Josie told me this morning “I’m ready for you to push the baby out mommy”. We all know the big sister’s consent is really the thing holding back labor at this point. I’m just under 3 weeks to my estimated due date of Oct 8th at this point, although Josie was a week late so it may still be 4 weeks.

I also got my last pre-baby hair cut so I’ve got to agree today is a good day to go into labor, because hey, my hair would look good in the pictures hopefully.

Josie also recently moved out to her own bed. We got it last week and she just moved, we didn’t even ask her to go. It is a really nice mattress, I like when she lets me nap with her there occasionally.

Better go put the baby car seat in the car and pack the hospital bag.

At the end of August we caught the end of the season at Springs Brook Park in Bedford for a birthday party with our friend Neal from our playgroup. Josie was having a lot of fun getting into the sprinklers. It was hard to pull her away even for cake and dinner!

Josie really enjoys her art. Here’s two shots, the first from Ella’s birthday party where she helpfully shared the paintbrush and water with another girl. The second, an odd halo effect, as she finger painted inside.

We’re all about the process at this point, not so much the results. But her finger paintings are slowly becoming more colorful as opposed to one big color block of brown.

Our daughter doesn’t stop talking, all day, and if you dare to stop talking you’ll hear “Talk to me!”. Some of the jewels we’ve enjoyed lately are:

“Winne the pooh? Or winnie the poop? ” Yes our daughter’s first potty joke. Seriously why do they name the bear that?

Me, after being asked to remove a doll’s clothing immediately after putting the too-small clothes on: “Are you trying to drive me insane”
Josie: “yes”

It’s almost the end of August and my last blog post covers stuff from July still. Somehow this month has not inspired me to pick up my camera too much. We’ve been in a full blown baby-prep mode each weekend trying to accomplish a number of tasks to get ready, but it’s not tons of fun or super memorable.

Step 1: Make room for another bed.

Josie still sleeps next to us on her mattress, but with another one coming we need to add more bed space and more separate options to help everyone get more sleep. We’ve rearranged our second ‘bed’room to now have room for an actual bed by removing Jordi’s work-at-home desk, putting more shelves in our closet, moving Jordi’s off-season clothes to the basement, putting Jordi’s clothes into our closet, and putting Josie and new baby clothes into what was Jordi’s dresser. Ezzy was very sad to see the dresser, pictured below, leave.

Step 2: Baby diapers

With Josie we used a cloth diaper service for her first year and then washed our own. This time around, we’ve got the hang of the laundry and it will be much cheaper to do it ourselves. I also took some quilting pieces and an old fleece nightgown that flattered no one and made a big pile of cloth wipes (some are on top of the dresser in the picture above). For those interested in the details, we just picked up some organic infant sized prefolds for the new one. We’ve already got the covers since we had that with the service and we’ve got Josie wearing mostly BumGenius 3.0’s right now and those will fit the baby once it gets bigger too and Josie hopefully stops needing them. Plus I’ve got Josie’s old Thirsties AIO size mediums too. The next diapers we’ll need to buy will actually be Josie’s, but I’m crossing my fingers she’ll finish figuring out the toilet before she gains much more weight.

Step 3: Food

I do most of the cooking in the house and while we wouldn’t starve in the first weeks post-baby thanks to takeout and Jordi’s couple of good meals, we’d probably spend a lot more money eating out once the baby comes. So a few weeks ago we bought a chest freezer and I’ve been cooking on the weekends (and once or twice during the week) to start packing it for post-baby easy eating. So far it’s got chili, waffles, chocolate waffles, black bean soup, brown rice, lasagna roll ups, BBQ/sloppy joes, oatmeal chocolate chip cookie dough, a few things from costco and meals that some of my mom friends we’re so kind to give to me at my baby shower. This weekend I plan to make lentil soup, black beans, more lasagna roll-ups. Making soup in August has been odd, but we’ll appreciate it come November.

The box the freezer came in has been in our living room for the last three weeks. Josie and the cats have been having a blast with it. I’m sick of looking at it. It’s got one more week before the trashman comes for it. This picture was early on, now it has been well covered in marker, stickers, crayons and the cats have made some ‘improvements’ to the roof like a skylight and textured ceiling.

Step 4: Random house fixes and babyproofing

Now that Josie will likely be able to get a few more steps ahead of me at home and be a bit less supervised while I’m dealing with #2, we’ve stepped up some babyproofing of the big heavy things she has never shown any interested in climbing. We’ve strapped the huge bookcases to the wall and will do the dresser this weekend too. We’ve also been doing other small fixes like cleaning in high places I can’t reach, hammering the nails back into our front porch as they eek their way out in the summer, and tomorrow we need to put a vent cover on our bathroom fan vent to prevent the birds that nest in it each spring from moving back in next year.

All in all if the baby came today we’d be ok, the clothes are washed and the diapers are ready. The kid might not have a name though for a while if it’s a boy, we’re uninspired currently. If you’ve got good ideas, let us know.

The driver for our trip to PA was attending Chad and Angie’s wedding and visiting everyone while we still only had one kid to cart along with us. It was Josie’s first wedding and she had a blast. She didn’t actually attend the ceremony as it was in the middle of the afternoon during nap time, which was definitely for the best as it was held in a hot room with major echoes. They had a moving and short ceremony in a beautiful building while perched precariously in the middle of a big huge set of stairs.

Afterwords, Josie woke up from her nap and we drove over to start to party! Everyone had a good time dancing, the little girls at the wedding mostly kicked it off. Josie was in the middle of the pack with a little girl who was almost 3 and a 1 year old also mixing it up. Chad and Angie had a lovely first dance.

Josie and Sammy also had a nice dance. Josie holds on tight. Josie got to try on Sammy’s hat and they showed each other their dance moves.

Oops, things got a little out of control

They had a traditional ‘who’s been married the longest’ dance. Jordi and I held out in good form for a while but my parents held out for second place!

And finally, got Abby in one nice picture.

Towards the end of July we went to Harrisburg, PA where my dad grew up and his side of the family still lives. We stay at my aunt Diane’s house with her family. Ever since they moved into their new house we’ve only been down to visit at Christmas time, usually they are charged with enjoying the long car ride to visit us in the summer. A number of years back they put in an inground pool, which we stare at longingly, in the snow at Christmas. This year, prompted by Chad and Angie’s wedding, we got to visit while the pool was open! We were in it every day and even got Diane into the pool with us, getting her hair wet once.

Josie really liked to pull other people around the pool on the boogie board. Eventually even I got a ride.

Josie got to be fast friends with Phoebe who took advantage of the available petting. The other cats, not permitted downstairs by Phoebe during the day, were not as interested in us.

We also made good use of a neighbors fire pit and made smores one night at the end of the driveway. Todd used a big axe to split the wood and everything. They were yummy, although somehow the chocolate and graham crackers seemed gratuitous, the marshmallows were good enough on their own.

All in all Abby did a good job avoiding my camera as she had a date night when we made smores, rarely joined us in the pool, and then left early for camp before we left town for the final goodbye.

I got some photos of Abby from the wedding… those next post!

This past Thursday Josie turned 2 and 3 months old. We’ve been busy lately traveling and so her usual routine has been uprooted a bit but she’s still held on to a bunch of constants.

The biggest difference have been her language skills, even though its hard to quantify not being a child development specialist myself. She’s been using some complicated sentences in my opinion such as “I want you to open this side, but not the other”. She has dropped her old habit of saying ‘my’s’ for me, my I, etc. She mostly uses the right word and she has started correcting herself when she is using past vs. present tense. She can say her entire name now too and now understands the major question words (what, where, when why, how) that used to elude her. Everything that happened in the past though continues to have happened ‘yesterday’ despite it being actually yesterday or three months ago. Her memory is seriously that good that she will remember things that haven’t come up in months. It’s very helpful when asking her where she put things (like puzzle pieces she now thinks are funny to hide).

Physically she’s running lots. I’m trying to get her walking more and more, but my tolerance for the heat this summer has thwarted that idea a bit as I don’t want to walk anywhere or be out in the heat any longer than I have to! She loves to jump up and down to the ‘up and down’ song from Yo Gabba Gabba.

Her favorite toys right now are her puzzles (24 piece ones most popular) and human-analogs to pretend with. She has amazing focus on the puzzles and once she’s done them a time or two with us she can do them alone.

She loves to play with other kids and is amazingly social (except when doing puzzles). Today at the mall a girl of maybe 6 or 7 came up to her and said ‘hi hi!’ and waved at her before walking away saying how cute Josie was. Josie was a little shocked but then immediately chased after the girl and grabbed her hand and walked half the mall holding her hand. Jordi and I walking behind in amusement. She was not pleased when we separated ways.

She’s a big fan of older girls but plays well for her age with kids her own age. She will most always use her words (loudly) with statements like ‘It’s my turn now!’ when someone grabs or ‘I want it!’. She told Bronwyn the other day ‘Don’t push me!’ after being shoved. I’m so proud of my assertive girl, it’s hard to find that balance and not be aggressive or a doormat and I think she’s getting the idea. Unfortunately other kids (and Josie) don’t always exactly listen to their friends, I often end up repeating what they said to point it out to her.

Numbers and letters have been especially fascinating to her lately and so we’ve been trying to point them out more. She can count to ten reliably and then after that a few start getting lost, but she counts in increasing order, just missing a few or 8 numbers in a row. I’ve been reading probably an hour and a half to her throughout the day, she’s an avid listener and it’s nice for me to get some time sitting.

In her art, she enjoys markers a lot now. This week we got the first demonstration of her understanding the idea of coloring books when she colored one color in the general vicinity of each part of the picture/characters.

Physically she’s been growing like a weed although I don’t have exact stats. She’s put on at least 2 lbs in the last two months, might be almost 30 lbs now.

• Size/weight: size  3T, ~29 lbs and ~36″ tall standing
• Favorite food: cheese, pasta – fairly wide variety, willing to try most things
• Favorite toy: puzzles, water
• Favorite books: Elephant and Piggie books, Amelia Bedelia, Madeline
• Favorite activity: Going outside and playing with other kids, sand play, reading, jumping and reading
• Sleeping: bedtime ~8:30; 1:30pm ~2hr naps; gets up ~6am
• New skill: complicated sentences
• Teeth: 16. 8 on the top and 8 on bottom, still waiting for those molars
• Vocalizations: Almost entirely conversational with strangers understanding her commonly