School of hard knocks

On February 8, 2012 - Uncategorized

After the trampoline and the bed yesterday, Grace decided to focus on her head today.

She started this morning while we were having coffee. She jumps off her little chair just about everyday, normally proceeded by a discourse that goes, "Gracie jump. No gonking. Land well." This goes around a few times, interspersed with some "Wobbling!" when she gets a little bit off balance. With some encouragement from us she eventually jumps off. Today she jumps off and plants her face into the ground. Little bit of consoling, lots of laughing and fortunately in retrospect she thinks it was, "Very funny."

So in the last 24 hours she has, eaten dirt, eaten wall, and eaten floor.

Fast forward to this afternoon and we went to the park after work. Grace was playing on the aeroplane jungle gym and reached up to swing on the monkey bars….whoops, she didn't quite grab hold of those properly….let's add eat metal to the list. She planted her head directly into the metal floor and now has a big bump in the middle of her forehead.

At least when she was playing on her own jungle gym later she did not decide to sit in the pram…….

Life Lessons

On February 7, 2012 - Uncategorized

Sometimes you just have to learn the hard way.  Grace had two lessons in learning the hard way today.  The first happened while jumping on the trampoline. Duncan and I both told her to close the zip on the sides of her trampoline because she was jumping high and fast up to the opening stepping out on to the edge and then jumping back in.  She refused to close it and well bounced over the edge and landed on the grass.  Duncan ran to her worried and I know I should have been more concerned, but I couldn't stop myself laughing.  The picture of her bouncing out, was rather cartoon like and will be forever imprinted on my mind.

The second incident happened after we had said goodnight to her.  The last couple of nights Grace has been pushing her bed away from the wall and then squeezing between the bed and the wall.  She was warned that this could end badly but chose to discover for herself just how badly.  Her crying and unhappiness sent Duncan to investigate, when he got to her room she was gone (she could be heard, but not seen) she had clearly pushed the bed away from the floor and had ended up rolling off the bed and was lying squished between the bed and the wall.  I found this little incident rather amusing too, watching her crawl out from under the bed, complaining of a sore cheek and sore tummy!

Sometimes the only way life makes sense is to experience it yourself

     

The pipe cleaner monster

On February 6, 2012 - Uncategorized
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Two small things to note from today,
  1. The monkey tail substitution for hair twirling went pretty well today. We'll keep encouraging more of that.
  2. Grace's language has taken another leap. She is saying much more complete sentences and talking about things in more detail. Tonight she even sang "Round and round the garden" to Donné at sleep time.

Hair twirling

On February 5, 2012 - Uncategorized
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Grace has picked up this unfortunate habit of hair twirling. Over the last week or so it has become a bit of a compulsive unconscious habit. The problem is that she makes knots in her hair. So far only two that I can think of, but the intensity of the twirling is increasing so there are definitely more knots on the horizon.

Tonight, while she was going to sleep, Grace suddenly cried out a very unhappy and distressed cry. I rushed to her and found that she had knotted her finger in her hair and could not get it out. After a bit of wrestling with her hair – accompanied by crying – I managed to free her finger….and proceeded to lambaste her about hair twirling (we have been speaking to her about it all day). I don't think I had too much of an impact, but Donné was calmer and more thoughtful and suggested that she twirl monkey's tail rather than her hair.

So that will be our strategy for now: if she wants to twirl, she can twirl monkey's tail. Any other ideas for discouraging hair twirling are welcome too…

In other news it has been 5 years in the making but we have finally put quadrants into our kitchen. Just a few more rooms to go.  

Glug glug

On February 4, 2012 - Uncategorized

In a moment Grace's head slipped under the water. Quickly, get to her, lift her up. A half cough, trying to breathe in, but it's not just a splutter – she is choking. Whip her around, whack on the back. Cough, cough, retching. Breathing. She's okay.

We were swimming in the big pool at gym today because the little one was closed, so no step at the side. Grace was holding onto the wall and moving across to get onto the ladder to get out of the pool. I think she misjudged the distance and went under as she tried to put her foot onto the ladder. She was still holding onto the side with one hand as she went under and it was just a moment before I pulled her up, but I think the cold water made her gasp as she went under. She was clearly fine as I pulled her out, just a bit of water down the wrong way – a bit more than she has ever had before.

After she had settled, and we had a serious conversation about closing her mouth and blowing out when she goes under (as she knows and is taught to do) we carried on and enjoyed some more swimming until she was too cold to swim on. She loved her time in the water, even with the minor incident.

For me, I question whether I was paying enough attention? Does too little sleep mean I am not as sharp as I need to be? Could I have gotten to her a little bit sooner and prevented any water breathing? On the one hand I do need to get more sleep and be as sharp as I can be, and at the same time – regardless of my questions – it was minor and gave Grace's brain a chance to put some dots together about not breathing under water.

The Caleb & Grace show

On February 3, 2012 - Uncategorized
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Caleb was ready to put out any fires started while painting

Grace and Caleb were loving playing together today and had lots of entertainment for the parents. Here are a few little snippets….

Grace,while walking around with the pram, "Move out the way people!"

Grace was getting into a new dress an it got caught up so Caleb was trying to help her unroll it. As Caleb would get to the part he was trying to unroll Grace would turn the other way. Caleb then put his arm around Grace's head in an attempt to turn her, but all he succeeded in doing was putting his fingers up her nose.

Karen to Caleb, "Look me in the eyes." Caleb then proceeded to roll his eyes and look as far left and right as he could while three adults had to restrain themselves from bursting into laughter.

Grace rolled into the room in her dolls pram, being pushed by her man-servant. When she tried to get up, the pram came with her. Good job strapping Grace in Caleb! Very safety concious.

And those were just some of the things which happened in the hour I was inside for lunch….

Fairy Grace

On February 2, 2012 - Uncategorized
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Lots of fun dancing and being a fairy….until it is not anymore, then you lie down on the ground and hide away from the world. Let's just pretend she is auditioning for Swan Lake.

Swan_lake

The power of 1-2-3

On February 1, 2012 - Uncategorized

Grace was moaning about eating her food while we were having supper tonight. After a little while of trying to get her to eat some more and plenty of moaning Donné said to Grace, "If you keep moaning then you are going to go to timeout." Grace kept on moaning. "Grace, I am counting to 3, and if you are still moaning you are going to timeout."

"One."
Moaning.
"Two."
Moaning getting louder.
"Three"
Silence.

Timeout is working very well for us at the moment. If we tell Grace she will have to go to timeout then she usually corrects her actions, and if she does end up in timeout it seems to be a time of centering and she comes out with a totally different attitude. It fascinates me how effective it is.

Shut Up Rooster

On January 31, 2012 - Uncategorized

Today Grace and I met Fiona and Ben at Stodals for some clambering, jumping and feeding the animals. While Grace and Ben played the the two mommy's went about catching up (2 months worth). Grace really enjoyed feeding the goats, bunnies and ponies, but kept on moaning about the rooster being noisy.  I started getting a little frustrated with all the moaning so I turned to the rooster and said "shut up rooster"  the next time the rooster crowed Grace turned to it and said "shut up rooster". 

I guess I need to watch what I say a little more closely 🙂

A new schedule

On January 30, 2012 - Uncategorized

This year we have changed our schedule around a bit. The main reason was so that we could all eat together at supper which will hopefully encourage Grace to eat the same food as we do in the evenings. We have been eating earlier, and I really enjoy the time together as a family. Now that we all eat together we are saying grace with Grace. Some days she stops before eating, holds out her hands and says, "Tank God," and other days we have, "No tank God." It is very sweet how she tightly closes her eyes and loudly says "Amen!" when we are done…..or sometimes "Amen!" when she thinks we should be done.

Lunches have also changed a bit, with us all eating lunch together before Grace has her nap. Now that she is going to sleep in a bed (no more rocking, but other crutches are still involved….) it means that I am not involved with sleep time anymore which is a boon for me.

Overall it is working well and there is a good flow to family and work life. I really enjoy sitting at the table and eating together. It is a blessing to have the time that we have as a family everyday.