Tuesday, March 27, 2012

37 Weeks

We did all sorts of fun stuff with Josie this week - and now that it seems Josie is getting it more that she can mimic - and even initiate - the sounds we make and games we play with her, I expect that this trend will continue :) So this week she started to get the whole "peek-a-boo" concept better, laughing more when we magically reappear rather than just giving her "I'm not amused" look like she used to... and then she started covering her head with burpcloths/blankets and pulling them off herself :)


Josie is also playing the "let's throw things on the floor" game, so it's funny to see the wheels turn in her head as she picks something up, considers it, and then tosses it away to see how quickly it will magically be returned to her. We played this game with her ball too... I would roll it to her, she would pick it up and chuck it over the other side of her leg, and then watch with rapt attention while I collected it and rolled it back to her.

The problem with all of these rapid changes is that I can't handle them. I was just recovering from the cuteness that is Josie shaking her head "no" when she started in with clapping.... who knew how adorable the sound of little baby hand claps is? This is a part of parenthood that I just wasn't prepared for - I knew enough about babies conceptually to be relatively prepared (e.g., that babies didn't sleep too much, needed to be fed and changed, and would eventually crawl and walk, etc.), but for some reason I never contemplated what it really meant to witness someone seeing, learning, or doing something new for the very first time. The amount of enjoyment I get out of seeing Josie's delight with new sounds and games is both unexpected and completely awesome...except when I tear up from not being able to handle the cuteness ;)


This week also marked the first (sanctioned) time Josie got solids at daycare. Poor thing has been having some pretty bad constipation, so we've been giving her some flax oil in her cereal to hopefully help things along, so she got to have some cereal, milk, and flax oil a couple of times last week (along with copious amounts of prune juice). We're still giving her solids for dinner during the week and for most of our meals on the weekends, and the plan currently is to have daycare start giving her more solids once she's 9 months old, since we have been trying to give her a chance to increase her skills in feeding herself and so we can be more careful in introducing foods slowly, given the food sensitivities she had before.

Another first I'm slightly less excited about is that she undid her diaper for the first time. No disaster ensued, but it makes me realize that that's an added benefit for our diapers that have snaps for the closures rather than velcro.

Josie also is able to walk more with assistance. Ryan had been "walking" with her for a while, but it would usually consist of her giggling with her feet dragging as he transported her from one room to another. Lo and behold, last week she started stepping as he did this, which is, of course, adorable.


I was taking pictures of Josie's hair last weekend so I could document a phenomenon I like to call "armpit hair" (which is the bouffant hairdo most often seen after she has a restless night of sleep and ends up sleeping nestled in my armpit), so I took a bunch of pictures of her fluffy hair only for Ryan to tell me he had just washed it. So apparently there is less difference than I realized between her freshly-washed fluffy hair and armpit hair. Oops.
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Miscellaneous cuteness:
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[Watching some Curious George]
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[Winner of the awkward sleeping position for the week]

[Ryan messing with her and Josie getting her revenge]

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

36 Weeks

This week was another fun one in terms of development... but not in terms of sleep, since Josie slept weird all week - waking up more frequently at the beginning of the night, being more difficult to get to sleep to begin with, etc. I blame the time change.

Anyway, last weekend was the first clear example of Josie learning - and doing - from watching someone else. Ryan hit two of her blocks together, she was captivated by the noise, and she then picked up the blocks he handed to her and promptly hit them together herself.


She also, rather adorably, started shaking her head "no"... although I definitely don't think she's doing that to mean "no" yet, especially since we rarely shake our heads at her when we tell her no. Mainly, I shake my head at her ruefully when I ask her what in the world she's doing or tell her she's a crazy baby ;)


Josie continued with her main three sounds/"words" (mamamamamamom, ded-ded-ded-ded-DAD, bob-bob-bob-bob), and also made a few "bla-la-la" sounds and an "n" sound a couple of times, so it looks like she may be gearing up to expand her repertoire again. She also is getting pretty good with her pincer grip, and was able to pick up blueberries and a grain of farrow (although she would usually drop it before actually getting it to her mouth since she would open her hand to examine it first). She also helps Ryan with the night-time routine by turning off the light switch for him :)

This week also marked the first time in her entire life that Josie was put to bed by someone else other than me (thanks, Mom!). Ryan and I went out for a dinner with friends on St. Patrick's Day, and we all survived, so maybe we'll even try it again someday ;)
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We also started putting Josie in 12-month nightclothes, which I insist on calling her "big girl jammies" although they're still really just baby jammies (but bigger and with nubbins on the feet). Ah well. The problem with the 12-month sleepers is that the fit is different now - there seems to be two options: "snug fit" cotton sleepers or looser fit polyester flame-resistant sleepers. I would prefer to have her in all cotton, but it seems we don't have much of a choice: poor kid has such chubby legs that there is zero chance we can stuff her into most of the snug fit sleepers. So I've been spending an inordinate amount of time shopping for the loosest fit cotton sleepers I can find, and I just ordered some 12-mo and 18-mo sleepers (in both materials) since 12-mo clothes aren't nearly as big on her as they were even a few weeks ago.
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[Big girl jammies! And my phone...]
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[...that she licked...]
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[...chewed on...]
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[...and typed on.]


Miscellaneous cuteness:
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[She was more excited to chew on her mat than on the cucumbers we gave her]
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[She rolled herself all the way over to the coffee table, snagged a magazine, and then proceeded to "read"/gurgle at it...]
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[...before taste-testing it and tearing off the outside cover. Go destructo-baby!]


Ryan's latest compilation video, and one of my favorites so far (although I say that with each new one he puts together). This one has Josie doing the following:
  • shaking her head no

  • hitting her blocks together

  • saying "dada"

  • making the "t" sound

  • riding on Ryan's shoulders for the first time (and eating his hair)

  • eating a blueberry with her pincer-grip

  • having one of our first laughing conversations

  • eating lettuce

  • squealing at herself on the video chat

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

35 Weeks

First off, Ryan wanted me to note that Josie threw up in his mouth this week. This was apparently a traumatizing enough event that it needed to be shared :) He had been tossing her around right after she had had a meal and when they were laughing, inches from each other's faces, she managed to share some spit up with him. She had gotten close before (which usually makes me laugh hysterically, at least), but this was the first time she had actually made a goal, if you will ;)

Moving onto less gross topics, Josie is either starting to enjoy solids more, or we just happened to hit upon some favorites so far. After being a bit lackluster about eating some of the (awesome) multi-grain cereal Ryan cooks up each week for my breakfast, she was decidedly more into it this weekend, with the addition of some milk and banana. Usually, I was measuring how much she seemed to like a food based on how much she cried when she dropped it, but this was the first time that she seemed excited and happy about food - kicking (always with the kicking), flailing her arms, and making her "heh-heh" and "mmm-mmm!" sounds all seem to indicate she was a fan :) She also apparently loves blueberries, since Ryan made the mistake of giving her one last night, and then watched as half of his blueberries went to her belly instead of his.
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[Helping clean up]
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[Apparently, watching Ryan use the blender requires one hand to remain upraised at all times...]
P1070345
[...and there's the other one]


I'll have to apologize to Josie for this later (especially if her friends exploit it the way mine have), but while Josie may have gotten Ryan's cute little ears and my dad's blonde hair flecked with gold, I'm starting to think she got my penchant for goofy facial expressions:
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For development this week, she continues to prefer standing over sitting or lying down, since she apparently has lost the ability to bend anymore. We try to get her to sit down, and she locks her knees now so it's like trying to bend a piece of wood. Josie also is initiating silliness more now, which is great. She put her mouth on my cheek and nose last week and then did her "heh-heh" laugh that normally has something to do with food, and then giggled. I'm still not sure what exactly she was doing, but she found it funny, so I did too :)

After a couple weeks of not being too talkative, the babbling is back with a vengeance. She interrupts nursing to babble at the wall, she babbles in her sleep, and babbles immediately upon waking (before her eyes are even open, sometimes). She has also added a new letter, one that I especially like: "m".


Miscellaneous cuteness:
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[Sometimes you just need to put on a pink frilly dress to keep Grammy happy ;)]

[No comment]

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

34 Weeks

This week Josie at least was fairly healthy, while I took almost a full week to recover from my second bout with a stomach bug this winter (after only having had a stomach bug once before in my life). Josie was able to get two more shots yesterday, so we just have one more trip back to the pediatrician in a couple of weeks for another couple of shots, and then she'll finally be caught up on all her vaccines that she had gotten behind on while she was sick a few months back... just in time for the next round of shots :) She's also now up to 22lbs 8oz, and is learning the joys of prune juice since solids seem to be causing some disruption with her digestive system.

My guess is that Josie is going to skip crawling and go straight to walking, since she seems pretty uninterested in crawling at this point and prefers standing over sitting now too. She stood for the first time putting all her weight on her legs this weekend - she had been standing with us supporting her or leaning her against us, but she was able to stand for a few seconds holding onto furniture for support :)
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[Troublemaker]
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[See?]

Josie had a bit of a weird week with tiredness after daycare... she's usually happy each day, but then her tiredness seems to hit her when she gets home, so it's usually a fine line between happy and crying while Ryan gets her ready for bed and I eat dinner. The problem is that if she tips the scale into crying, she tends to go into full on meltdown mode, crying and wailing and only settling down if I nurse her. On Wednesday, I could hear her crying upstairs as Ryan was getting her changed, and then she started to get more quiet... and then silence. Here is where Josie spent 45 minutes of her life Wednesday evening:
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We finally got her to bed as she was stirring between sleep cycles, but that was definitely a first. And then the next day, she fell asleep on Ryan as soon as we got home at 6pm, and she was completely knocked out on him for the next two hours. Poor thing :(

We finally attempted to go to one of our favorite restaurants last weekend, which went really well. We hadn't eaten there since before Josie was born since their service tends to be pretty slow, but the food is fantastic and Ryan had a hankering, so we decided to risk it. We tend to eat out at odd hours to try to reduce wait times (and the number of people who may not have the same appreciation for Josie's vocalizations as we do), and apparently 5:30pm was a good time to go since there was hardly anyone else there and the service was quick. Josie also seemed to enjoy it, and she tried out some rice and Asian pumpkin.
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[Waiting with bated breath for some food]
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[She was actually eating some too, not just wearing it]
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So, we have an ongoing issue with Miss Josie, known as her hair. Bits and pieces of it are getting longer - some even flipping up over her ears now - and it looks like it will be wavy, which is cute and good.
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What is not cute and good is the tendency for her hair to look like a bad wig, or the dreads she gets in the back from rubbing her head back and forth. While I guess it's good that she only had a bald spot for a little while from rubbing her head, the alternative seems to be the rat's nest that shows up on the back of her head every morning.
P1070221
[Minutes after her last hair washing]
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[~12 hours after her last hair washing]
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[~24 hours after her last hair washing = rat's nest complete]

I brush it out every morning, we condition it, I've put coconut oil in it, and yet the rat's nest comes back every day. Daycare suggested cutting it off, but I'm hoping once she's even more active that her hair will have a chance to grow out and then we can cut off the damaged part without having to give her a reverse mullet to do so.

Miscellaneous cuteness:
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[Josie's newly-developed skill of pointing that she likes to show off all the time now]
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[Enjoying our Starbucks - outside! In March!]
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[Several pictures were like this from last week - she's becoming quite the wiggleworm]
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[Sharing her thoughts on Starbucks]