Gracelin is 2 1/2

Gracelin is 2 1/2 years old today! Sometimes I cannot believe she is so old already – the time has gone by so quickly. I occasionally call her “baby girl”, to which she’ll respond, “No mommy, I’m your big girl”. Often though, I have to remind myself that she is only 2 ½ because she seems so wise and mature for her age.

Verbally, she is far ahead of her peers. Not only is she fully conversational, but she can clearly convey her thoughts, feelings, and even tell jokes. She usually conjugates her verbs correctly and even understands plurals and possessives. She knows her alphabet, can identify most of the letters, and even knows what letter many words start with. The other day we were discussion “K” words. We talked about kick, kiss, and Kentucky. She added cookie to the list, but when I tried to explain how it started with “C”, but made the same sound as “K” she got a bit confused. I think it is amazing though that she is starting to grasp phonics. She loves to sing, and knows so many songs. Today in the car on the way to daycare, she wanted to play Name That Tune. She’d sing and I’d have to guess. While she knows the words well, its rare that I can tell the tune (she’s still got a ways to go before she can clearly carry a tune) so she was getting a bit frustrated with me. But, she handled it well and was very sweet about it.

She is a sweet girl, and generally loving and kind - especially to her baby sister. I’m excited to watch the girls grow up together, because they already seem to have such a bond. Gracelin loves to hold Bryn and “fluff her” (which is rubbing her hand on the baby’s head. I’m not quite sure where that one came from, but it’s cute). Gracelin also speaks for her sister – she’ll tell me what Bryn likes and dislikes, and what she’s thinking. Sometimes I feel a bit sorry for Grace, because she wants so badly to love Bryn, but doesn’t quite know how. Her hugs and kisses will often make the baby cry, and it hurts G’s feelings.

Her favorite toys right now are dolls and stuff animals. She loves caring for them. So often at the end of the night, I’ll find her “friends” laying in their “beds” allover the house. (Their beds towels and rags from my kitchen drawer. I have lots of laundry as a result.) Her favorites are two cheap baby dolls from K-Mart that she got for Christmas last year – they have remained her favorites all year. One baby is all hard plastic, and her name is “Hard Dora”. The other baby has hard plastic arms and legs, but she has a soft body and laughs, cries, or says “mama’ when you squeeze her belly. Her name is appropriately “Soft Dora”. The Doras go everywhere with her, except during daycare when they patiently wait for her in the car. They also personify how she is feeling. When she’s hungry, the Doras are hungry. When she’s sad, the Doras want their mommy. They even go potty on her little potty (she’s graduated to the big potty, so the little one is for the Doras).

She also loves all books. She’d sit and read with me all day if we could. Quite often when I’m not able to sit and read with her, she’ll read stories to the Doras. I’ve been amazed to discover that she has many of her favorites completely memorized. I hope that her love of books continues, because it will be such an asset in her life.

Food wise, she’s got the strangest taste in foods for a child. She hates all fruit, except apples, and all vegetables. The one exception is salsa – she loves salsa. Even the hot stuff. She also loves anything with beans in it, especially Cincinnati Chili. Other favorites are anything with cheese (grilled cheese, macaroni and cheese, quesadillas, etc). Her favorite breakfast food is a 6-grain hot cereal I get from a local flourmill that has oats, wheat, barley, sunflower seeds and a couple other grains that I can’t think of right now. She definitely has strange tastes for a kid her age. The other night we went out to dinner, and let her choose her own meal. She chose black beans as her side dish over fries. The server looked at her like she was crazy. She also isn’t a big sweet tooth either. Quite often she chooses to eat more dinner over dessert (when given the option, but we rarely eat dessert).

She’s also very physical. She loves to run and jump and is actually getting quite coordinated. In fact, she really doesn’t walk anywhere at all – its all a run. I just love to hear the stomping of her bare feet running down the wood floor of our hallway. Over the summer, she’d spent lots of time in the pool and had gotten to the point where she dared jump off of the edge to her daddy and put her face under the water. I need to get her into swimming lessons and gymnastics. I also think she’s going to love dancing. She loves for me to go outside and run with her. At the doctor last week, she weighed 29 pounds, which is about 50th percentile. She's growing up fast!

Her poor ears continue to be an issue for her. The tubes fell out some time during the summer, and she’s practically had a constant ear infection ever since. Typically about 48 hours after her last dose of antibiotics the infection has returned. We’ve run the gamut of antibiotics this summer, and had an appointment with her ENT today. We scheduled her tubes to be put back in on November 14. She's also getting her adnoids out at the same time. I know it will be scary for her, but its what we need to do.

Well, I could ramble on all day about my sweet Gracie Jayne. I love her so much and I’m so honored to have the privilege of being her mommy.