Quirks and Sweet Things

Every stage drags in a new challenge, but little joys slip in unannounced as well. Here are some of Grace's little quirks and sweet things from the past few weeks.

Grace gets really into her eating - by the end of one of her thirty minute meals, she's usually a complete mess. Examples:

Grace will go at an entire fruit often eating half before deciding she's "daw-done" (all done).

I'm glad my daughter has inherited my love of beans.

And Michael is glad she's inherited his love of rice noodles.

I've always been amazed at the way mothers can extrapolate meaning from their toddlers' babbling. When Grace was eating hummus at lunch and said "mum muhmuh" I knew she was clearly telling me that she thought her hummus was tasty. She calls hummus "muhmuh" and her word for yummy is "mum." Do you see it now? I promise we aren't making this stuff up!

Grace gets into everything. Fortunately, since she's not walking yet, her messes stay confined to a relatively small area.

We've been playing a lot of hide and seek these days. I hide, Grace seeks. Here's her expression at the moment she finds me. Pure joy.

Before we eat a meal together, we pray. Grace pauses her eating to watch us closely as we do our strange ritual of talking with our eyes shut. When we finish and say, "Amen," she says her "Meh-men." Same thing with her nightly bedtime prayers.

Sometimes the following interaction goes down between Grace and me: Grace gets cranky, so I ask her, "Are you hungry?" No response. "Do you want water?" Nothing. "What do you want?" She then thrusts her little finger into my chest and says, "Mama." She wants me.