Dance Show of the "Creepy Princess"

I have been very sick this last week. And so the other day when I was too weak to really move off this chair, Grace decided to put a dance show on for me. She dressed up in her princess dress and then put one of her stuffed animals on the floor...then the improv magic began. She did this many times in a row with each "dance" representing the stuffed animal on the floor. This one was the first and includes, if you listen closely toward the beginning, the line, "Princesses are creepy." For a girl who loves Princesses I am not sure where that came from. I also like the ending. 

I wanna hold your haaand...

Grace and I were cleaning a bit in the kitchen this morning when she broke out in "Oh I tell you something. I think you'll understand..." I couldn't believe she knew basically the whole song, even though she has quite liked the fab 4 for a while now and especially this song. I missed that great performance but got an encore (a bit less on tune than the original but still pretty good for a 2 yr old in a dress and parka on a nice April morning.) Enjoy and go hold someone's hand!

The Year Through Grace's Words

So, I have been thinking for a while that I want to put all of my scribbled "gracie-isms" in one place for easier compilation at an unnamed future date when I will be able to put together her cute baby books. Along with that thought, and my sister Jenny's gentle reminders that I haven't blogged since Summer, I thought I would start this new year with apparently a few very long sentences, AND a list of the grace-isms from 2011 that I have jotted down. Enjoy! Oh, and a special shout out to Grandma Joy, who at my baby shower, suggested I write these types of things down on a calendar right away so you don't forget when little milestones happen. Great advice!

• Ok, so the first one is not a vocalization, but it was too cute to pass up. Grace on January 30th, 2011--A Sunday. We are getting ready for the sacrament and I am whispering to her about Jesus and showering her a picture of him. I look over a second later and she is gently trying to give the picture of Jesus a sip of her water--a true act of friendship and love to an 18 month old.
• January 31, 2011--we are driving in the car and the windshield wipers start on. From the back seat I hear a very dramatic, "Wow. Scare me!"
• March 22, 2011 as Grace wakes up next to me: "Good morning Mommy. I saw a white bird climbing a tree. I saw a doggie go park. And I saw a spider in Mommy's room. Uncle Kevin washed it with a paper towel." And you wonder what kids are dreaming about.

Aunt Jenny, Mommy, Grace and Spider "washing" Uncle Kevin at Bridal Veil Falls 

• May 7, 2011 as Grace is digging in the garden with a little shovel, "I'm working hard."

• May 29, 2011, after Michelle told Grace, "I'm so sorry about your cut by your eye." She sincerely responds, "I appreciate that."

• It is also around this time when Grace first starts saying, "I have a compromise." Followed by a reasoned outline of a give and take between the two of us. "Let's Compromise" becomes a staple in our home and despite the negative connotation such a word gets a few weeks later when used by the House of Representatives' Tea Party folks, my not even 2 yr old understands that in life, compromising is not only necessary, but virtuous ;

• May 31, 2011 to Grandma Nan as we come into the kitchen in the morning, "How did your night go?"

Grandma Nan and Grace at Temple Square Spring 2011

• From the week of June 6th 2011: After seeing Sleeping Beauty Grace takes to telling people "I'm going to kiss you up." And for a while kisses me up each morning. 

Sleeping Beauty for Halloween 2011

• I inquire about something she is eating, and if she wants more and she tells me, "I'm just going to have a little taste and see how it goes."

• My mom calls Gracie from the kitchen and she answers, "yes darling." 

•  June 16, 2011 Grace is pretending to be a baby dinosaur and I am feeding her. I spill some oatmeal on her and say, "silly mommy. I spilled on you." She smiles, "That's ok, mommy." Later I attempt to make a dinosaur sound to which she replies, Mommy that's a silly word."

• June 17, 2011 After hearing a sound Grace says, "What's that sound?" Me: "Is it an owl?" Grace: "No...it's a ...what's it called...a...what's that called..." Me: "a bird?" Grace: "No! what's it called...a....a..TRUCK!"

• July 27,2011 as we are laying in bed getting ready to go to sleep Grace spontaneously says the magic words to me, "I love you!"

• August 28 2011 she gets a little tied up with her phrasing for a bit saying, "what we can do?" whenever she wants to know what we can do today.

• August 24, 2011 as Grace and I are getting ready to go to the park: "Can we take a ball, by chance?"

• August 26,2011 as I am making her breakfast she offers this encouragement, "Good making, mommy! You are such a beautiful little princess!"

• October 11, 2011 as Grace and I put back a video tape of Cinderella 2 she smiles, "Oh, I'm two. We're the same age!"

• October 12, 2011 Me in a moment of exasperation, "Grace, you are driving me crazy!" Grace: "But we're not in the car. ...Me driving YOU??"

• November 12, 2011 after I walked in the door from a surprise birthday sleepover--and only the second time I have ever been away from Grace overnight, "Mommy, I missed you with my heart!" Later that night as we get ready for bed she tells me very sternly, "I don't like you going to a sleepover with your friends. I think that is a bad idea"

• November 18, 2011 after watching Peter Pan where the kids learn to fly, she turns to me and says, "Should we try that?"

• December 1, 2011 Me: "Gracie you can't pull that ornament off the tree. You can't do that anymore." Grace, quoting the villain in the Swan Princess, dramatically responds, "Someday I'll get my power back!"

All powerful Rothbartlike-Grace

Once she has got her Christmas Sweetness back

• Lastly--a microcosm. Saturday, February 11th 2012: 1) Grace is trying to carry her doll in her dolly baby carrier and the doll keeps falling out. Finally, exasperated, she says to it, "For crying out loud, baby! This is not the place to get out. This is the zoo. We don't live at the zoo--only animals live at the zoo. Now stay in your seat until we get home!"
• 2) After I have been talking to her about something not up to snuff she interrupts nicely and says, Ok...I'm done talking about that now."(one of my phrases I use on her when she is asking me about something over and over)
• 3)We are acting out The Little Engine that Could on a wooden train set downstairs: "Then another train came track-ing around." I like it!
• 4) As we are getting Great-Grandma Glad some breakfast Grace asks, "Where is Aunt Karen?" Me: "She flew back to her home in Virginia." Grace: "Because we can take care of Great-Grandma now. We can be her good friends!" (My Grandma is living alternately with us and with my aunt Karen and this was after Karen had brought Grandma out to live with us for the first time).

Summer at long last!

Our flower child

On our way to a bridal shower for Kevin and Rachel.

 I had actually been waiting and waiting for her to be able to wear this somewhere. We got it, like most of our cutest clothes, from Miriam and Dave...with the tags on, and I was determined someone should wear it!  I had given up hope as it was her size during the winter, but we gave it a try just for fun and voila--it fit! She was a huge hit.

Trying to use that extra height from mommy's heels to her advantage

With Shell

ABOVE: We have loved going down to Liberty Park to play in the river fountains. Before Jenny left for London she came with us and introduced Grace to the idea of racing sticks. Apparently that made an impression because this time Grace loved to challenge me to leaf races over and over again with a friendly, "let's race, Mommy!" And I love her summation at the end, a bit hard to hear, but so cute, "that was awesome!"

BELOW: After the above video ended and we decided to go find Alex and Johnny and Grandma, as we were heading down from our racing positions, Grace suddenly looks up at the sky and yells, "I'm racing sticks, Jenny!" before running down to where I was. It was so cute! So, Jenny, this video is for you. I didn't get the video running fast enough, unfortunately, so you just get the end of Grace's exclamation of , "I raced sticks, Jenny!" to start it off.

We all miss you, Jen!

The kids all rode the little planes--Grace on the bee plane

Johnny on the army plane

Alex on the purple/pinkalicious plane

more at the rivers

Alex found a furry friend

Pictureless Post of Cuteness

So, I have been meaning to post many things on here for awhile--pictures from our Scotland trip not least of the list. BUT, here I am in my class. Yes, the one I teach. And, ( fear not, I am not up here blogging as I am lecturing, it is a group work day), yes, I did forget to bring my teaching bag so my plan to use this precious time to grade has been foiled. Thus, I am here wasting time and thinking of all the things I would rather be doing to make said time productive. On my list is blogging, but I don't have access to my pics. So, despite my total inability to multi-task and especially to write with confusion around me, I will try to at least write a little bit about the amazingly cute things Grace has been saying lately.

up first: Dreams

Starting around December Gracie would wake up and immediatley say things to me about her dreams. Of course, she didn't say, "I dreamed..." (at least not at first) she would just start saying things like, "up-high", "Momma", "me", "'[ba]nana". Then it is up to my sleuthful self to decipher the dream. For this one my guess was a dream about Monkeys and being up in the trees. Some of her dreams are easier to decipher, especially when she is reliving something that happened the day before like "dadda", "mamma", "walk" or "go for a walk to the park with Mee-mee." Once it was just a single word. A Gracie true love: "Cheese."

 But perhaps most intersting in the dream department was the dream Grace told me a bout a few weeks ago--her birth. In her words, "I dream I was back in mommy's tummy. I came out ." Me: "You were born?! Was anyone there to see you?" Grace: " Yes. Daddy and Shell." What is amazing about this is that besides me, who I think we both assumed was part of the landscape, Steve, and Michelle were the first and second people to see Grace when she was born. Maybe she just remembers me telling her about this, but either way it was kind of uncanny.

next: The Speakable joy of the Train
So again, this is old..March to be exact. But I took Gracie downtown to ride the Trax because she loves trains. We parked at my work and were getting out of the car to go up the elevator and out to the Trax stop, when Grace started making all these "excited" noises and kicking her legs around etc. I think I must have said something like, "this is so fun, I am excited to go ride the train." And then her eyes lit up and she says, "I so essited, mommy. I so essited!!" It was beyond adorable and it was so cool to see her ability to realize that that word was exactly the word she was looking for. She continued to say, "I so essited" all the way to the train and again when the Trax started coming up the street. And her enthusiasm was contagious. All the weary students and others waiting for their commute home couldn't help but smile as they saw this blase moment through the eyes of a child going on her first train ride.

last: Our little adult
Perhaps not surprisingly, considering who Grace is talking to everyday, She sounds like a little adult, and, often, a little 'me'. She has such adult inflections and responses to things I tell her. Just the other day I was driving with her and we passed West High School. I pointed out the students going in and out and then added, "this is where Daddy went to school." Gracie responds, "Ohhhh." With inflection of "Oh, that is so interesting."

A few weeks ago she was helping Michelle dig out in the garden. I put my head out and asked her what she was doing and she told me, "I'm working hard." I actually have a really cute video of this day that I need to post.

Grace is also very playful and for a long time has understood how to joke. The other day she and I were downstairs and I was trying to clean up some stuffed animals on the floor. I pick up a stuffed deer and say, "hey look Grace, a deer like Bambi." She one ups me and says, pointing outsideand smiling "it's raining...a rain-deer." She then launches into "Up on the housetop, reindeer pause." Very funny.

Lastly, as any mother knows, one of the funniest experiences is to hear yourself back to yourself through your child. Often now Grace says things to me that I recognize as phrases I use with her. She likes to ask me, "sound good?" and when she really wants to do something that seems reasonable to her but that I am telling her no about she uses a "just" qualifier like, "I just want to go down stairs and play." Or, in the middle of the night, "I just want a little num-nums (nursing) in the bed, then sleeping, ok?" Yesterday we went to Wheeler Farm and she climbed up on something and turned around and asks, "You wanna come up here with me?" And then later, when she was climbing off the trampoline without my help and I was reacting with much distress, "I'm ok, Mamma. I've got it."

She is such a bundle of personality. Hopefully I can get a few more videos of her good talking up here soon so those of you who don't know her cute voice can hear her for yourself.

Gracie on the phone with her Daddy

Translation of Gracie-speak: "Hi Daddy, are you at work? [Want to] come play? I [love] you, bye."

Winter

 Gracie and Johnny eating some Grahms before heading out to Zoo lights.

Not too happy to see Santa

Gracie as Mother Mary...giving baby Jesus a Kiss. At Church a few weeks ago, during the Sacrament I was showing Gracie a picture of Jesus with little children and I told her how much Jesus loves little children. She nodded her head solemnly and then offered the picture of Jesus her sippy cup with, "Jesus want some wah-wah?" If that is not love for an 18-month-old, I don't know what is.

 Making a snow turtle with Aunt Michelle and Mommy. Grace and I had some fun just lounging around while Michelle did the work.

 Here are a bunch of photos of Grace enjoying a few of her many Christmas gifts. Santa (aka Grandma Nan) gave her the bike and a shopping cart--which was very exciting! She also got 2 new dollies from Grandma and her Daddy that she loves. More on that at a later date, I think.

 

 

 Above: Gracie with her favorite food--Cheese!! This has an unfortunate effect on her bowels. Thus, one of Mommy's favorite foods for her is below: Oatmeal.

 

Reading with Grandma.

 Grace loves to do everything the way she sees all the adults in her life doing them. One of the funnier illustrations of this is that she thinks she must where Grandma's glasses, in order to sit and play the piano.

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Grace loves Uncle Kevin and after finally getting his name down, has decided to nickname him, "Keh-Keh."

 

 

 

 

 Michelle and Grace made so many cute Snowpeople this winter. Including a mini-family when there was only a smattering of snow around. Grace always wants to build a "Mommy and Daddy and baby."

 Grace decided she wanted to get into her baby crib. Her legs were sticking out the ends, but she loved this and wanted to stay there for a long while.

 Grandma gave Alex and Gracie these matching dresses for Christmas. They were adorable in them.

 A few New Year's Eve pics. Here Grace steals a midnight kiss, a bit early, from Johnny.

 Grace and I were actually asleep when 2011 rolled around, but considering the last 18 months of my life, that may well be the most auspicious start the year could have. If it means I will get more sleep this year, then my new year will be a good one.

Grace is growing up so so fast. She is the most amazing talker, singer, runner, climber and mother. 

Lately we have been going swimming at the indoor pools around town and she is an absolute fish! She has no fear at all of water, probably due to the fact that we go in the jacuzzi bath together every day. The first time I took her swimming, it was just the two of us, and I had to be on red alert to keep her from diving head first into the water--she would go under and I would bring her up expecting her to be scared, but she would be smiling and want to have me let her go so she could do it again. She is also a terror on the water slides. She goes flying down the "kid" slides and I wait at the bottom for her to come out upside down, or with one leg above her head. No matter how scary the whole thing looks to me, or how splashy her entrance into the water is, she always blinks the water away and says, "again, again."  I will admit, however, that I am glad she likes going on the big water slide with me so much, because all told that is a pretty fun way to spend an hour on a Friday night in my world.