Josie has started to pick up some more words. Lately we hear a lot of ‘up’ and ‘bye-bye’ continues to be a favorite. She also says ‘hat’ and ‘hot’. And she also says ‘ba ba’ to mean avocado, so we’ve got a ways to go. Alternatively she understands most everything and we’ve resorted to spelling some words around her (such as avocado and park). Thankfully she’s starting to have a little patience for delays because of her understanding, such as when I had to bring the groceries in and put them away before we could go back outside and play. She showed a moderate amount of acceptance that I brought her inside and she sat and watched me put the food away. Once I finished, then she grabbed my hand and started screaming to go out.

She has gotten much better at making her wishes known by pointing and saying ‘yah/dah’ when we get it right or ‘no’. Or she’ll bring me my shoes and point to the door to let me know she wants to go out to play.

She also seems to know what she wants to eat most of the time so I’ve stopped playing the ‘do you want to eat this? game’ and instead I just open the fridge and put her in front of it and let her grab what she wants to eat. So long as it’s not soy sauce and it’s actual food, that’s what she gets. It’s much faster for me!

Unfortunately pointing and yes and no only get you so far sometimes and she’s getting a bit frustrated when she wants something and we’re just not catching on. She keeps trying to tell us though! Sometimes though that’s just her being tired and not knowing herself what she wants.

Last weekend we went to our friend Mia’s birthday party (she turned 1) and while we somehow didn’t get any photos of the birthday girl herself, a good time was had by all. Mia and her mom Sara are a friend of ours from the Friday morning new mom’s support group that I used to attend when Josie was little. Thankfully we still hang out with a bunch of those women still and have a great time. It is amazing to watch them grow and now it’s even more fun that more of them are getting mobile, for a long time it’s just been Josie walking (since none of them decided to get up and walk at 8 months).

Josie really liked Mia’s picnic table as well, she’s exploring it by herself and with our friend Luke in the photos as well.

Tonight at dinner Josie was dragging her food across the table. I told her that ‘food stays on the plate or in your belly’. She considers, looks a little confused, and then lifts up her shirt to bring the food to her belly.

Guess I’ll need to be more specific next time about her mouth and someday we’ll go over the whole digestion idea. She’s been having a ball lately with learning body part names, she knows ear, nose, belly, feet, hair, hands, eyes, well you get the idea. We’re still working on elbow and knee.

Today Josie wanted to play in the sink today. So she asked for a bath, and I told her she didn’t need one. She was disappointed, but she went into the bathroom herself. She brought out her potty seat into the hall in front of me. She sat on it (fully dressed) and clapped for herself like we often do for her. Then she stands up and tells me she needs to wash her hands because obviously you need to wash your hands after using the potty.

Clearly someone is watching us. I thought it was funny enough to warrent some playing with the water in the sink time.

[oops somehow I didn’t publish this last week]

This weekend we went to the Lions Carnival in Lexington on both Saturday and Sunday. Josie went on her first merry-go-round, ferris wheel and roller coaster. She had her first soft serve ice cream and for the first time actually liked some kind of ice cream. I definitely recommend this to other families, although the money disappears very quickly. Josie really loved to watch the other people. She also came up with a new ‘wierdest nursing spot’, which was on the top of the ferris wheel (while buckled in as they loaded everyone else). Thankfully it was pretty private. I think Josie will be a good roller coaster partner when she gets bigger, she only disliked one ride that was very spinny.

I had the pleasure of going on a (non-baby) ride called the “Freak Out”. It was awesome. You might be able to sort of see me on the ride, I’m wearing a red shirt and jean shorts and on the right most seat of the side. Here’s what it did:

We finally got some summer-like weather here yesterday and I took Josie over to the local spray park and playground for some good clean fun and a picnic. I highly recommend it as it’s easy to park, lots of room and the water is super shallow so it’s easy for the toddlers.

You can get an idea how high they go from the this picture of our friend Chrissie and Nolan who joined us.