We’re all doing well. Just busy with the toddler and the regular doctors appointments plus trying to spend more time sleeping. Celia was 7 lbs 9 oz at birth, 7 lb 4 oz on Monday and then 7lbs 2 oz on Wednesday so it looks like her loss rate is slowing down and the doc is satisfied. We go back again on Monday.

Here’s a photo I liked of Josie introducing her baby doll Clara to Celia in the hospital just after Josie got there. Might want to zoom in to see Celia’s expression.

Josie is holding her new water bottle that was a big sister gift “from Celia”. Josie assumed that I also pushed that out along with the baby so we’ve just gone along with that story.

We’re all healthy and we got out ASAP and made it home about 3:30 today, not too shabby considering all the hoops they want you to jump through. It’s great to be home and have gotten a nap in our own bed and stop being bothered for constant questions and checks. Hopefully we can get things back to normal for Josie, or at least the new normal.

So I may be running out of things to say here. Let’s get the important stuff done up front, the non-stress test yesterday and ultrasound today all showed a healthy baby and me. So the medical profession doesn’t demand to see me again until Tuesday unless things happen before that (please). Next week though I’ll be seeing them Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and ultimately Friday for an induction at 42 weeks.

Today I’ve been a bit more tired and sore but I’m feeling good about myself as a mom. I figured out the library book interloan system and got a big pile of books for Josie delivered to our local library that she has been dying to read (more Elephant and Piggie, Cat the Cat, Clifford the Dog in spanish, etc). Took Josie to sing-a-long and then after nap spent a solid three hours in child-led play including making a cool Halloween/fall themed art project. We don’t get too many afternoons where I can totally ignore the house (I figure I better practice ignoring it now for when I have two) and not take breaks from playing. I even got the camera out and took some pictures. And I got dinner on the table, which Josie rejected except for the cheese, but Jordi and I enjoyed.

Today Josie’s gymnastics classes started up again. Today she took both the little kids class (1.5-3) and big kids class (3-5) to see how she’d do. The parents participate in the little kids one, but don’t in the big kids class although we’re still nearby. Most of the kids in the big kids class are 4, so a good chunk older than Josie. Josie spent most of the little kids class asking ‘what’s next?’ as I tried to keep her entertained. She used to just run around and do things. She was excited for the other class and jumped right in.

A few things were very clearly different with the second class. She was younger than everyone else by 9 months at the least. Her usual non-stop talking, actually stopped and she listened to the teacher whereas older girls had trouble keeping their comments to themselves. (I expect Josie to be like that by age 4) She listened but mostly was following along with the group to see what to do. She was clearly thinking about the instructions and trying but had trouble with the multi-step ones (i.e. do the somersault and then sit on the beam), she’d just go do the last step and wait. She also needs to work on her waiting in line for a turn as opposed to jumping into an activity already in progress. Plus we need to work on playing red-light/green-light as she totally missed the point of that.

But she thoroughly enjoyed herself and said she wants to do the big kids class rather than the little one. She also didn’t block anyone else from fully participating in the class or disrupt it so I’m fine with her joining in. I just may have to step in occasionally to make sure she gets the full experience by helping her through the multi-step parts!

Me? I’ve felt really good today compared to most days, except my hips feel like they’re about to split in two. Maybe that’s a sign? Because apparently frequent contractions, back pain, front pain, spinal pain, heartburn, gastrointestinal distress, and moodiness are not, for me anyway. Tomorrow we try acupuncture.

And just like my first child, my due date has come and is about to be gone with no new baby. Today has been even particularly quiet for contractions. We made a night of it though and I took Josie into harvard square on the bus (“it went bump!” – Josie) and we had dinner with Jordi at the Border Cafe to get our salt intake for the week and followed it up with ice cream at Lizzy’s for Josie and chocolate at Burdick for me! Josie loved the cow on top of the ice cream store, but she wanted it to lick the ice cream (it was a statue obviously). Her ice cream cone per usual managed to melt and drip and be tossed before we all finished it.

The second is bumpy, sorry, I was holding the bag and had to hand it over.

Sunday we went out apple picking at honey pot hill orchard in Stowe. It was a quintessential fall day, although a bit hot by the time we were done. We parked in a field, bought our bags, rode on a hay ride pulled by a tractor, saw some animals (chickens, goats, pigs, sheep, and bunnies), ate cider donuts and rode on the hay ride again before actually picking some apples. In the end, the actual picking was a very small amount of  time. Josie got right into it and was super speedy at ripping the apples off the tree (video to come later). She picked our whole bag for us except maybe one apple. She was also unfortunately a bit under the weather as well and so Jordi carried her most of the time to help her conserve energy. We got home and dismantled most of the apples into crisp, pie and applesauce form. With one crisp nicely stashed away in my freezer for after the baby is here. Here’s a couple of photos of the beautiful weather and friendly people.

Josie just looked super cute the other day and so we did a little photo shoot outside to get some more photos of just her, while she’s still our one and only!

did I make you click extra quick? Josie managed to buckle herself the entire way in. She is definitely over the weight limit at this point though, wouldn’t be if we got the bigger version, but she hated this seat anyway. She likes putting her doll in it now, we’ll have to throw it in the car though.