New Millennium Motherhood: Eighteen months old

Well, this post is only three weeks overdue, but I really want to write down some things Grace is up to these days. The present is so vivid, it's hard to imagine forgetting, but already my specific memories of the younger ages are fading.

Grace is a perpetual motion machine and non-stop talker. This surprises no one who knew Steve and me as children. She seems to love school (daycare) as she yells "schoo!" as soon as we pull onto the block and she practically runs in the door. Some days she'll pause to give me a kiss, but other days she's off to playing too fast. At the end of the day, she sees me and starts and laughing and yells "Maaa-meeee!" and runs into my arms. She has a snack in the car and we sing on the way home. Except on days that we take the bus. She chatters and waves while walk to the bus stop, and then sits in her stroller and exuberantly points out every bus that passes as if every bus was the first and most exciting bus ever. Once we get home she runs around constantly until practically falling into bed. When she hears Steve's key in the door, she yells "Daaaaa-deeeee!" and runs to him.

She loves to eat frozen peas and will point at the freezer and say "peas? peas? pwease?" She'll eat just about any frozen veggies we give her and really likes crackers. She heads over to the cabinet, removes the childproofing mechanism, and gets out the crackers. She also loves chocolate, cookies, ice cream and "nonuts." But she cannot sit still to eat a meal. She lasts a minute max in the high chair and then starts asking "down? down? pweas!" and straining and squirming and yelling. If she sits in my lap she must be bouncing and if she eats at her small table, she is in and out and in and out of the chair, climbing and bouncing and tackling whoever is sitting with her for hugs. I don't know if we should be more firm about this.

She just started sleeping without her binky at night. We had been trimming it down, making it shorter and shorter to facilitate the transition. The night before Thanksgiving, she laid down in her crib and said "ni-ni" and smiled at us without asking for the binky. So we didn't give it to her, and she slept in and hasn't had a problem in the past few nights. It's not so smooth at nap time, but we'll let daycare handle that next week.

She loves coloring and playing with her baby (Baby). She gets out diapers (all the ones she can find, usually) and her changing pad and wipes to change Baby. When Baby Gavin visited recently and had a diaper change, she brought all her diapers out and piled them up to help. In fact, she loves babies in general and whenever we hang out with one, she gets very possessive and wants to hug and kiss it all the time. She is still very into books, but she's not quite as patient about us reading to her. She likes to turn the pages and do the reading and will often give us a book to read, I think to keep us occupied while she reads at her own pace.

She started trying to sing the alphabet recently. She gets the tune and rhythm of some of the parts. It's pretty cute and hilarious to hear her humming away. She also loves to sing "asha, asha, asha, DOWN!" for ring-around-the-rosy.

She is fiercely independent and likes trying to do things on her own, especially put on her socks and shoes. She gets extremely upset when she can't do something she wants to, like put on her socks and shoes, or just doesn't get her way. Tantrum as art form - she's 95% sweetness and joy, but for that other 5% she is soooooo angry and has the meanest parents.

Oh, and one of my favorite Grace-isms is that whenever we cough or sneeze, she stops what she's doing and says "okay? okay?" She'll keep asking until whoever coughed answers her.

She is such a happy girl. She loves to be chased and giggles like crazy and will run laps around the apartment. And then she'll come running up to us for hugs and kisses, just to check in before taking off again.

Here's a handful of recent pictures... can you believe how fast she's growing and changing?