All About Grace: 2 year installment

warning: long post from doting mother

Height: 34" (50 percentile)
Weight: 23 lbs (15 percentile)

There is so much personality in this little girl. She can talk up a storm, laugh at nothing - she's got a hilarious fake laugh, and can sing dozens of songs start to finish. In fact, she knows songs I didn't know she knew, like recently she bust out with this song in the middle of dinner, much to my embarrassment. She substituted "Mommy" for "Daddy" and when I sing it (absent-mindedly) I use the word "gosh" for any questionable profanity. Still, Scott and I just looked at each other with shock. She beamed at us like she was the coolest person alive as she sang and laughed. Honestly, I don't think we'd thought of that song for months before this incident.

If you're a regular follower of my blog, you know Grace loves animals. She is fearless.

Especially when the animals don't seem to want her attention, like random dogs at the park and most cats. She chases after them, begging them to come to her. Size doesn't seem to make an impact on her interest, either. She's been known to chase large weimaraners, getting knocked down in the process, but getting right back up to continue the chase. (Don't worry, I was there and knew the dogs were ok.) A couple months ago I let her outside for a minute while I put my shoes on. By the time I followed her out, this is what I saw:

"C'mere cows"

I think my breath froze as I saw 8 giant cows giving Grace all of their attention. I'm pretty sure she was trying to coax them to her by feeding them dead twigs. Luckily there was an irrigation ditch between them so the cows couldn't reach her.

She still loves soft things and is permanently attached to her blanket. She makes beds out of anything soft. One of her most common "beds" are baskets of clean clothes.

These are also one of her favorite hiding places. She loves to hide and play hide-and-seek. Her favorite hiding place is in our walk-in closet, hiding underneath the long black layers of my witch Halloween costume. The darker it is, the better when we're playing. She likes the lights off and curtains closed. She often says "be darker" and "close curtains" and "turn off the light" and then commands me to pretend sleep while she does the same.

She is a little explorer. She loves being outside, loves dirt, sand, worms, bugs, grass and rocks.

She's smart. I had a conversation with her a couple weeks ago that went something like this:

Grace - "Daddy at work."
Me - "Yup, Daddy's at work"
Grace - "Daddy a doctor."
Mom - "Yes, Daddy is a doctor. You are so smart to know that!"
Grace - "Daddy look eyes. Feel better."
Mom - (shocked) "Yes, he helps people's eyes feel better."
Grace - "Med-cine make cry."
Mom - "Yes, sometimes eye medicine makes you cry" (Scott brought home a Glaucoma book that Grace likes to look through. One of the last illustrations is of an eye with drops being put in and then the eye dripping.)
Grace - (with a happily-ever-after tone) "Feel better!"

It was a surreal conversation. She's really growing up and understanding more than I realize.

Grace eats like a bird, just tiny bits here and there. The only way we can get her excited about eating is letting her eat cooking ingredients raw. Like normal children, she loves licking the spatula when making cookies or sweets and loves pinches of raw bread dough.

But in addition, she begs for raw flour, raw oats (she will eat them by the bowlful), cinnamon, sugar, salt, cornmeal... she asks for the baking powder, too, but I have yet to give in to that one.

Just like her 18 month installment, she still resists the camera. She will look, but almost never smile without me tricking her. Here's the best I could do recently.

Still, how can you not love that face?! I sure do.