Grace is 4!

Well, our baby turned four on October 8.  Can you believe it??!!  We had a party at our house on the actual day to celebrate.  We were so lucky to have an absolutely beautiful day.  It was 80 degrees and sunny!  We rented a bouncy house which was a big hit with the kids and some of the adults!  We painted pumpkins and decorated visors for the kids to wear home.  Grace chose a Fairy Princess theme.  Surprise!  She was concerned when we picked up the cake.  She had wanted a chocolate cake, which is what we ordered.  But when she saw it had white frosting, she thought the whole cake was white.  I assured her that the cake part was chocolate!  She was very happy when the cake was cut and she could see the chocolate inside!

I need to catch up on all that happened during the rest of the summer and the beginning of fall.  The first two weeks of August, Grace took swim lessons.  She is such a fish!  She loves the water and made really good progress on swimming by herself.  She passed the class with flying colors.  The only thing that she didn’t demonstrate was holding her breath under water for 3 seconds.  Of course, she does this all the time when she is with us and even when she is in the bathtub. 

We bought Grace a tag-along bike that hooks to my bike.  She loves it!  It’s a lot easier for me compared to the weight of pulling her in the trailer.  The whole balance thing is a little tricky to get use to.  If she leans to one side, I have to really be on alert to compensate so that we don’t fall over!  No falls yet, knock on wood!  The longest that we’ve gone is five miles.  She did really well and didn’t want to stop even then.

In August we took a long weekend and headed Up North.  We wanted one last getaway before going back to school.  We stayed at Shanty Creek Resort, which was the perfect location.  We went up to Petoskey and Charlevoix for a day.  We also went the other way to Traverse City.  It is just so beautiful up there.  The highlight for Grace was the swimming pool.  She is fearless with the life vest on and wants to be fearless with the life vest off, but she’s not quite ready for that.

Just to keep myself involved in music, I teach piano lessons at our house.  I only have five students, so it doesn’t consume too much of my time.  Anyway, Grace is usually there with me in the room while I’m teaching the lessons.  I always have a pile of things for her to do to keep her occupied while I’m teaching.  Since she is in the room, she is hearing everything that I say to my students.  I really never dreamed that she was really listening, but here are some examples.  Whenever I am having my students review the names of the lines and spaces on the staff, Grace will pipe in and complete them before the students even have a chance.  Grace knows E, G, B, D, F for the treble clef and G, B, D, F, A for the bass clef.  She also knows the sayings that go with them, i.e. Every Good Body Deserves Fudge.  She doesn’t understand how it correlates to the piano or the music, but it sure is a good start.  Here’s a funny story.  We were having breakfast together back before school started.  We were just eating and talking about nothing in particular when Grace asks me, “Mommy, can you show me a dotted half note?”  My mouth dropped and then I just started cracking up.  I couldn’t believe she had any idea about a dotted half note!  Of course, I grabbed a piano book and showed her right away what a dotted half note looked like!

Grace has always been one to ask a lot of questions – about everything!!!!  Lately, she has been asking a lot of questions about God.  She loves to read from her Bible.  We also have a couple of books that she likes to read.  They are “I Am a Promise,” “God Knows All About Me” and “Where Does God Live?”  She picks both of these books frequently.  Anyway, here is just one of the great questions that she asked me.  “Mommy, does God go potty in the boys’ or the girls’ bathroom?”  Oh, my!  Where does she come up with these questions?

We had our very last post-placement report due in September.  Three years ago, it seemed like that date was so far off.  What an amazing three years!

School started for both of us.  I’m back in first grade – Yay!!!  The first two weeks of preschool were pretty rough for Grace (and me).  We had tears and clinging when I was leaving.  Oh, man, that is so hard!  She goes to preschool two days a week.  The other three days she goes to the same daycare that she has always gone to.  It’s now been about six weeks and things are going much better.  She is still not as comfortable at school as she is at daycare, but there are no more tears.  She seems to love “circle time” at school, because we have to have circle time every night at least two or three times.  She is always the teacher, of course.  She also loves the “projects” that she does.  She has to hang them on the refrigerator as soon as we get home.

This week was “D is for Dinosaur” week at school.  I was talking to Grace about it.  I asked her if she learned any other words that started with D at school.  She was taking her coat off at the time, so she said “coat.”  I said, “Coat starts with c, /k/.  D makes the /d/ sound.”  Grace replied, “Okay, da coat!”  She is getting quite the sense of humor!

Grace just had her four year check-up.  She is doing great!  She is at the 50^th percentile for height and the 30^th percentile for weight.  She’s long and lean.  Her doctor was talking to her about Halloween.  The doctor said, “Grace, when you go trick or treating, what are you going to say when you go to the door to ask for candy?”  Grace said, “First I’ll say please.  Then I’ll say thank you.”  The doctor started cracking up.  Isn’t she just the cutest thing???!!!

Well, I think that catches us up for now.  I’m going to try to be better about posting in a more timely manner.