One food from Jordi’s childhood are arepas. As I have been taught, arepas are different depending on where you’re getting them from, Venezuelan ones are primarily white corn meal and water formed into english muffin shapes and sauteed/steamed. Columbian ones are more like pancakes with yellow corn meal, Jordi would call those cachapas. We stuff cheese into the middle of all of them, yum.
Josie got her first lesson in making arepas and she enjoyed it. She helps me most every day in the kitchen to measure and pour food for dinner. For the arepas I had to demonstrate just how to mix them up with your hands because she did not seem to believe that I actually wanted her to stick her hands in the food, since I usually am cautioning her against it. She had fun. She still doesn’t really eat them though, but the cheese is well liked.
One day, while walking down to the park, Josie decided to tell me what Daddy does at work.
She said, “Daddy helps people at work!”.
I ask, “What does he help people do?”.
She thinks about it for a while and says “He helps people clean up.”
Similarly, we offered her some choices of dollhouse furniture. There was a bathroom set, a bedroom set, garden set, at least 7 different ones. Which one does she pick? The “work at home” set, because she definitely likes the days that Jordi works at home. It does come with a toy cat, so I think that might have pushed it ahead of all the rest.
A week ago Friday we had a very domestic day, we bought and planted flowers in the morning and then made and served cookies to our friends in the afternoon. Josie was a huge fan of gardening and got completely covered in mud, I was pretty dirty too and so I didn’t want to touch the camera that way. We put in over 30 plants in an hour and a half, including the weeding. Josie is a speedy planter, I had to just constantly dig holes for her to keep plopping more plants into. The plants thankfully seem to have survived the toddler treatment. She helped weed, dig, plant, water and mulch. Well on her way to having a green thumb, as compared with my black one. I already killed one plant this year through neglect. We planted hostas, impatiens, and begonias.
For mothers day this year we got up nice and early and went to Sound Bites Cafe for breakfast in Ball Sq with my parents. That place is hoping early in the morning, we unfortunately managed to be just the beginning of the line, but we made it through with a tasty and filling start to the day. Met up by chance with several other moms I know which was fun and then headed off to the Franklin Park Zoo.
Combining mom’s getting in for free with our membership, we all got in for a free day at the zoo! Yeah for being cheap. The day was sunny but breezy and chilly. We had fun running…
Despite pushing the stroller around the entire place, Josie just bounced from person to person being carried when she wasn’t walking. At least the stroller carried our stuff, but perhaps we’ll leave it at home next time.
The peacocks were out and about walking the grounds and making a lot of noise. Josie’s favorites were as usual the playground and the gorillas were a big hit this time. Pretty much because one of them was smearing on the window and then dining on his poop. This had the preschool set watching just howling with laughter. I did not take a picture.
Josie also begged multiple times to ride the carousel and she actually had a good time for once, rather than being quietly reserved.
Just before lunch, we made a trip back to the petting zoo and Josie pet and kissed a goat. We can see who was in charge when this kiss happened, I was behind the fence for it.
This year we made our first venture into homemade mothers day gifts from Josie. I read a blog that has a lot of crafts in it and I really liked this idea she had and it seemed doable! We set Josie up outside in the sun, Zach even came by and made one for his mom too. She did a great job painting the trivets, using three different colors. We did the detail lines and she did the rest of it. I really liked how they came out and I hope the grandma’s enjoy them!
In early May we had one hot weekend and hit the beach with our neighbors Christina, Chanh, Ethan and Zach. We went to Crane’s beach. Josie was excited to go, but decidedly unsure about the experience and was asking to leave after about half an hour. The water was still obviously very cold and the big kids were running around splashing. But we got her back into it with some snacks and playtime in the sand and tide pools. The boys were more excited to dig holes (although Ethan, taking a cue from Josie, delegated the task to his mom while he ate). Here’s Zach and Josie digging.
It was great having some more adults and kids around to be able to switch up who was watching who and who was around to talk to. It was a beautiful day and a real nice break from the norm, at least for those under 4 ft tall.
Later in the day, the tide came in and the beach was very narrow. There was a small amount of beach left between the open ocean and a tide pool, by the time we left, crossing it was a little dicey.
Josie is now two years old and wow how quickly she continues to change. Notably now the difference is her language abilities. Even from just a month ago now she uses full sentences most of the time, even if they aren’t always correct yet with tense or subject.
She knows what she wants most of the time and can tell you, especially when it comes to clothes she’s got her own idea of style. Although I can still call something a ‘special outfit’ and usually get her to wear it, but I try to rarely pull that one. Her decisiveness also surprised me when I asked her which piece of cake she wanted on her birthday, she immediately said ‘the head’ and happily ate the caterpillars frosting head. (yes we are still raising a vegetarian here)
She also likes to test boundaries and boss people around. For instance, if I tell her buddy Zach while I’m watching him not to do X. She will either a) go do X and see if the same rules apply to her, b) repeat exactly what I just said to Zach back to him again, or c) both in a row. Someday we’ll have to figure out how to get her to stop doing that.
Her memory is better than mine now. She now knows all her friends’ names and their moms and requests to spend time with them and is sorely disappointed when they can’t make it. She’ll remember things and tell stories from a few weeks ago with critical details. She’ll tell me where I put something earlier or where she put it. Her spanish comprehension is also better than mine, I’m definitely not understanding some of the words that Jordi uses yet she does.
Her sleep is tumultuous again, she’s trying to drop her nap some days but then takes it and gets up way too early. Thankfully she mostly stays in a good mood unless she’s really hurting for a nap. I wouldn’t mind the nap disappearing sort of, so the day is no longer so broken up into pieces. But the break is nice too, gives me time to do things like blog or sleep! She is definitely having dreams and nightmares at night. She’ll wake up some mornings and immediately tell us a story, lately it’s been about the trip to NYC and riding in the horse carriage.
Physically she’s grown a lot lately and at the 2 year doc appointed measured 36 inches long (97th percentile – up from the 80s where she usually is) and 27 lbs (50th percentile, up from where she usually is in the 20th). Standing up she’s more like 34.5 inches tall.
She has also developed more fears lately. She’s afraid of the grill and even jumped at a balloon someone stuck to her with static today. Motorcycles are cause to run to Mommy or Papi. It does help keep her in line on the sidewalk for walking down the street, which we are trying to encourage her to do more of.
She loves to sing, and here is her rendition of ABC’s, she gets started for real maybe 20 seconds into the video. Yes that is a shot glass in front of her, no it’s not full of anything naughty, it’s just a great small cup that doesn’t break.
Size/weight: size 2T and 3T, 27 lbs and 36″ long
Favorite food: cheese, pasta – fairly wide variety, willing to try most things
I think my daughter has a real future in management. We’ll play with playdoh and before I realize it she’s just telling me what to make with every piece and has made absolutely nothing herself. She’ll play with the things that I make until she squishes them (taking a part of me with it – hey I worked hard on those things!).
I’m behind again, my bad. A few weeks ago Jordi’s sister Vanessa came to visit us after finishing her internship in DC. She got to learn the fun of toddler schedules (up at 6am, weekend or not!) and generally gave us a big hand throughout the weekend as I was a little under the weather. She never tired of fun Josie games and activities like play-doh and peekaboo. Josie still talks about how she went to the bakery and the park with Tia Vani. Josie really ate up the constant attention and I think Vanessa had a decently good time too.
Josie gives us some good laughs lately. Here’s one from last weekend. Jordi was mowing the lawn. We have a push mower (no power but your own) because we have a yard the size of two postage stamps. Josie comes home with me from the park to see Jordi mowing and says:
“Daddy mow lawn like man!”
I agree. Of course what she meant is that she saw another guy mowing the lawn this morning, and Jordi, similarly, was mowing the lawn. But her literal words were much better.
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