I blinked and and a whole year was gone?

So right now, I want to look forward.  Instead of mourning the passage of time, I want to celebrate it.  She will become a little girl and then a big girl, and there are so many good things to look forward to for that. So, I made a list of some of my favorite childhood experiences that I can't wait for her to have.  

What I'm Looking Forward To:

- sledding down Vet's hill, cross country skiing in Eberwhite Woods, or downhill skiing somewhere Up North Michigan, and then coming indoors with frozen cheeks, to warm up with a mug of hot chocolate with marshmallows

- discovering new books, characters, series, and enjoy reading them together

- pulling Grace in a wagon

- jumping on a trampoline for hours on end

- making friends, being excited to see them, making up silly dances together, having inside jokes, exploring outdoors with them.

- lots and lots of cousin time!

- going camping, waking up outdoors, and sitting on a picnic table eating blueberry pancakes made on a travel grill 

- Capture the Flag.  This game was so thrilling for me as a kid, whether it was gym class, or summer camp, or around the neighborhood. 

- blueberry picking, strawberry picking, apple picking!  She already loves fruit, so I know she'll love picking it fresh.

- Camp Michigania!  It it one of my most favorite childhood experiences, and someday I would love for Grace to go there.

- being on a sport team, practicing and working hard, and experiencing what it's like to win with that team

- Mackinac Island

Then, there's some childhood experiences that I didn't exactly have, but I can't wait for her to have one day:

- Disney World!  (I went at age 2 and age 16.  I think Grace would appreciate it more sometime between ages 3 - 10).

- The American Girl store in Chicago.

- Ludington! The beach, House of Flavors, going on a boat on Hamlin Lake, watching the fireworks and then walking home to Grandma and Grandpa's house

- Taking mother/daughter/grandmother vacations

- Visiting her Uncle Brian and Aunt Vidhya in Chicago

- Being a big sister.  I don't know if this will ever happen for Grace, but if someday it did, I just know she would be a wonderful big sister.

I'm sure there are much more.  So, when I get my daily e-mails showing me what my sweet baby looked like one year ago, I'm going to think about this list and all the things I want to do with her. I cannot wait to see the little human she is going to become.

15 Months Old - Our Toddler

My baby Grace is seeming less and less like a baby every single day.
She has been a true walker for just a little over a month now.  She's solid on her legs and just a little mini person now.  She toddles all over our house, and now unfortunately has started climbing on everything she can.  (The ottoman, the stool, the highchair, boxes, anything left out in her reach).  She's saying all kinds of words, and "talking" all the time.

She's a busy and social little girl, always putting her toys inside other things (cabinets, drawers, purses, paper bags), always looking for more to explore.  She loves meeting new people, even if she acts shy sometimes at first.


Here's the latest with Grace:

Teeth:
I think 12.  6 on top and 6 on bottom.  Still a gap between her front teeth and her back molars.

Sleep:
Grace goes to bed around 7:30 pm every night.  She goes down with no trouble at all, and sleeps until around 1/2 am.  Then nurses, and goes back to bed around 2/3 am and sleeps until 7:30 am.

She naps daily from about 12 to about 2.
It's a pretty good sleep schedule (minus the middle of the night wakeup). 
She had about a week in February where she slept through the night, no waking up in the middle at all.  But, my body wasn't used to it and didn't know what to do!  I found myself waking up at 1am wide awake for 2-3 hours waiting for her to wake up also!

When she ever someday sleeps through, I really hope my body adjusts back at some point as well.  A solid night sleep is just such a foreign concept to me anymore.

Eating: 
We are still breastfeeding 3-4 times a day, but it really does seem like she is nursing for shorter and shorter amounts of time at each feed.  I'm wondering if this is the start of self-weaning? And she is still loving her solids. But, she's also a lot pickier with her solids now too.  Meal times are always hit or miss.  She does love a few foods though: cheese, cracker, cheerios, blueberries, and kiwi!

Sizes:
She is still wearing size 4 diapers.  She's now wearing mostly 18-24 months, but there are a few items from her 12-18 months size that still fit.
At her 14 month appointment, she was 77% for weight, and 94% for height!  We knew she was tall, because she's passed a lot of babies at daycare that are her same age or older.  It's interesting to hear the stats though.

Likes:
Grace still loves her Bunny.  Bunny goes everywhere she goes (except the bath).  It's really interesting to see how it's such a comfort item for her, a security blanket.  She kisses bunny (so sweet), and sometimes when she wakes up, she'll stroke bunny until she falls back asleep, or until someone comes to get her.  Bunny came on the plane with us to Florida, and came back covered in sunscreen and airport germs.  Then, Grace got a cold, and used Bunny as her Kleenex for a whole week.  So, Bunny went in the washing machine for the first time, and thankfully, came out fine!   She still loves all animals, especially kitties!
Grace still loves books!  I'm enjoying searching for new books for her based on ones she currently likes.  It will be fun when we can start reading longer books with more interesting plots together.  Grace loves fake cell phones.  She would love real ones, except I don't let her have those.
Grace loves climbing.  This is trouble, because there is truly no safe place for her to climb.  She loves both of her grandpas, and even says "Bumpa" now for Grandpa.
Grace still loves Peek-a-Boo, I'll be so sad when she outgrows it!  It's her way of showing people that she likes them and wants to socialize with them.
She loves opening drawers and putting stuff in them, particularly the bathroom drawers.

She loves being outdoors!  We had some unseasonably warm weather in February, and so we went outside after school every day for awhile. She loved going in her swing in the backyard and walking up and down the sidewalk on our street.  But now, it's been cold and fairly wet lately (snowy/rainy), so I've avoided the outdoor walks for awhile.  I'm definitely looking forward to spring and summer and taking more walks around the neighborhood with her.



Dislikes:
For the first time in her life, Grace had a week where she disliked bath-time!  There was one night where the water was too hot and then for about a week after, she refused to get in or stay in for more than a minute.  I bought a turtle "stuffed animal" that is meant to be used in the bath, hoping it would be something she could cuddle during bath-time.  At first she wasn't happy it was in the bath with her, but now she's warming up to it, and bathtime seems fairly pleasant again (thank goodness!  It's  vital part of our bedtime routine)!
She is also not liking her highchair much anymore.  She'll sit in it, but gets mad when I buckle the tray in.
She doesn't like when I try to do her hair.  I don't know how some people are able to put braids in their toddler's hair.  She barely sits still long enough for me to get a mini ponytail!
As she gets older, her likes and dislikes are becoming more and more clear.

Language:
Another big change for this age is her language!  I don't know if this is what they mean by "language explosion", but it certainly feels like an explosion of words to me. We've started a google doc here with all of her words, and my mom organized it by category for us.  Having Grace communicate through words is leaps and bounds better than all of her grunts and fusses.  It is amazing to see how quickly she can learn a word.  For example, I recently bought that stuffed turtle to help with bath time.  She learned quickly to point at it and say "tootle".  But then, a few days later, we're reading a book, and she sees a picture of a turtle in the book, and says "tootle! tootle!" Yes, baby girl, you're right!
Her favorite word currently is "Uppy!".  It means "up", "down", "help", "open this" and probably more.  My current favorite word of hers is "bumpa" for Grandpa.

Grace has some super sweet behaviors that just melt my heart.  I love when she takes a stuffed animal or doll, and wraps it up in a blanket (or random towel or whatever), and says "nigh nigh" to it.  I love when she blows kisses, or says "Byeee!", or kisses us. Grace can give some very sweet hugs.  They are rare, and only last for a few seconds, but when you get one, it's wonderful.


Every day I think about how lucky I am to be her mom.  When she calls for me, ("Mommeee"), I know how lucky I am to be the one to comfort her and hold her.

Brian and I have such a big task.  Brian wants to raise her to be hardworking, independent, and persistent.  I want to raise her to be kind, polite, and humble.  But no matter what she ends up like, she will always be perfect in my mind.

Family Trip to Florida

      At the end of February, we took a family vacation with Brian's family to Orlando, Florida. Being with family, and seeing Grace's joy being around her extended family was wonderful.  But, the word "vacation" is used very loosely in this term.  Traveling with Grace is not a vacation by any means, and was absolutely exhausting. 

The flight down was hard because she didn't fall asleep once until the plane started to descend.  That means she was awake for 2 full hours while we tried to keep her from pulling/pushing/grabbing/kicking the chair in front of us. It's literally all she wanted to do the whole way down. 

Max and Dylan are truly the sweetest big cousins she could possibly have.  They make her giggle, they run around with her, they look after her, they share their toys and their snacks, and bring her Bunny every time she calls "Bu-ee!! Bu-ee!" She is so lucky to have them.

Grace was a little apprehensive of the water, but she LOVED the water slide!

Agh it's so hard to get a picture with her! Still hoping to get a good mother/daughter picture someday!

Grace just loves her cousin Max! She talks about him all the time now that we're home.

This trip will always be a great memory for us!