A weekend away

So we finally got brave enough to leave Gracie for a weekend. I thought it would be hard for me, but it turned out to be extremely relaxing! April came down to Vegas and stayed with her. She brought Garrett and Hayden. We stayed with my old roommate Lisa (and Erik and Kyson) in Salt Lake which was so much fun to see them. We went to the Saturday morning session of conference. When we were walking out of conference all I could say to Paul was that was wonderful! I tried to take a picture of us while we were there, but it was just poring rain the whole day. We didn't mind the rain at all, really enjoyed it actually. Paul went back to the conference center for the priesthood session and the rest of the weekend we hit all of our Utah area favorites and didn't feel rushed to get back to the babysitter. I honestly thought we were only going to be able to stay one night because Gracie would be freaking out. When we were leaving I gave her the we are going bye bye for 2 nights speech and she seamed to be registering it. April (affectionately named apple by the nieces and nephews) I am sure spoiled her because she is so good at that. Unless April lied to me then the only time Gracie cared we were gone was when she would wake up in the morning or from a nap. The most shocking was that she was actually quite independent when they went to the park.
When we came back yesterday everybody was on my parents front porch and all I could see were her little pig tails and eyes peaking over the fence wondering if it was really us. I picked her up and tried to hug her, but she didn't want me. She went over to Paul and looked at me like I was a stranger. She has been doing a funny thing lately when she gets mad at me about something then she will actually stop talking to me. How does a 1 1/2 year old know how to do that? It took about 20 minutes and a bribe to take her on a walk in the wagon to get her to come to me, but she still wouldn't hug or kiss me. It wasn't until she was going to bed 3 hours later that she decided I was the real thing and it was safe to love me again.
We missed her a ton and talked about her a lot. When we would see hyper kids in stores we would look at each other and say, "that's Gracie". We loved our week away though and can't tell April how much we appreciate it!
Since April has left, Gracie has looked at me about 15 times and said, "Apoo bye bye?". I think she definitely formed a bond with her this weekend. April bought Gracie a little dog and last night I asked her what the dog's name was and she said,"Apoo!". She also learned a new word this weekend: Ahh Dawt (what's that).
Per request I am posting April's instructions for Gracie that we left on the fridge. When I was typing these up Paul was reading it and said, "Wow, you can tell who is in charge in this house!"

Gracie’s words:
Baba – bottle (she likes these a lot – I don’t care how often you give her one)
Poo poo – sometimes she says this when she has too much pee in her diaper or when she toots (I think she has learned that one now).
Ahssshi – outside
Upee – up please
Ei – levi
Nana - grandma
Ippy – sippy cup
How - help
Bah,garble,garble,garble – blankie (this one is hard you just have to tell that she is looking around for it)
The rest of her words are understandable or just garble.


Gracie’s shows: you can ask her which one she wants and she will tell you.
Dow dow – Dora (for some reason she points to her bum when she says this, grandma always mixes it up with poo poo and changes her diaper)
Pabo – backyardagains
Windawella – Cinderella
Melmo – elmo


Gracie tricks:
Save dora until you want to take a shower, give her a bottle and a blankie and put her in the red chair.
Always tell her where you are going if you are leaving her sight. (she actually lets me go downstairs without her now if I say I will be back in a minute)

Are you cracking up yet? I am.

If you can’t tell what she wants and she is vigorously signing please just say show me and follow her.

If she doesn’t want to let you change her diaper you can bribe her and tell her she can have 2 blueberries or smarties if she lets you change it. (I try to limit smartie intake to one pack a day)

If she is super fussy give her a bottle and take her for a drive. Sometimes she is like her mom and gets a little crazy with lots of people and noise.

She takes one nap a day (1 ½ hours to the minute – kind of creepy). She usually goes down between 10:30 and 1:00. She takes a bottle and cuddles to sleep like bedtime.

She is really good at doing something when you ask her to, she will clean up her mess if you ask and humm the song while she does it, and you can get her to do almost anything if you tell her you are going bye bye – she doesn’t care where just bye bye.



Gracie Food: NO NUTS!!!!! She eats whatever you are eating or she also likes this stuff:
Breakfast – scrambled eggs or oatmeal with a blueberry in every bite (she feeds herself the eggs, but you have to feed her the oatmeal).
Lunch – 4 chicken nuggets (in freezer) or grilled cheese sandwich.
Dinner – gerber soup in her cupboard or anything you are eating.
Snacks – she is a mini version of grandpa (snack baby). If you show her a snack she will tell you if she wants it or not. There are a bunch of snacks that she likes in her cupboard.



Gracie bedtime routine:
Books (optional)
Bath in downstairs bathroom (optional)
Jamies (usually have to bribe her with the next 2 steps to get her in her pj’s)
Prayer (girl you better pray with all your might that she will sleep!)
Bottle (8 oz)
Clear the room of all other people, turn all lights off except the one over the sink, turn on baby einstein