Pictures from School

Miss Georgette, from Grace's school, just sent these pictures from school last week.... and look! She's on her belly, and smiling!

What bedtime looks like

The Goddard School

As most of you know, Grace goes to school. I refuse to use the D word. Makes me feel better about the whole experience. And THAT is what matters most. :)

Everyday we get a report of how Grace did. It covers the basics about eating, napping and diapers.

Click the picture to enlarge so you can see the detail better.

As you can see, Grace had a GREAT afternoon nap yesterday. We are making great strides in the nap department. The lead teacher told Matt yesterday how great Grace is at nap time. Most kids require rocking, swinging, etc. to nap. They can (and we can too) lay Grace down in her crib when she shows signs of being tired and she'll go to sleep. At home during nap time, she has Belgium Bunny by her side, which she sucks on his ears and drifts off to La La Land. Usually we turn her mobile on for her too. APPARENTLY at school, they give her the pacifier and she goes to sleep. I'm not sure how I feel about that. She doesn't/won't take a pacifier from us at home. I can't even remember the last time we gave her one. And when we did, she gnawed on it and spit it out.

As you can also see, we had an especially poopy day yesterday. I refuse to blog about it, but lets just say Grace will never be given prunes again. And we're on the road to recovery from a bad diaper rash.

But it also includes lesson plans for the day. The first day I saw the lesson plans, I thought it was for the whole WEEK. But it changes every day.

Click the picture to enlarge so you can see the detail better.

I'm not naive enough to think that they do all of this every day with every kid, but they work around naps and eating and get a lot of this in most days.

Anyway, I know I've mentioned the lesson plans to some of my faithful blog followers, and because Melissa made me, thought I would post them for all to see.

Paula Deen

Barnyard Dance

Please note, this story is read entirely while Grace is on her TUMMY, with only minor protests. Since Sunday, she has become increasingly more receptive to spending time on her tummy. Finally.

7 Months Old!

Grace is 7 months old today! We’ve had a fun and busy month, with lots of family and friends visiting. No doctor appointment this month, so no official measurements, but her feet are getting close to the edge of her infant car seat, so we should be graduating soon to her big girl car seat.

Seven things about Grace this month:

1. Nap time has improved considerably. This past week while Grace was home from school with her low grade fever, she was taking two naps a day, each for at least an hour, and sometimes one or both would be more like an hour and a half or two hours! Granted, she was “sick”, but still…her first day back to school Thursday and she took an hour and a half morning nap there, too. It’s not completely consistent, but we’re getting there.

2. Grace is now eating 3 solid meals a day; cereal for breakfast, a vegetable for lunch, and either a vegetable and fruit or yogurt for dinner. Fruit is still not a fan favorite. Weird. We are going to start giving her things to pick up and/or hold to eat. The other day while she was home sick, I held my banana for her to suck on, and she ended up taking a huge bite of it, and subsequently was not very happy when I went fishing in her mouth for it.

3. Mobility is just not of interest, at this point. Grace is a really good sitter. And is content just sitting on her mat, reaching, grabbing and playing with her toys. I try to put her favorite things out of reach to encourage her to go for it, and she just moves on to something else. Rolling is still a very rare occurrence. And tummy time is plain torture time.

4. Grace’s favorite book is Barnyard Dance. She gets so excited when we start to read it. Brown Bear is pretty high up on the list, as well.

5. Grace is starting to clap. She ends up grasping her hands most of the time, but she’s almost got it down. And it really gets her attention when others clap. She also likes doing Patty cake.

6. Vocally we’re still doing Mama and Baba pretty frequently, with a random Dada thrown in. She’s not “Chatty Cathy” by any means. But sometimes when she gets going…. you get pretty Babababa’d out quickly.

7. I think she kisses. It’s hard to tell, because she has been known to suck on my face a time or two, but when I picked her up from school on Friday, I picked her up and she immediately clasped my face with both hands and planted her open mouth on my cheek sans sucking. And did it a couple of times. So who knows.

Here’s a link to an album of pictures taken this month, but it’s really boring unless you’re a Grandma: Grace Month 7

And this is how Grace felt about her photo shoot this morning:

Sick Baby

Grace was sent home from school on Monday with a low grade fever... she was also kind of sleepy, but that could have been because she had to get up a little bit earlier because school started Monday in our area ... which means in order to not totally screw up Daddy's commute, she has to go to school a little bit earlier. We took her to the doctor anyway... we had kept her home on Friday because of a fever, but it was gone on Sunday. But I guess back again on Monday! But the doctor just thought we were on the tail end of some virus and to just keep on doing what we were doing.

But I don't know.... she doesn't look to sick to me..... Maybe a little bored, and missing her friends.....


But doesn't she have good posture?
Or she's the future Princess of Siam!I think we're all glad she woke up with a 97.5 degree temperature this morning and will be heading back to school tomorrow!

Mmmm, green beans

Saturday night, while I was snapping green beans for dinner, Grace sat on the counter in her bumbo and gnawed on her very own green bean. More of a diversion then anything else, it kept her entertained before dinner while we were getting ready for guests to come over. She didn't really eat it. But she continues to love pureed green beans, and all of her veggies. We had made some progress with fruit, but we've regressed a little bit over the weekend, maybe because of her cold or because she is just not a fan but she clamps shut for most of it, with the exception of pears and sometimes peaches. Odd.

We did try yogurt yesterday - Yo Baby Vanilla, and it was a hit.

Grace's Baptism

Grace was baptized this past Saturday at St. Andrews Catholic Church in Roswell.

Grace wore the slip from my grandmother's baptismal gown, which my father also wore when he was baptized. Over the slip, Grace wore a robe I had made from my wedding dress. Her bonnet was also made from the lace on my wedding dress.

After the baptism we came back to the house where we had pulled pork sandwiches, squash casserole, broccoli slaw, potato salad and red velvet cake.

Here is an album of unprofessional pictures : Grace's Baptism

My wonderful friend, Lori also took some amazing pictures during the ceremony, as well as the reception. Stay tuned for those....

Thank you to everyone who was with us in body and spirit on Saturday for this special occasion.