Grace and Hazel

While this monthiversary is practically ignored by Hallmark—who consistently fail to even offer a card for it—we can’t help celebrate for a number of reasons. First, we like to celebrate stuff. Second, it’s right after Thanksgiving so we are already thinking about things we are happy about. Third, it’s right after Thanksgiving so I have a little time to write and peace and quiet as Grace is in bed with Nana, Poppy and Jenn watching Sesame Street (I think they ALL might learn a little something). Finally, Layla and Nicole Fanucci our favorite art and wine family (they make both) took some great pictures, which means less work for me. It’s a Happy and Lazy weekend for me!

Turkey Day and Chicken Day

We had a wonderful, quiet Thanksgiving Dinner with Nana and Poppy and Marcia and Homer (who go by “Mimi” and “Popau” to Grace). For what it is worth, Grace was thankful for: all these people giving her lots of love, Elmo, the right to throw tantrums, (Big) Baby, Bla Bla, (Little) Baby, Bear and (New) Baby…oh and Lincoln (kind of).

The day after Thanksgiving, we visited the Fanucci compound in the heart of St Helena specifically to see how Rob and Layla have filled their empty nest and give Grace a chance see where two of her favorite things, eggs and chicken nuggets, come from.  Maggie, Matilda, Mia, Merdel, Mabel, Maybeline, Madison, Madeline and Marabella did their part in delighting our little girl giving her another 9 things to be thankful for.  We look forward to seeing them all when we go to Napa for visits.  Fortunately, M&M&M&M&M&M&M&M&M can be thankful that they are there purely for the eggs and entertainment, they’ll never be nuggets!

Mmmm tastes like chicken!

Walking, Talking and…um…more.

At 20 months, Grace is hitting milestones like they are going out of style. In the last month she has taken to walking more than ever before and is getting better and better at it everyday. Her vocabulary is also improving and she is able to name almost everything that she tries to kiss. There are even some word combos coming out that imply a sentence, though they generally include one real word and something in gibberish. She repeats her gibberish with such conviction that the words are sure to mean something, if we were only smart enough to know what.

Her greatest and latest accomplishment—other than the appearance of several drool-inducing, cheek-reddening, sleep-depriving, food-averting teeth—has been in the bathroom.  I will try to exercise some discretion here, but where she has been slow in the walking department, Grace has more than made up for in the potty training. Before we could crack open even one of our dust-gathering parenting manuals to the bathroom chapter, Grace started to ask to sit on the potty.  Soon after that we hit the #1 jackpot and as of about half and hour ago, she managed the #2 coup de grace and a well-deserved royal flush.

Coming Soon: Hazel

Not a moment too soon, Grace’s favorite bedtime book changed recently from “Goodnight Moon” to “I’m a Big Sister Now”.  She can’t possibly understand how relevant these seemingly fun words and pictures will soon be to her everyday life.  She has a loooong way to go to understand  sharing and the importance of being gentle to the babies she claims to love. She knows that there is something in Mommy’s belly called Hazel and she loves to kiss and pat the belly but the gravity of the situation is clearly lost on her.

We could not have asked for a better 20 months with 1 wonderful daughter and we look forward to the next 2o with a certain large massive amount of concern fear terror that same wonderful daughter and whatever is about to descend upon us.

Grace, we love you VERY much and that will not change with the arrival of your sister Hazel.  What will change is…well everything else in our lives, as we know them.  We can’t promise that it will be easy or fun all of the time, but we are in this together so it can’t be all bad.

If I can get as much joy from a turkey dinner as Grace gets from a container of yogurt, this will be a truly wonderful holiday. She is so thankful for her yogurt that she insists on kissing the baby on the package everytime. This is not surprising, though, as Grace insists on kissing EVERYTHING, be it the car, her doll, her hat, her jacket, the bathtub (and the water it holds), her dolls, the kids at daycare, the trees, the birds or Lincoln. She is so thankful for a world full of wonders that she spent half her time air kissing until she learned that kisses could actually be THROWN from a distance.

This holiday, around the dinner table, we may skip the verbose method of being thankful and take a page from Grace’s book. Family…MWAH! Health…MWAH! Good food…MWAH! Good friends…MWAH! Good times…MWAH!

BABY 11-18-09_7

Originally uploaded by Lincoln Topliff

Jenn thinks she looks like Grace. I think she looks like Grace rendered in wet cheese (so we can both be right). We managed to coax a smile from young Hazel during her ultrasound today.

She appears to be agreeing with Jenn MUCH more than Grace did. While, it remains to be seen if that will be a lifelong trend, Grace HAS set the bar is pretty low for her sister.

Hazel is measuring in the 65th percentile and–weighing in at an estimated 3lbs 6oz–she is bigger than Grace was at birth by half a pound. Dr Katz suggested that we have a 70-80% chance of making it all the way to January 25th with a baby in the belly! That’s our “take home baby” (poo, poo, poo)!

That may not sound like it’s worth blogging about but if you consider where we were 1 pregnancy ago, it is pretty noteworthy. Today “we” are 29 weeks along which–in my ongoing parallel universe theme–puts us at the day that Jenn went into the hospital. The next day, I would write this email and scare the hell out of everyone I knew. The good news, and the thing worth writing about is that we are happily sitting at home, recovering from Grace’s inexplicable pre-dinner tantrum and thinking about what kind of trouble two little girls could really be. Quiet is nice.

“Do these stripes make me look pregnant?”

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“Hat”

Right on the heels of her counting trick, Grace proved that she she can get through (most of) the alphabet. She still prefers to point at her eye rather than say “i” but we think she is really getting it.

She may not know exactly what it is all about, but it gets such a happy reaction out of Mommy and Daddy! Imagine what “four” and “five” might do.

From the very beginnings of our story we have touted the importance of having multiple Bla Blas around the house. As the best friend, Bla Bla gets dragged around the floor and through whatever Grace is getting into. Bla Bla gets very dirty, very smelly and we need to make sure that there is always a Bla Bla to hug while one is getting washed. Plus there is the danger of Bla Bla getting left behind or worse, lost. Well the worst happened and we were down to one Bla Bla so Jenn put in an order for a new one. As you can see from the picture, a fresh Bla Bla looks like a distant, well-fed cousin to the one that has been loved for awhile.

Fortunately, Grace doesn’t seem inclined to notice or care that her friend seems to have mysteriously put on some pounds. In fact, she seems to like a little meat on her friend’s…um, bones?…as evidenced by the force-feeding video below.

I don’t think I have to write anything at all about this one…but I will anyway. Crawling is, for the most part, passé in (and outside) our house. Sometimes Grace announces that she wants a hand and sometimes she just goes for it on her own with no sense of danger at all. Even falling doesn’t deter her from wherever it is that she wants to go.

IMG_0669.JPG

Originally uploaded by Lincoln Topliff

I have another post that I was going to put up but I was stopped in my tracks by tonight’s events.

The story starts last weekend, when Grace and I were hanging out in the playroom. “Poop”, she told me.

“Oh, you pooped?”

I checked…no poop.

“Poop”

Nothing.

5 minutes later, there it was….my missed opportunity for some potty training.

Over last few days, we have become a little more potty aware and Grace has started pointing at it at bath time. If she is willing to sit, I am willing to put her there. As a result, we have had some quality time to spend discussing the various Sesame Street characters on the little potty seat that we bought. “Melmo”, “Bird” and “Nernie” are her new best friends. That said, it has been just a bunch of sitting until tonight. As Jenn came upstairs, bottle in hand, she found us sitting on the pot, talking about whether we were ready to get on with the diaper and PJ process when we heard the little tinkle of success.

I don’t think we are anywhere near trained here, but…WOW…we didn’t see this happening for a good long while. Given her previous reluctance to walk, I figured we would be lucky to get her to sit on the potty before her first communion…I mean bat mitzvah. (oops)

Needless to say, we showed the appropriate amount of pride and she squealed with delight so there is a chance that we are onto something good here.

Stay tuned.

Fall back with me, if you will, to 20 months ago. If this was Grace’s pregnancy, today would be 3/5/08. This day in history, Jenn would have been put on bed rest for her blood pressure and we were feeling wildly inconvenienced. Little were we to know what “inconvenienced” really meant.

The good news (today) is that Jenn is being followed closely by experts in the field and she is NOT on bed rest. We are already winning! We remain cautiously optimistic. Though she is increasingly uncomfortable, Jenn feels like this is a different pregnancy. Hazel is kicking a lot, but she seems content to stay in there and cook longer than her sister did.

The important thing, is to touch wood and say “poo, poo, poo” every time we talk about this going ok. I will continue to dutifully do that while I remember what it was like to be us in the spring of last year.

Stay tuned.