You see a lot of photos from the zoo because we’re members and we’re cheap. So once membership has been bought, we use it frequently! Jordi doesn’t get to go that often though because it’s often a weekday trip for me and another mom. This time we went on the weekend to stone zoo. Josie was on the hunt for Flamingo’s the entire time, yet kept picking the slowest path through the zoo to find them. It’s always a fun place to take pictures, Jordi had the camera most of the time so these are his shots. It was the first time Josie walked the whole zoo too pretty much. Not too big a place, but tiring enough.

Here’s some other fun pictures from the spray park. I had fun with the camera, Jordi had fun getting wet. Josie liked to watch what the big kids did.

This is the photo right as they both got entirely soaked and Jordi’s glasses were knocked to the ground, and thankfully found before being stepped on.

Weekend that is. We enjoyed a relaxing trip down to RI to visit our friends Stef and Koos and their kids Xander and Zoe to celebrate the weekend with a BBQ and friends. We brought our bounce house which was a big hit and we were glad to be able to use it again. Amongst this group of friends I’ll only be the second one to have the second kid and their kids are mostly a couple of months older than Josie. It’s a very different dynamic getting to look at the older kids and see what they’re capable of in only a few short months beyond Josie. Toilet-training is in full effect with most everyone and the ability to hear what they’re all thinking is funny. It’s nice to not have to be eagle-eyed hawks over the kids too as they generally play better together.

The super-short video below is of the pinata. Josie was disturbed that we were purposefully trying to break something, given how often I warn her not to do something that might break something. She did a good job trying to whack though for her age. It took a couple of grown men (using only one arm) to bring it down though.

As overheard at dinner tonight:

Josie: “I’m ready for you to push the baby out now. I’m going to give you a hug while you push the baby out.”

Me: “Ahhh I’ll like that but the baby gets to decide when it comes out.”

Josie, thinks, then says “And I get to decide when it goes back in!”

I can do nothing but laugh.

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.