Finally caught up!

While I love posting pictures on here for everyone to see, I get really behind because I hate how long it takes blogger to upload the pictures from my computer! So while I will still try to post pictures, I'm going to start posting more things about Gracie that I want to remember. She is growing up so fast and changing so much every day and I don't want to ever forget these days.

Gracie is one busy little lady right now. She goes to speech therapy on Tuesdays, preschool on Wednesdays and Mommy&Me tumbling on Thursdays. At her two year appointment, we were referred to Cincinnati Children's for a hearing test and speech evaluation. She passed the hearing test with flying colors, but the speech evaluator gave us a speech therapy referral. She started speech on Aug 17. When she started she had somewhere around 30-40 words and wasn't putting two words together. I'd say we have closer to 75 words now and she is starting to put words together. This morning, she told Nick "bye-bye, dada" when he was leaving for the airport. At one point, the speech therapist suggested we back off on the therapy, but she hasn't mentioned that since. Gracie likes going (they sit and play for an hour), so I'll continue it as long as they let me.

After a terrible storytime at the library, I thought Gracie would benefit from being around other kids in a more "structured" environment once a week, so I enrolled her in preschool. (This was before we started speech.) Now I am so glad we did! I think she is learning a lot from preschool, including new words. (I am pretty sure she learned the word "bus" at school.) As hard as it was for me to leave her the first day, she has NO problem being left. This week when I dropped her off, I was talking to the classroom aide and Gracie made it a point to wave at me and say "bye bye." As in... it's time to go, Mom... you're taking too long to leave! I try not to take it personally :-) ... I read that it means that she feels secure enough to know I will return.

I enrolled her again for the tumbling class we took last year. It's amazing how much she has grown over the past 9 months... she is learning how to do a front roll, she will swing from the bar on her own, she loves the balance beam and tumble track.

I must get off of here and go to bed... Nick is in Baton Rouge for a few days and morning is going to come way too quick! But I have to tell a funny story... which requires some background info so bear with me...

Grandpa has introduced Gracie to Spongebob. Apparently, in one episode, the girl (squirrel?) is at a rodeo (I think) and she takes her cowboy hat off and says, "Howdy, cowboy." Gracie will run her hand along the side of her head (to take her pretend hat off??) and say the Gracie equivalent of "Howdy, cowboy" which is really just a mumbling sound, but it sounds the same every time she does it.

Fast forward to speech therapy this week.... The therapist and Gracie are playing with the Little People farm and all the animals. Her therapist is trying to get her to say names of animals and their sounds. Every time she said, "horse", Gracie would run her hand along side of her head and do her version of "howdy, cowboy." EVERY.TIME. I was cracking up on the insides, but way too embarrassed to tell the therapist that my child, does indeed, like Spongebob. Grandma and Grandpa LOVED it when I told them... I'm sure Grandpa is very proud of both Gracie and himself. LOL