Grace and Hazel

We couldn’t have been prouder when Grace looked at her Doctor, smiled, stuck her tongue out and said TTTTHPBT!! “Ah, blowing raspberries.” said DMP (Dr Mary Piel) “That’s a great 5 month old milestone.” (It also means she is ready for the Vice Presidential Debates as an audience member or candidate). Now, we haven’t seen the doctor for a little while so she doesn’t know that Grace and her Dad have been communicating like that for many weeks. So, at six months, she is right on track for a 6-month-old’s social commentary. But that is not the exciting news.

The most exciting news is that Grace weighed in at 16 lbs, 9oz which places her solidly in the 50th percentile of all 6 month olds! The last time we officially weighed her she was in the 25th. But wait, there’s more…in length (26 inches) and head circumference she jumped from the 10th to the 50th percentile! I don’t know if Jiffy Pop or Ball Park “They Plump When You Cook ‘Em” Franks is a better comparison but this kid is fully baked (and delicious)!

In other related food news, the moment Lincoln has been anxiously awaiting has finally arrived! In general he has been indifferent to Grace but that ended as soon as she took her first bites of non-liquid (It is hard to call the squash she was eating “solid” but it is as close as she will get until we see some teeth) food yesterday! Sadly for Lincoln, her hands are not yet able to fling anything to the ground, much less put food in her own mouth so he sat disappointed (but on high alert) as Jenn hit the target accurately over and over again.

For her part, Grace just took the whole food thing in stride, probably wondering why, if there were other options, we have been feeding her formula all this time…and then she promptly fell asleep.

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6 months ago today, little (really little) Grace came screaming into our world. For her half-birthday she got some formula cake baked into the shape of a bottle. OK, it was really just a bottle of formula but she seemed happy enough with it.

She also got to spend the day with dear old dad watching her choice of football games (she picked the Raiders game), taking a walk, then a nap, talking politics in pterodactyl-speech (she is for BaRAAAAAAAACK and she is pro-change on the diaper platform).

Diaper Changes

Speaking of diapers, they are a great vehicle to illustrate how much has changed and how much she is that same 2 lb 15 ouncer. On one hand, she still makes the sound that we call “the poop noise” – like an asthmatic pterodactyl – that announces the arrival of a diaper load with uncanny accuracy. On the other hand, the diapers are waaaay bigger. The picture below shows exactly how far we have come in terms of diapers. On the left is one of her first diapers, on the right is the size (3) that she wears today.

Further Developments

Tomorrow we visit the pediatrician and we get to hear all the new professional doctor words that mean “perfect”. At least that is what we expect to hear. By our estimates she may be over 17 lbs, which would make her the same weight as 75% of little girls that were supposed to be born 6 months ago. That extra calorie formula is really something. Of course, weight is just one factor.

Because she was a preemie, we have a nurse that stops in to check on Grace’s development and lets us know how things look. She was naturally (and understandably) impressed with our little girl but she also pointed out a few things that are a little, shall we say, “out of phase”. Her motor skills come out the youngest as she moves around like a 4 month old. Her fine motor skills are a little older which might mean she could play the piano like a 5 month old (if we gave her one). Finally her size (as I mentioned above) puts her on par with a bonafide 6 month old. Ultimately, all these things will synchronize but for now her muscles have to figure out how to deal with the body mass that is about two months “older”. We get to check in on this further with the doctor to see if there is anything we could be doing to help her along beyond the extended “tummy time” that the nurse recommended.

All-in all we have nothing but good news in the Topliff house. 6 months in and we could not love her one little bit more.

Happy 6th Monthiversary, Grace.

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Grace attended her first wedding reception yesterday and showed her Nana how Topliff girls roll…happy to angry in one millisecond.

Hats off to Zadie Bungle (Grandpa Jim) for catching that moment!

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Grace has lots of friends (naturally!). Some of them are toys, some of them are babies that she is placed next to when the parents are visiting. She tolerates them all and is always a gracious host but none of them are guaranteed to elicit squeals and smiles like the one she sees in the hall whenever we walk her past the bathroom mirror. These two seem to have a real connection. They have the same tastes and find the same things funny which serve to build a mutual admiration that only her Mommy can really understand.

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I can’t, for the life of me, figure out what this stripe is on the back of Grace’s head. We have hair below and hair above but nothing seems to be growing in this one patch. It looks like she is wearing a little yarmulke made of hair. The only conclusion I can come to is that it is some sort of gang sign and since her hands are hardly stable enough to handle a razor, it must be the toys. Surely it can’t be the innocent looking Sofie but I just don’t know about those Ugly Dolls.

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photo[3], originally uploaded by Lincoln Topliff.

In order to properly hold one’s head up, one must first be able to hold one’s head high. That is why Grace insists on looking good while being overstimulated by the toy-filled craziness of her Exersaucer. Either that or she is trying to attract a bumble bee by pretending to be a flower.

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What snorts like a pig when it’s angry, shrieks like a pterodactyl when its happy, can lift a giraffe by its neck and sleeps through the night on its stomach? No, it’s not Tarzan on a bender.

After the initial shock of the roll-over, it just kept happening so Jenn has upped the ante by putting Grace to bed on her stomach. She handled it like a champ and got a much better night than her dad. It’s 8:30 and she is still sleeping, which might have something to do with those hands being under control in this position.

In other hand news, they are beginning to act a little less like two pudgy moths that think Grace is a lightbulb and little more like…well…hands. She can make them do her bidding now, she just has to decide what she would like them to do. “Act like a pacifier” was their first task, which they handled with much saliva and success. “Grab Sofie” is their newest trick. Next up, “make Sofie act like a pacifier”. Good luck Sofie!

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