Required Headgear

Grace is going to have to start wearing these scrub hats when she eats. She's gotten so bad about touching her hair and head while she's eating. That accompanied with her longer hair has made for a huge mess!

Progress Report - End of 1st Week

I decided to call this a "Progress Report" vs a "Report Card" because we've already seen Grace demonstrating so much of what she has learned during her 1st week of school.

One morning, while I was making the bed, I turned around to get the pillows off the chair. There Grace was, handing me a pillow. She continued to get pillows and hand them to me while I put them on the bed.

Another time, I had spilled water on the floor in the laundry room transferring clothes from the sink to the washing machine. Grace ran off and when she returned, she'd gotten the towel hanging from the dishwasher handle and started wiping up the water. I never mentioned anything about cleaning it up.

She's also improving her Spanish. She holds her cup up to the refrigerator and asks for "agua". We wanted to make sure we heard her correctly, so Steve asked "como se dice "water" en espanol?". She replied "agua".

I haven't pushed the potty training at home this week. I wanted her to adjust to being away from Momma, then we'll tackle that.

Pictures her teacher shared with us:

Having a snack. Students will be responsible for preparing the snacks for the class. They also set the table, putting the cup and plate on the designated spot on the mat. Then a student is also responsible for washing the dishes. Notice that these are BREAKABLE - something I haven't dared!


Playing with Playdough. I've never seen her not eating it!



Students play with one thing at a time. When they are finished, they put it back where they got it and move on.

We treated her to an "End of 1st School Week" trip to get gelato. Needless to say, she loved it.


When she finished, she ran to the gelato case and started signing "more" and "ice cream". Who can say "no" to that? So we all shared another one.

Report Card - Day One

Grace had her 1st day of Montessori school today.

Last Monday, the teacher came to our house to meet Grace. She spent about an hour here with her and got Grace used to her. Then last Friday, we went to the school for her to check out her classroom without any other kids there. The teacher commented on how independent she was. You could tell she wanted to do things her way. She also looked all around the classroom, not just at one particular area. It will definitely be a change in how she normally plays as she was told to only get one item at a time and put it away as soon as she was done. She is used to being a tornado in this regard.

The day started off hard. She started crying which turned into screaming as I walked away. When I returned 3 hours later, she started to cry when she saw me but was fine once I picked her up. The teacher said she did cry but not the entire time. She enjoyed playing outside the most.

Hopefully tomorrow will be better and not worse. I think she will learn so much from this experience.

Like Mommy, Like Grace

Grace loves to imitate us. When I'm getting ready, she'll put the eyelash curler up to her eye. She also likes to put powder on her face with a brush.

But this is going a bit far....

Grace is 18 Months Old!!

Can you believe this little girl has been around 18 months now?!? I feel like she should be more like 2 or even 3 with the Miss Independent personality she's developed.

• She has 14 teeth - that's 7 additional teeth just since May!! She went to the dentist today for her checkup since it's already been 6 months since her last visit. Everything looked great except he suggested we start flossing her bottom teeth since they are so close together. Can you imagine? This is going to be like flossing a shark's teeth!


• She weighs 24 pounds 10 ounces(60%), is 33.75 inches tall(95%), and her noggin has come down to the 85th percentile.


• I expected her 18 mo dr visit to be a nothing but, boy, was I mistaken. From the moment the nurse came in the room, she started crying. Putting her on the scale was a huge scene. Then she let everything out when she got a shot. By the time we got to the car, lollipop in hand, she was fine.


• Her vocabulary really seems to be expanding just by the day. She'll all of a sudden say something new. Yesterday, I heard her and Lupita saying "1-2-3" then throwing a ball. I didn't realize she could say that. Then I heard her answer Lupita with "Si". I asked Lupita if that's what she'd said and she assured me it was. She's big into shaking her head "No" these days but hasn't said "Yes" yet. At least she's saying it in Spanish.


• She's still a good eater and eats what I make the family for dinner. She has started to throw her food to Ginger more often though. Sometimes it's when she's full and others it's when she doesn't like something. She's more of a carb gal than a meat eater.


• She's also still a good sleeper. 12 hours at night and a 2.5 - 3 hour nap during the day. She's gotten a bit more independent lately and doesn't like to be read to before going to bed. Instead, we end up putting the books in bed with her and she'll "read" them and then go on to sleep. I hope this continues because I've started to worry how I'll get Grace down when Claire comes.


• Her favorite activities include swimming, reading, and playing "romper room"(ie tumbling/dancing/playing rough) with Daddy. Her other favorite activity is playing with HER apps on my iphone. I have several I've downloaded with animal sounds, flash cards, colors, matching, songs, sign language, etc. She knows how to manuever the iphone better than my mom.


• In 10 days, my baby is going to school! Yikes!


• Oh, and she still won't smile for the camera....

Dancing Queen

Grace's version of "Ring Around the Rosie"

The Dark Side

Dealing with a toddler is definitely tougher than the 12 am then 3 am then 6 am feedings of a newborn - that's for sure.

Grace has definite emotions, wants and desires these days and doesn't have the language to communicate these things. Unfortunately, this and getting so many teeth the past 2 months, I think, has contributed to aggressive behavior. Or to put in bluntly, biting, scratching, hitting, grabbing, etc.

Does this look like the sweet baby that can leave scratches and bruises on her loved ones? Well, it is!


We've tried just telling her "No!" in a loud, stern voice. It only fuels her to do it more. We've tried "time out", but this is hard at her age because she doesn't understand to stay in one spot. We tried putting her in her PBK chair, but I want that to be a happy place for reading and playing, not time out. The other thing I've heard is to ignore them, that they hate to be ignored. But this is hard because she runs after me wherever I go to get away. Does anyone out there have any tried and true methods besides biting back? Many people I've spoken to said that is the only thing that worked for them.

Now onto other things in her dark side. Some of this may be her age, but no matter how many times we tell her, she still will eat the crayons. I dread going to restaurants and her seeing them. She'll quickly bite off the sharp end and chew it like it tastes good. I've tried occupying her with Playdough while I'm cooking, but she eats this too.

Speaking of eating things she shouldn't....she has become really good at feeding Ginger. She can pour Ginger's serving into her bowl without dropping one morsel. However, she has to eat some too! It cannot taste good. If it does, then why am I bothering feeding her things that I would eat? I should just give her a slice of spam!

(the bin where we keep Ginger's dog food)

Maybe the terrible 2s really start at 18 mos for her?