Clopening

I have been really busy lately, and haven't updated the blog in quite a while. It is clopening time at school- when we have one week to close this year and open next year. And with me, it has been a bit overwhelming. I'm trying to do too many things at once: plan for my science lab, wrap up some computer projects, gather materials, organize carpool, work on schedules for the scheduling committee... as well as dealing with life at home. Luckily, not a lot has been going on at home.
We finally got a toybox for the living room. Most of the toys actually fit in it, too! We've put the pack-n-play in Gracie's room for now (since it no longer must function as a toybox). We want to convert her bed to the toddler bed here soon, and in case she freaks out, we can just put her to sleep in the pack-n-play temporarily. I have a feeling that she will do just fine with the transition. She's a good sleeper, and I'm hoping that she won't realize that she can get out of the toddler bed and play in her room all night. We'll see, though.
We have 2 more days of school. Then 2 workdays, a day off, a weekend (July 4th), a workday, and then the first day of school. I will have 3 workdays to get moved into my new room, set up, meet with all the grade levels and start planning. I also have schedules to finish, a cafeteria to rearrange, and carpool stuff to finish. Ugh. Wish me luck!

17 months

No.

Gracie has a new word: no. Lovely. Almost anything you ask her, the answer, as she shakes her head, is no. Do you want to go to bed? No. Do you want to stay up? No. Can I have your wubby? No. Do you need to go bathroom? No. Tonight we did actually get an affirmative out of her when I asked if she wanted to take a bath. She promptly said "bath!" and made a beeline for our bedroom door. So maybe she does know what she wants... She has the sweetest little voice when she says no, however. She's not loud or forceful. Just very matter-of-fact. I'll have to get it on video.
We went to Olivia's 1st birthday party on Sunday- Gracie had a blast! There were several other kids her age there, and she got to play with all of Olivia's toys, some balloons, bubbles and the water tables. She was SOAKED from the water table! Check out Sherry's Blog for some pics and video.
We're still going strong with the potty training. We had voluntary poop in the potty for the first time this weekend. I couldn't believe it. We're to the point that as long as we remind her to go (or lead her to the potty or toilet) fairly regularly, we're good to go. I got a new travel potty seat that is padded and fits much better on differently shaped toilets, so I'm excited about that.
Not much else going on. I don't know if I've posted about this, but it looks like I'm going to be teaching science next year, which I am very excited about. I got to do some shopping for my lab last week, and today they gave me a laptop and LCD projector to use. But things change at the drop of a hat anymore, so nothing is set in stone quite yet.

Ba-room

I have been hesitant to write this blog in fear of jinxing ourselves, but I have to brag on my little potty-girl.  The past week or so we've really started working on potty training.  I know it's early, but I just know that Gracie is smart enough to do this, and she is proving me right!  We're doing a loose version of the bare-butt training method, whereby she wears no diaper when we're at home.  At grandma's she wears undies, and at home I just let it all hang out (only because it is easier for me to catch her in the act without something to catch the pee).  Grandma has reported that each day this week has resulted in more hits and fewer misses.  We try to put her on her little potty at regular intervals, and now she's to the point where usually when you put her on there, she'll pee!  We still put a diaper on her when we go out (I ain't takin' that carseat apart to wash it again!), but today we were gone from about 1:00-7:30 and she only went ONCE in her pull-up, and that was because we got busy running around at the museum and neglected to take her to the bathroom.  But I took her at lunch, set her on the big toilet at the restaurant, and she immediately peed, then later at BJs, same thing, and just before dinner.  We went to Babies R Us and got one of those foldable kid-sized toilet seats because she's so little, and it works ok, I guess.  It isn't too sturdy on some toilets.

Now, the big news is that this evening, for the FIRST time that I've witnessed, she was wandering around bare butt and she actually went to the potty herself, sat down and PEED!  ON HER OWN!  This is huge.  We actually thought she was just sitting there for fun, but then she said "YAY!" (which is was we all do when she goes) and I went over and about FELL OUT to see the pee in there.  We had gotten a new, smaller little portable potty to keep upstairs, and she sure knew how to break it in!  I'm so proud of her.  I'm hoping she doesn't regress.  She can hold it for almost 12 hours overnight (she typically wakes up dry), so I'm hopeful that we're well on our way.  Our main problem is that she doesn't know how to pull pants down yet.  But the method we're using doesn't worry about that too much until they get good at going to the potty on their own, anyway.

In other news, I also got my first kisses tonight from her- fabulous, wet kisses (kissy noise included) right on both of my cheeks.  I about cried.  She also adds several new words to her vocabulary each day.  Recent acquisitions have been car, Buh-wies (which is evidently Wubby, but backwards somehow), cracker, ear, nose, see ya, water (wawa) and reliably making noises for a duck, bird and cow (she's been doing dog and cat for a while).  She can point to her belly button, foot and ear, and other people's belly buttons, ears, nose and eyes.  She also claps and says yay when other people are clapping and uses uh-oh appropriately.  She can now climb up on the couch by herself (which is scary because she's not very stable when ON the couch) and go down the stairs in a combination of scooting and going backward.

It just blows my mind how quickly she is picking things up these days.  They say that they just kind of take off around 18 months, and is it ever true.   So much fun, but sad in a way, too- my baby's all growed up!

Busch Gardens!

We took Gracie on her first (of many, for sure) amusement park trips this weekend- to Busch Gardens!  We left early on Sunday morning and arrived around 11:00.  The place was packed.  Usually, Sunday mornings are a good time to go, but evidently this is not the case on Memorial Day weekend.  Still, we had a great time, even though all we rode was kiddie rides.  Poor Trish went with us and I'm not sure she realized what she was getting herself into.

Randy, Trish and Gracie rode Oscar's Squirmy Worms (or something like that) in the new Sesame Street area:

Gracie played in the forest playground:

Here's Elmo!

Gracie and I rode this:

Gracie and I also rode the Dinosaur Egg ride:

And here's a gratuitous cute pic:

She also had a great time in this little water playground and watching the Pet Shenanigans show.  We're sure she's destined to be a coaster freak, too- as soon as we drove up she was fascinated with Apollo's Chariot.  She said "Wow" over and over again as we watched it go.

We were so tired when we got home and are still getting caught up on rest.  But it was worth it!

Cute video

Head on over to Sherry's Blog  to see an adorable video of Gracie and Olivia, being BFF (near the bottom of the 5/11 post).  I would post it here, but it will take forever for me to download, then upload it on this computer.

I haven't done a monthly update in a while, and G turns 16 (SIXTEEN!!!) months tomorrow, so here goes:

16 months, about 25 lbs, almost 32 inches

*We're working on using a spoon.  I got a set of bendy spoons by Boon that seem to work pretty well.  She gets that she needs to touch the spoon to the food then put it in her mouth, but there are 3 problems: 1-she barely touches the spoon to the food so not much gets on it (I have to help), 2-she turns the spoon upside down in her mouth, and typically BEFORE it reaches her mouth, so the stuff falls off, 3-hands work as well as a spoon, so why eat Spaghettios with a spoon?   What a mess.  At least today I remembered to change my shirt before our dinner attempt.

*Gracie is SUCH a daredevil!  She loves to climb onto the seat of her little Pooh-mobile and stand up, withOUT holding on!  She'll even pull it over to the pack and play, stand on the seat, then stand on the little steering wheel to try to reach in to get her toys.  Now, we don't encourage this, but we try to stand nearby and let her have some climbing time.

*She can kick a ball quite well.

*She has a balloon obsession.

*Still sleeping and eating like a champ.  She'll try any food at least once- she was eating green olives today.

*She is more interested in books now.  She likes to be read to and will come sit on my lap for a story sometimes.

*She is much more lovey.  She gives hugs (see the aforementioned video), kisses (without touching, just makes a smacking noise) and will almost blow kisses.

*She loves to dance.  We were breaking it down in the car today at a stoplight and the driver of a schoolbus next to us was cracking up at her (and probably me).

*Words she can say:  dog, wow, bye, hey, aw cool, juice, dada, mama (FINALLY!!), car, beach, keys, Trish, papa, fish, Noah, Jojo (Jonah), hi dada (she never says hi to me!), dance, balloon, bubble, bathroom (sometimes), shoe, uh-oh.

*Many of these words can only be understood by us.

*She still loves the kitties, and both Noah AND Jonah are really patient with her.  Poor Jojo got Spaghettios dumped on his head today.

*She has 12 teeth.  And a fierce bite!  Keep fingers out of her mouth!

*She points to things and says "dis" which I think is asking "What's this?".  I could be wrong about that.

I'm sure there's other things I'm forgetting.  Hmmmm.

Not much else going on.  I'll try to get some pics to post soon.

Mama's Day!

I had a very nice Mother's Day today!  I hope all the other Mamas out there did, too.  Gracie got me 2 balloons, flowers, an Old Navy gift card (though I couldn't find anything in there today that I couldn't live without), brunch at Posta at the Marriott downtown, and I did some shopping at NY & Co.  We all spent the day together, enjoyed some outside time and shopping, and are worn out.

Here's a couple pics of my balloons and flowers.  Gracie and I have been drooling over the dragonfly since we saw it a couple weeks ago.  Gracie (and Grandma) picked out the other one on Friday- so sweet!

DONE!

No more pencils, no more books, no more dealing with stupid NCCU!  Wait.  That doesn't rhyme.  Oh, well.

I had my exit interview for my teacher education program on Friday.  It went ok.  I passed it, anyway.  So now all I have left is some paperwork and I SHOULD be eligible to get my license!  I'm waiting for my grades to come in, but with any luck I will have made it through NCCU with a 4.0.  I may not have a teaching job next year, but, hey- at least I'm done.  

In other news, we had a decent weekend.  Randy went to Beer Fest yesterday with Grant, leaving Sherry and I to hang out with the kiddos.  Gracie was actually pretty sweet to Olivia- Grant got a cute video of G pushing O on her little ride-on toy, then hugging her- I'll link it when Sherry posts it on her blog.  It is so nice that they're closer in ability now- they can kind of interact now.

We went to pick strawberries today.  Gracie really enjoyed it!  She followed us down the rows.   We gave her a couple of strawberries to tote around- she refused to put them in the bucket, and ended up kind of squishing them, so she had juice running down her arm and her hands were all stained.  Then she figured out what they were and that she could eat them- her whole face was red!  That girl LOVES some strawberries.  It was the perfect summer photo op (we got a pic on Randy's phone, but I gotta figure out how to send it).

Another thing she really likes is veggie burgers.  We've given her the black bean ones and today we tried a savory mushroom one, and she ate it all!  Without ketchup!  (that's her newest thing- she likes ketchup on everything)  We also give her the veggie corndogs and those are good.  She's a pretty good eater, most days.  Of course, at brunch this morning she didn't eat that well, but she made up for it with breakfast and dinner, so I guess it all balances out.

That's about it for now.  Go Canes!

ETD:  Here's the pics from today:

Vegas Animoto

More for sure

I have to brag on Gracie for making the most perfect sign for "more" today.  She's been signing it for a while, but has never even been close to doing it correctly.  But like the books said, we just kept doing it the right way, and low and behold, tonight at dinner she did it perfectly!  And repeatedly, even pointed to what she wanted more of!  We about fell out, then praised and praised her.  It made my day to know that she is getting it, and that her fine motor skills are improving so dramatically.