The Great Communicator

As you all know by now, Grace battled a pretty good cold last week. Colds and little ones are seriously no fun. You're always on the look out for it to turn into something more serious (ear infection, bronchitis, etc) and they are a mess to get to sleep. Whenever Grace has a cold, it's a sleep disaster. She's pretty much up at least 3 times a night. Back in the old days, this was par for the course but Grace has slept through the night for a few months now and we're simply not used to it.

We had plans to meet friends up at Peddlar's Village on Saturday. Despite not sleeping well and not even napping that day, we decided to give it a try feeling in our guts that the visit would probably be cut short. We were pleasantly surprised when Grace was as charming as ever and full of fun and smiles. She even hung in there throughout dinner which was a nerve-racking experience. With Grace, eating out either goes really well or really poorly. It was a nice restaurant but not fancy (The Porterhouse--very yummy beers) and there were other kids there so I breathed a sigh of relief. I came prepared with an arsenal in the diaper bag. In addition to the usual slew of diapers, wipes, antibacterial wipes, and change of clothes, I packed goldfish, fig newtons, two types of sippy cups, bibs, a placemat (with Elmo on it!), tylenol (for her--not us), and various toys to keep her occupied. She hung in there through dinner and we wrapped up just as she had had enough. Hurray!

Grace fell asleep on the way home and we congratulated ourselves on having the best-behaved baby in the entire world. When we got home, we planned to slip her PJs on and gently place her in her crib for some well-deserved slumber. Grace, however, had different plans. Seems we may have pushed her a little too far and she SCREAMED for close to an hour. She was overtired and overstimulated and we both traded off holding her while the others ears could momentarily heal. The only thing that got me through the terrible screaming (and terrible guilt for not getting her home sooner) was her "flower moment." At Peddlar's Village there is a very small green area landscaped with great flowers. Grace loved puttering around and looking at all the flowers. We encourage her to be "nice" to the flowers because she loves to touch them. There was another little girl maybe 3-years-old also looking at the flowers. Grace puttered over to her, squatted down by the flowers, and gestured with both her arms spread outward and said "glecht"--in her "aren't these flowers awesome!" voice. I could have cried it was so cool. The little girl pretty much ignored Grace so she did it again. Then the little girl walked away. OK--second moment I could have cried is coming. Grace waves "bye bye" to her. I love watching Grace wave because it's a full arm motion complete with a hinged elbow moving back and forth. When the little girl didn't reciprocate, poor Grace looked up at me with that bewildered "why didn't she wave back mom?" look. I scooped her up and gave her a big hug and she seemed to immediately forget what had happened. So this image kept me going as we both tried to soothe our very overtired baby who truly did deserve "baby of the year" award not only for hanging in there when she was exhausted but because she loves to share life's beautiful treasures with others. Or at least she did on this day!