We left for our cruise on a Friday to give us lots of breathing room for a ship that left on Saturday afternoon.The girls did pretty well on the flight down there although we flew Spirit (aka nickel and dime air) and the infant seat could not fit in-between their seats even though we had tons of empty seats in which to put it. Had we actually bought a seat, they would have had to bump the people in the bulkhead seats for us to make us fit. Celia is not quite as good a flier as Josie was, she was more agitated but still did ok, just wore us out some more. We flew directly to Fort Lauderdale and stayed on the Sheraton on the beach (a nice splurge for us!) so we’d have easy access to fun play time in the sand and surf.

We got a room right next to the beach and we headed out for some play in the sand and surf. Josie had just about no interest in the water at all and Jordi declared the water to be cold (in May, in Fort Lauderdale). You can guess how much he likes the water here in new england in the summer! I got in the water a little, Celia hung out on the blanket and played with the towels and sand. We played in the pool too and got some food.

We got a reminder never to turn out backs on the kids near the pool because Josie just completely ignored the steps in the pool and dropped in over her head and I got to pull her out, thankfully I was only two steps away. I tried not to show how scary that was for me. It was an infinity pool and so we had to pull her back from the edge repeatedly too.

That night after dinner the sun was setting wonderfully and I dragged the girls outside for a quick photoshoot for 5 minutes and I liked some of the shots I got, even if she wasn’t terribly cooperative. In the morning we went back out onto the beach, played on the nearby playground, and checked out the lifeguard towers. Then we showered, packed up and headed to the cruiseport!

This weekend Celia decided to be busy. She got one new tooth through and the next one is coming. She also took her first steps, but is still grabbing everything she can to walk her around, including a bin from IKEA is apparently enough support now.

We enjoyed a fun party at Craig and Alyssa’s house on Saturday, went to the zoo and hung out with my parents on Sunday and enjoyed another toddler birthday party today.

On the 17th Celia turned 7 months old. On the actual day, we spent our time traveling back from Miami.

Cecilia is a bundle of energy, always wanting to walk and cruise around. She is not content for long at all to sit and play with toys, she is constantly pulling herself up on things. I can find her in the strangest positions if I leave her sitting for a minute, she ends up traveling quite far with her lunges and rolls. She can walk a little with one hand now pretty steadily, but prefers two for really speedy walking. She knows where she wants to go too, the bathroom being a favorite forbidden spot. She can get onto her knees and roll all around, but she hasn’t chosen that as a form of transportation yet other than in bed.

She is having some separation anxiety too, right on time to go along with those walking skills. It seems I can hand her off to someone generally ok, but if that person tries to pass her along all bets are off. She’s had a lot of practice with new people with our vacation and really enjoys playing and smiling with new people, although sometimes at a distance. She loved all the attention on the cruise, she may have been the youngest baby on the ship as 6 months old is the minimum.

She’s loving her eating time and sits longer than anyone else at dinner. Celia continues to mostly only chew on books and try to grab them when I’m reading to Josie. She loves Josie and lights up when she enters the room. She always wants to touch her and pull Josie’s hair so we have to work on that a lot. She’s gotten better with petting the cats, now she mostly pets and then will eventually grab.

Celia is very content to be carried around a lot, but she gets sick of the house pretty quickly these days. She wants to be out and about seeing new things!

• Size/weight: 9 and 12 month size, 16.5 lbs? sorry second kid, I have no idea how much you actually weigh right now
• Favorite food: breastmilk, broccoli
• Favorite toy: anything Josie has
• Favorite book: just eating any of them
• Favorite activity: walking, watching Josie, splashing
• Sleeping: waking all the time, 2 -3 naps, one long one usually, up at 7, in bed at 8.
• New skill: walking holding on to one hand, cruising
• Teeth: 2 bottom center
• Vocalizations: not too many, focused on walking

This cute little baby pushed this bouncy seat (yellow thing Celia is sitting in) across the floor of the dining room like a walker today, and then dragged it back behind her to get back to me again. She made it around two walls of our living room cruising on objects as well (bookcase to dollhouse to shopping cart to couch, down the couch to parallel bars). She also fell on her face at least four times today. Learning to walk is painful. On the plus side, she tried avocados and love them tonight.

We’ve been on vacation, so that’s why the photos have stopped. But I’ve got tons. Here’s a funny one from Josie’s birthday. Someone is enjoying playing with Josie’s new presents.

I asked Lee to take a few quick family shots of us at the zoo since the light was good and he’s good behind the camera. I’m happy to get a few with all four of us, even if we’re all looking in different directions and such!

Spring has sprung around here in Boston, trees and flowers bloomed. Always right after Josie’s birthday. I could do with a bit less rain, but the flowers need it. We go outside and play games like ‘mommy I’m hiding behind the car, come find me!’

Smelling the flowers

And visiting the easter egg tree!

Our neighbor puts up a holiday tree every so often and Josie enjoyed repeatedly picking up the fallen eggs and replacing them.

Two days ago Josie woke up with a completely dry diaper overnight for the first time! Not ditching those night-time diapers yet but it’s nice to see a real end in sight.

This Saturday we met up with Lee, Lynn and Seth for a fun morning zoo trip at the Franklin Park Zoo. They graciously tolerated our lateness and we had a fun time walking around the park. We haven’t taken Josie to this one in a while, maybe not since last mother’s day. She spent most of the time asking to go on the carousel as that’s what she wanted to do. I think she enjoyed some other parts too though. The baby gorilla was crazy cute and the new budgie exhibit was fun because they sell some bird seed on a stick for too much money, but then the birds do this to you.

Josie dropped the first stick much to our chagrin, but we got the hang of it with the second one and Jordi had the birds literally eating out of his hand, and all up his arm. That’s Lee, Lynn and Seth in the background there. Lee and Lynn also accommodated my request to take a few family pictures of us in the beautiful weather, I’ll show those later.

Celia loved watching all the people and Seth, I’m not sure she noticed the animals too much, except for the Zebra, she noticed them a lot. Can’t wait until the giraffes are finally put out for exhibit, it’s too cold right now for them.

This past Friday Josie turned 3! We celebrated with eating, playing and of course presents. We opened up a big slew of gifts here at home including a kids table and chairs, doll bed, umbrella, candy land (the game), a suitcase and puzzles. We played a quick round of candy land even before Jordi went to work! Then we played a bit more with the gifts before we grabbed some breakfast and some celebration munchkins to bring to our Friday morning playgroup. We played a short while before we headed off to Panera for lunch with grandma and grandpa. Home again for quiet time and to pick up the cake from Quebrada before everyone came over here again for more presents, dinner and cake. This morning we had an official celebratory breakfast at Flora!

At three, Josie has really become quite the little girl. No more baby hanging around at all, except when she wants to pretend to be the baby. Most everyone, strangers included, can understand most of what she says. Except when she makes up new words without defining them. She will do some funny action on the bars or on the floor and say ‘that is clonking’ or something like that. Her sense of humor has been clearly developing into little kid humor!

Our days have a pretty steady routine lately, she comes into the room at a minute or two before 7 by our clock, proclaims she ‘waited for the 7!’ and we start our day. She eats some yogurt and cheerios and plays with us as we get ready for the day, showering and dressing. She’ll dress herself when she feels like it, maybe a third of the time now. We get ready for the morning activity starting usually around 10 and we head out of the house. Back again for lunch around noon before quiet time where she does puzzles and listens to books on tape. I do some chores like laundry and cleaning before we hopefully head outside again around 4 for time to play before dinner and Jordi getting home. Then it’s dinner, reading or massage, and bed at 7:30.

She’s been exploring a lot about what things in life she has control over. She has given up the pottying battles with her body thankfully and pretty much now just goes to the bathroom when she needs to without incident. But she often tells us how she’d like things done and what she’d like to do. For instance, we went to the zoo and she wanted to listen to her songs and stories on the way there and home and had a hard time accepting that perhaps mommy and daddy should get to choose one way. Also at the zoo she decided that she wanted to ride the merry go round first, but we were with friends and did it in a different order, and so we heard about that the entire way through the zoo until we did in fact take her on the merry go round as promised. We do a lot of negotiating and helping her to express her wants and views politely and deal with the disappointment that other people have needs and desires as well. And then we also just let her wear her sandals when it’s cold outside too since she won’t believe us anyway.

A lot of her previous struggles we had been having have now thankfully passed on most days. She’s a lot more easy going and she’s also been eager to learn some new tasks. For instance, in the kitchen since she’s been doing a great job listening she’s gotten to learn how to crack an egg and cut fruit (with a butter knife). She’s eager to learn new skills and it’s such a pleasure to help her figure them out and watch her master them.

She’s still taking gymnastics class which she’s been enjoying. Those will end soon though for the summer.

Most days at quiet time she likes to wear her bathing suit and pretend she’s going swimming at the cape codder resort.

She likes to play with her friends but she is still wary of her sister getting so much attention, I hope it gets a little easier once Celia is able to walk and can move about herself and not need me quite so much for entertainment. We work hard to get some quality time in with just the two of us while Celia naps, but some days it just doesn’t work out because of the nap timing or errands.

Josie doesn’t nap anymore, although I wish she would some days, she’s clearly tired. We try on the weekends to get her to go to bed earlier at least to get a bit more sleep in. It’s hard to get her to sit still, even when she’s falling down tired. She just got some headphones which may help us get her to sit still to listen to stories and relax while tuning out the world around her.

She likes to play a lot of ridiculous games like. Hide and seek, when she tells me where she is. Simon says (without the part about not saying simon says), fishy fishy cross my ocean, and red light green light.

Physically one neat thing she’s learned to do very recently is step up the steps one foot at a time, one foot per step. I think that’s some kind of brain connection thing to do that.

• Size/weight: 4, 32lbs about, we’ll get the height next week.
• Favorite food: breastmilk, cheese, pasta, yogurt – this is just really consistent even though she eats a variety
• Favorite toy: puzzles and anything that Celia wants
• Favorite books: Frog and Toad
• Favorite activity: Acting out scenarios with herself, puzzles
• Sleeping: bedtime ~7:30; gets up ~7am
• New skill: reciting books from memory
• Teeth: 20. 10 on the top and 10 on bottom. We’re done!
• Vocalizations: Voracious story teller, non-stop talker, likes to talk to random strangers but often uncomfortable when put on the spot in a  group