On Jordi’s birthday we took Josie to a crazy kids playground place called Kids Playground. It’s a huge space with giant climbing mazes, dress-up/pretend spaces, and bouncing houses. It would be the most amazing thing for a kid in the 3-10 age set I think. Josie was pretty clingy for the first hour and then she got comfortable and was off to the races. They have a small space for little kids under 2 as well, but they don’t do anything to keep the bigger kids out which made things a bit dicier (we saw kids kicking and hitting one another, but I think they were siblings, which I suppose makes it slightly better?). But we had fun, and the adults can climb on the structures too which we certainly had to do with Josie although some spots were pretty tight!

She really loved to play in the little house and open and shut the door. She also liked chasing other small children. She did not like the big slides that had a lot of static. She also liked the sesame street characters painted on the wall and gave them several kisses.

Ezzy loves to sleep on the babycarrier whenever she finds it on the couch. It’s lined with Minkee.

We found this hanging off the roof from my parents house, she really enjoyed chewing on it.

Josie and the icicle

I’ve fallen behind in the food documenting arena again, but there haven’t been any great reactions. Over the last several weeks since she turned 9 months we were able to introduce some new foods like egg yolks and olive oil! She doesn’t eat or drink the olive oil, but I can use it now to cook some of her foods. None of these foods were particularly big hits to begin with, but after a few weeks of offering it to her Josie has decided that avocado now beats broccoli for best food in the world. Good thing the stores had sales on avocados last week. She will sit and eat almost an entire one in a meal. We started on black beans yesterday but it took a lot of cajoling to even get her to put it in her mouth. I expect that like avocado she’ll try them more later and like them more then.

One thing that the egg yolk and oil gave me was a chance to actually do some food combinations and cooking. For instance, I made her broccoli potato “fries” shown below. They weren’t a huge hit although I thought they were pretty tastey.

Her appetite for food has increased quite a bit and she will eat surprisingly large amounts of food. I’m also starting to appreciate the fruit that she eats because I don’t have to cook it, just cut it. I think the avocado mask she gives herself nightly also might be helping to improve her complexion!

Her cold from last week finally ended after almost three weeks, and that combined with the daily avocado and olive oil on other foods seems to have given her the small double chin back again which makes me feel better. This week she goes to the doc to confirm the ear infection is gone and we’ll get another weigh-in.

Broccoli potato fries

No wait, it’s Jen’s hat, scarf, reusable bag, and even Jen’s dress/vest from when she was a baby. But no, it’s Josie!

Josie decked out in mom's stuff

We took these photos for her passport! We are hoping to take a vacation one of these years.

Carrying the baby, vaccuming, and feeding her all at the same time.

Jordi and Josie

How her first year keeps flying by! We’ve been struggling this month with more colds but she’s gotten so strong and lots taller. About two weeks ago she did a major growth spurt which made all of her 12 month pants suddenly fit rather than require a bit of rolling.

This past month she’s spent her time perfecting her walking. She’s learned to slow down while going over door jams and hold onto the wall. In general, she’s excellent at walking anywhere she wants to go. She moves very quickly and if she hears the baby gate open she charges after me. She doesn’t need her carts anymore at all although they are still fun for her to play with. She can even ride her cart herself and bounce on her Rody with many squeals of delight.

Her coolest new skill that she loves is clapping. She doesn’t make a noise yet but she’s so thrilled when we sing clapping songs that she can join in now! She also can roll a ball back to you, although she tends to get up and take the ball with her in the middle of the game.

She is also enamored with flipping pages while reading books. She goes forward and backwards and even has enough patience and self-control to generally wait until I indicate that I’ve finished reading the page.

She’s gotten very loud and likes to babble to herself as she walks around playing with things. Her favorite habits as of late are picking up our shoes and carrying them around. She often brings me my slippers. Our underwear also mysteriously moves from the laundry pile around the house. She also likes to pick up all small pieces of anything on the floor and I have to watch her carefully to make sure she isn’t eating icky things (or at least spits them out).

• Size/weight: size 12 month; 28 inches tall and 16 lbs 1 oz
• Favorite food: breastmilk, broccoli, potatoes, rice cakes
• Favorite toy: sophie the giraffe
• Favorite book: touch and feel books
• Favorite activity: walking everywhere and picking up small pieces of things and our shoes
• Sleeping: bedtime ~7:00; two one hour naps if I get her in the car or the stroller; gets up 6-7am
• New skill: clapping
• Teeth: 3 4!  two on the bottom and top. That second top one came in last night after I wrote this
• Vocalizations: very loud, ma ma, baba, dada, aat

Josie sneaking up on Fred

Josie snuggling Fred

We took Josie in today for her 9 month well-baby visit and she is continuing her skinny trend. Unfortunately she’s been sick for about the last week and a half and it has had a real impact on her appetite and so I think she’s dropped a little weight recently. Per usual, I have also been sick at this time which probably doesn’t help things either. Everyone on the town email list keeps saying that everyone has one really bad winter with each kid and then their immunity improves. Let’s hope this is the one. Oh and Josie has her second-ever ear infection because of this cold but the antibiotics seem to have cleared some of that up but haven’t removed the pain.

Anywho… onto the data. She weighs 16 lbs 1 oz which puts her in the 8th percentile for weight (kids on average gain 1/2 a lb a month after 6 months, this was a one pound gain for her over three months). She is 28 inches tall, but I don’t think they did a good job measuring as I think that’s a little shorter than she really is. That puts her in the 67th percentile. Looking at the weight for length charts for girls, she has now fallen off the bottom. She really does seem to enjoy eating at least but she just doesn’t stop moving ever so the doc says she’s just burning it all off. The doc was not concerned, Jordi and I are a little disconcerted.

Any other of you parents have similarly stringbean kids that have pudged out a little?

Josie's lovely face