Last weekend we went to Franklin Park Zoo in Dorchester. It is bigger than the Stone Zoo and has some pretty cool animals like zebras, lions, gorillas, and butterflies. Josie enjoyed it a lot and almost stayed awake throughout the entire thing. As usual she preferred to be carried in the carrier as we pushed her empty stroller around. The giraffes seemed to attract her attention the most. I thought the gorillas were particularly cool. Especially the mom gorilla who had a baby nursing from her, and that baby refused to let go (from its mouth) even as the mom was walking around. Thankfully my baby won’t still be nursing by the time she’s half the size of me. Sadly we didn’t take too many pictures.

Our friends Wing and Jen came to visit in early July when Josie was just over 3 months old. He’s got one major camera and took these gorgeous photos!

I’m a little late, but last Friday Josie turned 4 months old! She is growing wonderfully, particularly in the last few weeks she has really been racing through her clothes. What’s new and different?

• She is wearing 9 month size clothes right now almost universally. We’ll get a weight-check on Monday at the 4 month checkup.
• Her grabbing skills are about 75% accurate and she likes to grab my hair, my neck, and the skin under my eye (ouch!). She also grabbed the neighbors dog by the fur on the side of his mouth a few days ago, thank goodness the dog just wimpered in response as they were nose to nose! She has grabbed her first cat tail as well, George sat right in front of her with his back to her and swished his tail tauntingly. She grabbed it and gave it a little tug. George was surprised, but didn’t bother to move.
• Josie gives me big wet open mouth kisses, often times trying to eat my nose.
• She makes screeching noises now and shrill squeals of delight. They are sometimes hard to differentiate from upset cries, but we’re getting the hang of it. She also does raspberries. She seems to pick one noise per week to practice and ignores the other one.
• She can sit upright by herself for a few seconds before toppling over. She can sit upright surrounded by the boppy for a long while. She also is pushing herself forward with her feet while on her stomach to reach toys that have fallen away. She can also stand a couple of seconds without falling over, although she doesn’t yet really grab onto things for balance, I have to hold onto her.
• She enjoys other babies a lot. Especially other ones that can also stand and grab at her. She grabbed our neighbor Zach (2 weeks younger) by the mouth (ouch!), thankfully Zach didn’t mind either.
• She swings in the bucket swing in the park, has been doing so for a few weeks.

This blog has been quiet for a little while as I’ve fallen behind documenting our adventures with Josie. The short of it is that she’s had another cold and her lack of sleeping has continued until the last couple of days where she now _only_ wakes up 3 times a night, which allows me to feel mostly human. For the record she used to only get up once or twice, how we long for those days! My grandmother also came to visit which required a lot of attention and schlepping out to my parents house for visiting.

So what’s new you ask? Josie can now grab things with decently good accuracy and manipulate toys. This has been fabulous when it comes to her entertaining herself in the car playing with toys. She will grab your hair and your glasses and she’s caught the cats a few times. Thankfully she doesn’t pull much yet. Elephants thankfully have lots of great places to grab.

Josie has been exploring new toys like water bottles and her sippy cup, not that she’s actually drinking from them. Teething continues and is making for some rough nights these days. She reverted Saturday night to a newborn sleeping habits and woke up 6 times in 8 hours.

This Tuesday Josie turned 3 months old. First the facts, she weighed in at 12 lbs, gaining 15 oz since the previous month. This month has been filled with wonderful and less wonderful experiences and some new skills. Last week Josie caught her first cold which was not so fun, but she kicked it pretty quickly. Some combination of growth-spurt, teething, and that cold have turned her output into some funky and surprising colors, but the doc says they are all normal. She is definitely having a growth-spurt this week as she just can’t eat enough some days, we’ll see how much longer the 6 month clothes fit! Hopefully another month since they’re all summer stuff. Her grabbing skills have improved greatly to the point of where she can sometimes play with her toys in the car for a short ride without getting upset. She has also started attempting to sit up, bringing her head forward in her car seat and other chairs. Her favorite book currently is “Baby Faces“. “The very hungry caterpillar” and “Este no es mi coche” also hold some attention.

Not only can I hit my toys with my hands, I can now kick them with my feet even when they are above my head!

We bought Josie a Bumbo to allow her to sit up by herself. She isn’t too sure about the sitting position, she generally prefers standing, but it does give a good vantage point to watch me clean the litter box.

I’ve got a cool new trick. I can shove my toys in my mouth and chew on them. Then I can rotate the toy, and chew on a different part. Sometimes I get frustrated though when it just won’t fit in my mouth!

This past week we went twice to the ‘old res’ in Lexington to take Josie swimming. She’s getting to like the experience more each time, likely because the water keeps getting warmer as the summer goes on! After her brief ‘swim’ she took a nice nap on the beach in her sun-protection tent. We neglected to bring our camera but perhaps grandpa took some pictures that I’ll be able to post later. For now, he’s a photo we took right before going swimming!