Grace and Hazel

Dear Grace,

We’ve come a long way, baby!  I am including a few pictures from your past to show you what absolutely floored me and your Mommy every day—what a big girl you’ve become.

Year 0 – The day after we met you for the first time.  The wires were scary at first but so was your tiny little body.  We got used to the wires and you got bigger.

Year 1 – We were so amazed that it had only been a year, that you had caught up in size and that you were such a big part of our lives.

Year 2 – Wow!

It is the day after your birthday and the right time to write this letter to you as I slowly recover from scrambling around to get everything we needed to make it a wonderful day for you (plus some wine and beer).  In the end, you did more to make it a wonderful day for us, than we ever could for you!  Your Mom and I did not know what to expect from you on your big day because—as a two-year-old—you are somewhat unpredictable.  We orchestrated your birthday party with a very low number of people your size because “sharing” is still not high on the list of things you like to do.  We were worried that a lot of two-year-olds running around and playing with your toys would put you in the awkward position of having to loudly police your guests with your “NO TOUCH!” mantra.  We were either very smart or we underestimated you, as you proved to be more generous than we have ever seen you.  From the moment you woke up from your 3-hour pre-party nap (which itself might deserve a lot of credit), you were the very picture of the perfect party hostess.  You chose to wear the Minnie Mouse dress your Mommy hoped you would wear and you looked incredibly happy to see your backyard decorated with Minnie, Mickey and all of their pals.  Not only did you not get upset with your guests (the old and the young), you greeted them with a smile, hugged most of them and kissed some with enthusiasm.

Your birthday was not the only day that you impressed and surprised us.  Everyday we marvel at your growing understanding of the world around you.  You make sentences and speak languages that we didn’t teach you.  You seem to be learning things without telling us and then springing them on us just when we think you are the same little girl from the day before.  Someday we will learn that complacency is not allowed.

Of course, dear Grace, you are not without your challenges.  Potty training, for example, seems to be one of those skills that you are sandbagging.  6 months ago, when you said “potty” and then proudly grinned while you did it on the toilet, we thought we had one for the record books.  Once mastered, you seem to have decided it wasn’t all that important after all and diapers will do just fine, thank you very much!  In fact, you have become so enamored of diapers that Bla Bla, Baby and everyone else you know now “poop” and you have prescribed one of Hazel’s out grown diapers for each and every one of them.  You seem resistant to any lessons we have to teach you, except when I showed you how to jump on the couch…that one you retained with little trouble.

We take the bad with the good, little Peanut, and can’t possibly fault you for wanting things your own way—you get that from both sides of the family.  Thank you for teaching us more everyday, thank you for being such a great big sister to Hazel and thank you (in advance) for all the birthday parties to come.

We love you very much.

-Mommy and Daddy

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I had a whole extended metaphor involving blossoming flowers and other such First-Day-of-Spring things but waxing poetic just wasn’t in the cards today. Instead, I will just post this adorable picture of our 2-month-old and let it be worth 1000 poetic words.

Hazel is doing very well growing, smiling and cooing. Her biggest trick is something I would call “Sleeping through the Night” if I weren’t forbidden to talk about it for fear of jinxing it. Suffice it to say that it has happened once or twice that the meal after her 10:30pm feeding happens at 6:30am.

Happy Monthiversary, Hazelnut!

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Some mornings a girl just needs her friends. This morning when Grace left the relative comfort of her big girl bed to head downstairs for some Mickey Mouse and milk in her favorite chair, she insisted on picking up every last one of her companions. Not just a rag tag assembly of plush pals, each of these friends gets their share of attention and love.

Of course you know our heroine (1), queen of the troup, leader of the band, “Gacie Gace”, “Self”, and soon-to-be 2-year-old. At her immediate left is her right-hand doll, Bla Bla (2). Bla Bla needs no introduction and nothing could overstate her importance. She’s a best friend, a wise owl-like thing, a costume inspiration and the go-to doll when the world is too upsetting. Just in front of Bla Bla is the original Baby (3) known as “Little One” since the arrival of the bigger babies making Little One a 2nd or even third tier in the baby hierarchy. The demotion works for us, as we always thought of it as Creepy Fetal Baby. One of the newer members of the group is Hazel Bear (4). Hazel Bear was just a common pink bear until someone gave it to Hazel and she, in turn was “asked” to share it with Grace.

Keeping everyone warm and cozy, as she does every morning is Bankie (5). Fully taking advantage and snuggling with Grace under this yellow New Zealand Merino Wool blanket is #2 Baby (6) often known as “Other One”. Other One needs to stay warm as her hat was reallocated to the top tier Baby some time ago. Top tier Baby (7) also known as “Baby” is the best of all possible Babies. She is the one that rides in the car, ALWAYS watches Mickey Mouse, NEVER talks (the hatless baby has a few unintelligible phrases that might also be pigeon impersonations) and is neither creepy nor fetus-like. She does cause concern in the middle of the night, from time to time, when Baby #2′s hat (now squeezed onto #1′s somewhat larger head) falls off. “Oh no!” we hear on the monitor followed by “OH no” and “OH NO” escalating until we get in there to perform an emergency hat reattachment.

Our friend Bear (8) has been mentioned before and was part of the original 4 (7 if you count the other 2 Bla Blas and the second Bear) and is still confused about the fact that he seems to be a lamb. He still gets play but less since the group expanded.

Finally (almost) is Piggy (9). I’m told that Piggy joined by way of a cross-species Halloween costume contest at our neighborhood pet store featuring lobster-Grace and lobster-Lincoln as the winners. Sadly, for Lincs, Grace claimed the prize. Sadly (for us) the thing oinks at random times in the night and its limbs and head come off (as some dog toys do, to avoid tearing) which tends to freak Grace out in the middle of the night.

8-inch tall Cookie Monster (not pictured because he is underneath Grace) rounds out the posse. It is sort of fitting that he missed the photo shoot as he has a tendency to go missing for days at a time when he slips through the cracks of her big-girl bed. Each time he is recovered he gets a hero’s Welcome Home.

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This video has nothing to do with this title except for the part where she is generally a superstar. It will also serve as an excellent clip for the VH1 Before They were Stars segment in 20 years or so.

The favor that I am doing in this post is not putting up video proof (not even recording it) of the duet that Grace sang with me tonight. After nearly two years of singing songs to her every single night (I do the “edutational” ABCs while Jenn pushes the one about the star) before lights out, tonight out of nowhere Grace started trying to sing the words with me. The song wasn’t the best choice for her (I would have gone with ABCs over her choice of “Tinkle, Tinkle”) and she was a little pitchy (while I was right on key) but she tried her level best to remember the next word and say it with me, which came off a little like singing along with a radio song that you don’t really know. Needless to say Jenn was Leprechaun Green with envy when I told her that her song was the first sung and sad that she couldn’t be there to express her Paula Abdul-like pride and support.

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Lincoln may not have appreciated the situation but Grace couldn’t have been prouder to get to control the leash as we walked the neighborhood. Some of her pride may have stemmed from her favorite panda and her wonderful new backpack—made by the same wonderful people who created Bla Bla, Rosy and Gigi (the newest contender for Hazel’s coveted BFF spot)—courtesy of Homer and Marcia.

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Here is another very cute clip!

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It has been a long time coming but we have been waiting for the right moment to let Grace hold Hazel for the first time. She needed to be relatively healthy, happy and willing which haven’t all happened at the same time, until this morning. Mostly we just wanted her to be receptive to suggestions like “Don’t put your finger in Hazel’s eye” or “Hazel isn’t ready to play Bonk” without throwing a world-class tantrum. It turns out that we didn’t need any suggestions at all, she took to big sistering like a champ.

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