Ten Months...and Happy New Year! (Yeah, I know it was, like, 2 weeks ago.)

Why do I feel like the worst mom ever for not documenting my only child's first year of tremendous development? Her baby book is only half done. When I remember to write down milestones, I usually make a note in my day planner and then jot them down in the baby book when I think of it. That hasn't happened for at least three months now. There are no pictures printed, no blog posts written, no videos taken.

Well, that's not completely true. I think I have a video of Grace grabbing a rattle for the first time, eating solids for the first time, and crawling for the first time.

Our little girl just turned ten months. How can one year be so close already? Grace crawls at a very efficient and fast pace now. Especially if she hears the fridge, freezer, or dishwasher opening, she's there in about two seconds! Some time during her ninth month, she really starting cruising along the furniture. Crawling and pulling up came right at the same time....along with pulling everything off the shelves she could reach. And her reach has extended. Now the second shelf items are no longer safe. Just before Christmas she really started opening cabinets of her own accord.

We're in trouble.

We ordered cabinet locks a couple days ago, and I'm making a pile of breakable items on the kitchen counter as she discovers more and more non-childproof items stored in the lower cabinets. Grace loves to empty out the cabinets so she can crawl into them...and reach even more stuff in the way back!

And there's also this:

There is no opening the dishwasher with Grace in the house unless you want her to "help".

Grace "sings" and knows the signs for "more" and "all done". If you ask her how big she is, she'll put both hands all the way up in the air so you can tell her, "Soooo big!". She has this little hand motion she makes that means she wants to sing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" or she wants to sing it again after we've just sung it.

I love her laugh. Sometimes I can't figure out what she's laughing at, but it makes my day to hear her. Her smile is contagious, and it's a good thing she's so cute since she still takes very short and/or random naps and has decided to wake up almost every night at some point and scream and cry until we go in to settle her down.

Another thing she started doing right before Christmas is wanting to play chase. If I'm down on the floor with her and say "I'm gonna get you!", she'll take off crawling away and stop every once in a while to look back to see if I'm chasing her. Or she'll clap her hands, crawl away and stop and look back if she wants me to chase her. It is so fun!

She doesn't say any words, but I have no doubt she understands what we say most of the time. Grace babbles quite a lot, whether anyone is there to listen to her or not. I'm thankful every night that we moved here so John can be home with us in the evenings. We all get to eat dinner together, so Grace gets to be involved in our conversations and learns to be patient while eating with us at the table.

Here's just a random picture of Grace picking out her first Christmas tree.

We might not give her the job of choosing the tree anymore. For the first year since we've been married, the tree lasted, oh, about five days before it started shedding needles. At week two it started smelling like vomit. (Sorry, Grace! At least we escaped to Grammie and Pop's house to enjoy their artificial tree in all its unscented splendor.)

Grace is beautiful. I'm appreciating every little thing she does and how she changes and grows (even if I'm a failure at documenting it very well). I know I've said it before, but I can't imagine how I can love someone so much. Our daughter is such a wonderful, miraculous gift.

Will I forget?

When I see Grace sitting on her blanket playing, or up in her high chair eating baby food, or taking up so much more space on my lap than she did a couple months ago, I want to freeze every moment and remember it forever.

Our little girl is growing up so fast. Her own little personality is developing.

I'll tell you what else is developing: major separation anxiety. Though it's obviously anxiety-provoking for Grace to be handed off to anyone except me or John, I think it's as much if not more distressing for me to hear her crying her head off. Aaack. I hope this does not last too long.
After a fun lunch out with John and a good friend, I am in an after-lunch stupor, so I think this will have to be it for now. Might as well grab a nap, short as it may be, while Grace is sleeping...at least for now.

Don't blink or you'll miss it!

Fall is upon us. Actually, I think the first official day of the season is Saturday, but if I don't start thinking "fall" right now, from the very beginning of the season, it'll be Christmas before I know it. I can't count on the weather (which has been really lovely, but will be in the 90s the next few days) to put me in the spirit of autumn.

'Tis the season for baking. Must be, because I'm not usually overly excited when I read baking blogs. This morning, however, as I was perusing My Baking Addiction I found three recipes I feel I need to try: pumpkin granola bars, candy corn oreo truffles, and German chocolate brownies.

And I don't even really love candy corn or alternatively flavored oreos. Or German chocolate, for that matter. But somehow the recipes spoke to me today.

We'll see if those experiments come to pass!

What absolutely must happen is baking up some pumpkin bread. It's John's favorite, and I'm trying to make it more of a priority to make him feel special since I've kind of dropped the ball on our relationship since Grace came into our family. I'm ashamed to admit that, but it's the truth. Being a counselor, I logically know all about the importance of choosing to connect with your mate. I just never imagined how motherhood would zap me of all energy and creativity by  Grace's bedtime.

In case any of you care, this is the pumpkin bread recipe I use (straight from Katie Wilkinson, who I don't know, but contributed this recipe to the cookbook from Bella Vista First United Methodist Church, where my grandparents attended):

Pumpkin Bread I

3 c. granulated sugar                                            2 tsp. salt (scant)
1 c. vegetable oil                                                  1/2 tsp. ground cloves
4 eggs, beaten                                                       1 tsp. cinnamon
1 (1 lb.) can pumpkin                                           1 tsp. allspice
3 1/2 c. flour                                                         1 tsp. nutmeg
2 tsp. baking soda                                                 2/3 c. water

"Mix sugar, oil and eggs together; add pumpkin. Add dry ingredients. Add water; stir just until mixed. Pour batter into 2 greased and floured 5x9-inch loaf pans. (I use only Pam to grease the pans.) Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.
"This is an Amish recipe and it's my favorite bread to have with coffee at breakfast."

Thank you, Katie Wilkinson. I love your pumpkin bread with coffee, too!

Easy Dinner

Oh, I just can't get enough of this beautiful girl!

OK. Unless she's taking 45 minutes to eat or only sleeping for 20 minutes at nap times all day. On those days, someone is welcome to come relieve me so I can actually get something done. Or take a nap.

Look!

It's her new favorite position when she's playing on the floor or in her crib (which she sometimes does rather than take a nap!). Crawling will be here before we know it. And right now I'm hoping she waits to crawl until the new battery charger for the camera arrives in the mail. We seem to have lost the original, and the camera is on it's last little bit of battery power.

It's times like these I kind of wish I weren't the only person in the world without a smart phone. My vintage phone just doesn't take good pictures. Then common sense reminds me that a $5 battery charger is a heck of a lot cheaper than a smart phone monthly plan. Plus, I'm sure we have some time before Grace really crawls.

Because I love spending time with Grace (and some days I do a lot of that since she won't take a real nap, or is having a growth spurt and wants to eat all the time, or is just plain fussy and needy), most the time dinners need to be relatively easy and quick to make. Thanks to my friend Stacy, I have a copy of her favorite week of menus from emeals.com. (This is not a paid advertisement. In fact, I've never bought any eMeals plans and probably won't, but I'm sure it's a great deal for a lot of people.) eMeals features super easy recipes, and one of the recipes from the week I have is quickly becoming one of our favorite dinners.

Crustless Spinach Quiche
1 c 2% shredded mozzarella cheese
1/2 c fat-free half-and-half
1/3 c pesto, drain oil off
10 oz. pkg frozen chopped spinach, thawed/drained
1 1/2 c egg substitute (optional) OR 4-5 eggs or egg whites, whatever combo you'd like
Option: You can also place sliced tomatoes on top of the quiche before you bake it.

Combine all ingredients and pour into a sprayed pie plate. Bake at 375 for 45 to 55 minutes.

Six Months

Sometimes when I look at pictures of Grace from several months ago I get a little teary-eyed.

I can't imagine what it's going to be like in ten or 15 years!

But then, Grace is so beautiful and smiley and happy and fun that I can't be sad for long. She really is a delightful little girl.

Grace still eats veggies once a day and loves them. She's tried carrots, peas and avocados so far. I think this weekend we'll be having squash, so she can try that.

This weekend we were in Arkansas at John's uncle's lake house for a family reunion. Everybody got to meet Grace, and we got to meet her second cousin who is just 7 weeks old. Grace even went swimming in a two-foot deep little baby pool; she had a blast!

Now that she's rolling over, scooting herself around and sitting I know the day is just around the corner when I will not be able to leave her alone in a room for a second.

Here's how our six-month photo shoot ended yesterday:

She is pretty darling if I do say so myself.

Welcome to my trains of thought.

Bananas always seem like a good idea at the store, but then it all seems like a waste of money later in the week as they're languishing in the fruit bowl on the counter. All the bananas reach the perfect stage of ripeness at the same time and then begin to get too ripe the next day. Who's going to eat a whole bunch of bananas in one day?

I bought some Magnum bars yesterday at Target because they remind me of Amsterdam. This makes me think of Albert Heijn brand kaneel roomijs (cinnamon ice cream); now that really reminds me of the Netherlands!

Grace basically sat all by herself in her baby bathtub last night during bathtime. This morning she was extremely interested in herself in the mirror for the first time. She kept putting her head right up to the mirror and smiling.

Now that we're composting as well as recycling pretty much everything, we really hardly have any regular trash.

I was proud of our low trash content until I began thinking about all the water we use doing laundry. What with the cloth diapers and spit-up all over everything forcing multiple changes of clothing in one day (not to mention the mountainous piles of burp cloths we go through), we do at least two or three loads of laundry a day it seems.

We may spend a fortune on water, but we bought enough laundry detergent on Amazon to last us the next two years, and buying in bulk is really pretty cheap. I recommend Charlie's Soap Powder if you want a hypoallergenic, natural laundry soap. We bought it to use for cloth diapers and now use it for all our laundry. (This is not a paid advertisement. Charlie's Soap doesn't even know who I am.)

I wonder if I have time to whip up a batch of cinnamon roll dough while Grace is sleeping? (Yes, sleeping! Yesterday she took two long naps with relatively little crying involved and has now been sleeping for almost an hour.)

I'd better go do that right now!

What it took to get groceries this morning

1. Late morning feeding after a (miraculous) hour-long nap.
2. Finally get both of us dressed for the day
3. Carry Grace around in an upright position for a few minutes to get her to burp
4. Gather grocery list and diaper bag and place Grace in her car seat
5. Realize her diaper must have leaked because her skirt is all wet
6. Take Grace out of the car seat and back to her changing table to remedy the leaky diaper and change her skirt to a pair of shorts (Somehow the shorts still match the shirt she's wearing.)
7. While buckling her into the car seat (again), Grace spits up massively all over the car seat and her shirt.
8. Remove her from her car seat and back to the changing table for a change of shirt
9. Look at clock and realize she probably should have a nap in 45 minutes or so
10. Contemplate not even getting groceries today. We can eat bread, eggs, carrots and water for a couple meals, right?
11. Power through, get Grace back in her car seat (for the third time) and hope we can just get back home in time for a quick 30-minute nap (That doesn't happen, by the way. She sleeps for 10 minutes on the way home from the store and then refuses to sleep any more once we get home.)
12. Wonder how on earth moms with more than one kid ever get anywhere