Thursday, June 28, 2012

50 Weeks

This was a big week! First off, some non-Josie related news: after many months and more drama than we'd prefer, we broke ground on our new house! We closed on the land on Friday, and by Saturday the basement was already being dug out. We still need to finalize our selections, and then once we place the order (we're doing modular construction), our house should be delivered in about 8 weeks and we should be able to move in about 4 weeks after that. It's been a long process and I feel a bit beaten-down by it, but now that everything is moving forward, it seems more safe to get excited again :) We'll be moving about 10 minutes further west from where we are now, to 1.5 acres a half-lot away from the Potomac...and, rather importantly, outside of an HOA ;)
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[The hole that our house will be filling]
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[Our little pond]
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[View from the pond up to our neighbor's house on the left, and our house/hole on the right]
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[Josie supervising the dig]


All sorts of stuff happened with Josie this week. After her bout of hand, foot, and mouth disease, and a cold or two following that, she is finally healthy again now. She no longer consistently falls asleep after nursing, so after floundering around a bit the last couple of weeks, we're starting to figure out how to deal with this turn of events. We now nurse, cuddle for approximately one minute (when it usually becomes obvious that Josie thinks it's playtime), and then Josie gets moved to her crib - awake! - and then I pat her back (or whatever body part I can reach), if needed, until she falls asleep, which has been happening within 10-15 minutes. This is a fairly big deal (to me, at least), since she used to always have to be put in her crib completely asleep, since she would get really upset immediately after being laid down in her crib if she was put down awake, and although she sometimes cries a bit at first now, she has been settling right down and going to sleep well.

The bigger problem is when she wakes up overnight, since she is still waking once between 2-5am, and since she's normally awake after I nurse her now, I had been putting her in her swing for the rest of the night (since she falls asleep quickly in it, and seems to sleep more soundly than on her own). But now that Josie has realized she can pull herself to sitting, the swing has become pretty unsafe for her since she's trying to sit up and fling herself over the sides. So the swing has been retired, and I now have to try to get her back to sleep without any props, which is not usually a quick or easy process :( Also probably overdue for retirement? Her exersaucer and bouncy seat.
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[Just lounging around, waiting for me to finish getting ready in the morning]


Josie's second top tooth came through this week, and she also has started "mmm"ing while eating, nursing, etc., which is super cute but has led to Ryan and I repeatedly finishing her thought by saying "... it does go well with the chicken" (yeah, old school Beastie Boys reference ;) ). Josie has also gotten more into broccoli, strawberries, and snap peas this week, and even shared her food for the first time, by feeding Ryan a snap pea. Snap peas have actually been a great diversion for her, since if we need to keep her entertained for a while, we can give her one and that will keep her going for 15 minutes or so. It's just unfortunate that the sound she makes while chewing it also sounds remarkably like the sound she makes when she grits her teeth, which is like nails on a chalkboard for me...

[Walking, with some teeth gritting towards the end]
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[No pictures yet of her new top teeth, but her two bottom teeth have to be getting close to being fully out now]


After not being too into walking one-handed the last couple of weeks, Josie got back into it again this week. And she even took a couple of steps by herself! Ryan was walking towards me with her and let go of her hands when she was almost to me, and she took the last couple of steps all on her own. After I got all excited, Ryan then told me that she has taken a couple of steps on her own previously with him, but since he didn't enter it into the record book (i.e., my notes or blog), I'm counting the "official" first steps for Miss Josie as occurring on June 23, 2012 ;)
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Miscellaneous cuteness:
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[Dancing]

[Begging for some of my dinner, and then pulling herself to standing]

[Scooting]

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

49 Weeks

This was another sick week for Josie (and me, naturally) - we both recovered from hand, foot, and mouth disease, but then came down with another cold. So she has been coughing and congested all week (I just have a sore throat so far), but at least she's mostly back to her usual happy self, just with a little bit more fussiness than usual. Although that could also be attributed to her teething - one of her top teeth has cut through now, so she's still working on another top tooth, and the possibly another one on the bottom too.
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[This is apparently what happens when we're all home for a sick day - laundry basket rides!]


After how much she liked shaking around the tictac container last week, we tried to recreate that at home. Ryan rightly pointed out that giving her medicine bottles to shake probably wasn't the best long-term plan, so instead we came up with the idea of getting her an egg shaker. Five minutes later, Ryan had ordered one off Amazon, and when it arrived a couple of days later, it was love at first sight:


Ever so slowly, Josie is getting more mobile. She was able to scoot down one of the stairs this week, and seems interested in climbing up them, but her technique isn't the greatest yet (it mainly consists of sticking her legs straight out in front of her and hitting the stairs with her hands). She did push herself up to sitting a couple of times, and also started getting herself from standing to sitting with some control (rather than just plopping herself down on her bum).

[It was a long, pain-staking, overly dramatic process, but here is Josie going from standing to sitting, and then crawling forward some. Sorry for the shaky camerawork - I was laughing so hard towards the end because Josie likes to express her frustration by blowing raspberries]


Josie has also been a bit funny about food the last couple of weeks. So unless it's her beloved blueberries, grapes, or cherries (which she eats by the handful), she had been fussing and throwing the food away. However, we discovered that if the food we give her comes directly from my plate, then it's apparently ok. So problem solved, at least momentarily :) We were going to go in that direction sooner or later anyway - we've been introducing foods fairly slowly to make sure we can tell if she has any allergies, and if so, to what - and the plan was to just start giving her whatever we're eating after she turns one. So in the meantime, she's mainly still getting whole fruits and vegetables, with the occasional meat or food from my plate. But last night, she happily gnawed on some broccoli, red peppers, green beans, and squash, and although she screamed bloody murder at first, she inexplicably became quite enthusiastic about having some liver pate as well.

Miscellaneous cuteness:
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[Don't mind the man with the box on his head...]

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

48 Weeks

So after a good 4-month run of healthiness, Josie was struck down by another virus this week. She had a fever Friday through Saturday, with a rash developing Friday that has almost cleared up today (Wednesday). I had thought her fussiness and fever was likely just due to teething, since she's drooling like crazy right now and about to cut her two upper teeth. But then it seemed it might be more than that with her rash and because she was basically inconsolable Friday night... as in, she was screaming and unable to fall asleep for hours, and only stopped screaming - and finally fell asleep - when Ryan stuck her in the carrier and went on a walk with her. Which worked well until she woke up again, and then he had to head back out in the middle of the night since she was screaming again :(
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[Josie's arm rash]


She seemed to be doing a bit better over the weekend, but I took her to the pediatrician on Monday to see what was going on before sending her to daycare, and they confirmed that she has hand, foot, and mouth disease (note, this is different from hoof and mouth disease!). This is apparently a fairly common childhood virus, characterized by fever and a rash on the hands, feet, and mouth, although in Josie's case, she pretty much had spots all over (including the back of her throat - hence all the screaming), except her trunk. And I tell you what - I understand better now why she was so miserable on Friday. My fever started up right after we got back from the pediatrician's, and after getting up to 102 degrees within a couple of hours, with malaise and a sore throat too, I was definitely hurting on Monday. I've luckily avoided the rash for the most part (except for a couple of spots on my fingers and toes), but the last few days were no fun.... except it was nice to have this as my view when I was working from home this week:
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[Listening to the ocean? No, just pushing her face against the mesh because she's silly]

[Josie hugging on my leg - super cute, but not conducive to working ;)]


In other news, Josie seems to be edging ever closer to mobility. She pulled herself to standing with the couch, and pulled herself to sitting with the bedrail (looking quite pleased with herself, too!). She also stood on her own for maybe 10 seconds this weekend, but then has been quite reluctant to even walk with holding onto one hand now - the kid knows what she likes, and that does not include falling down.
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[Standing!]
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[She does not seem as happy about her accomplishment as we were]


Josie's babbling seems more questioning now - most of what she has to say seems to end in a lilt, which makes her sound like she's saying "huh?" or "what?" all the time. She is still saying "mama" and "daddy" pretty indiscriminately, and possibly "baby" and "hi" too.

[Apparently, "mama" also can be used to address her hamper...?]


Miscellaneous cuteness:
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[Doing funny things with her hair and one pointy finger]
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[Not too sure about kale]
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[Scrunchy-face! (clearly happy about something, but probably not the liver pate she had just tried)]
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[Like father, like daughter]
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[It's a baby in a basket!]

[It's a dancing baby in a basket!]

[Josie with her new favorite toy]

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

47 Weeks

This week, Josie has gotten more helpful (in her own way), and more mischievous. She has been handing stuff to us (mainly so we can hand it back to her) more and more, which is still super cute now, but I can see where this may lose its novelty soon enough ;)


She also "helped" me fold laundry - that is, she grabbed whatever it was that I was folding, threw it over the side of the couch, and then pulled herself over to admire her efforts.
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Josie is finally making some forward movement now - not exactly crawling, but she's scooting herself around a bit more now, when properly motivated. She was able to pull herself over to Ryan last weekend... it was slow, pain-staking progress, but she eventually made it to him, with her reward being her first spicy food: General Tso's chicken.


All of these shenanigans culminated in this:
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[Told you she was a trouble-maker - getting patted down]


Josie continues to just be delighted by life... for the most part. She has been a bit more difficult at night again, no longer always falling asleep after nursing, which has led to some creative thinking on my part to get her back to sleep (never an easy thing when it's the early-hours of the morning and I'm tired). She also has been waking up anywhere from 30 minutes to more than an hour earlier than normal... which means Ryan has ended up taking her on his morning walk so I can get ready for work in peace. The only problem is Josie weighs quite a bit, so the extra weight has been slowing down/wearing Ryan out too. So we're both running a bit low again right now.... but then she does adorable things like this, which makes everything seem better :)

[Lip-smacking and giggles]


So this week Josie's hair finally got long enough (and got in her eyes enough) that we actually did something about it. We're not really big ribbons and girly froufrou sort of people, so this is kind of a big deal for us :) So we caved, and Josie now wears... barrettes. I know. It's a big step. I think it makes her look a bit older, especially once I saw the series of pictures I took below. I think these are notable not only because Josie looks older, but she also looks like a completely different baby in each of them, although they were taken right in a row with the only difference being that I used flash for the first one.
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And here's a minute in the life of Josie: noise-making, clapping, giggling, getting distracted by her hands, strategizing and then executing her plan to eat an infinitesimal amount of food that was on her hand (while ensuring her lower lip was stuck out at the appropriate distance), and then capped off with some waving :)


Miscellaneous cuteness:

[I included this video almost entirely due to Josie's facial expressions when Ryan is drumming on her head]
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[This is the scene I walked into last week - Josie had grabbed her books on her own and was studiously "reading" two at once :)]
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[After a belated birthday/Mother's Day lunch with my mom, brother, and his girlfriend (now fiancee!)]