Getting close to something big

We are on the verge of sitting up, so close. I had her in the bumbo seat this morning supported by some blankets and she was doing a really good job of supporting herself once I got her upright. I am trying to do this to help strengthen her core, because during tummy time she just gets comfortable and sucks her thumb.

I think that she is definitely teething as she has started gumming her hold hand and drooling quite a bit too.

She is changing and growing so much every day, it is just amazing to watch. She has very strong legs and like to stand up on them. Grammie advised us not to let her do this, but she really enjoys it and given the lack of developing the "crawling" muscles...we think she might be an early walker.

I'm also happy to report that she has been sleeping rather well lately too. All good news to report on the Josephine front.

Happy Day!

Josephine has been especially happy today. Maybe it is because I decided not to take her into the office and took a long lunch with Aunt Trimble instead. I hope she is just as happy in daycare tomorrow. Here is a photo taken this afternoon and I posted a new video of her "talking" taken at the same time.

We learned something new last night, Josephine LOVES to be naked. Well, honestly we did already know this...but rarely does she get it outside of tub time. Occasionally I will take an extra long time changing her diaper, but that is about all she gets. Last night due to an unfortunate diaper blow out that was close to tub time and coinciding with our dinner time, Josephine got pseudo-naked time (that is she got to rock out with just a diaper on). Now our nephew Max gets scheduled naked time the same way and he loves it too, but I had no idea Joey would love it so much. She gurgled, cooed, screamed and ranted so loudly...we had never heard her carry on so much. I think that we will try it again tonight as well.

low key Monday

We had a nice weekend. We had to scrap our plans to do the annual corn maze with Gigi and Grammie at the last minute on Saturday due to the weather, so we rented some movies and spent most of the day lazing around the house as it was a cool, rainy day. Sunday had an extra early start as Steve was off to run the Marine Corps Marathon 10k. Josephine and I surprised him at the finish line, and although he did not say he wanted us there I think he was really happy to see us. The rest of the day was movies and naps followed by dinner with our good friend Sherri who did an amazing job running the full marathon that morning.
Today, as with most Monday's, I'm looking for the motivation to begin the work week. I owe you all some pictures, I will try and post them today or tomorrow. In the mean time I will continue to sit here and go back and forth with staring at Joey and staring at the laptop, eventually I will find my motivation with one.

It's Friday again!

Today is Josephine's second day in daycare and things were more smooth this morning. I had my stuff together so there was no rushing around. We were able to take our time and eat breakfast, it was nice and relaxed. Daycare was quiet when I got there so I got to talk to one of the helpers a bit and that was nice as well. No tears this morning.
While there on Wednesday she took several naps and ate pretty well from the bottle. She came home happy and nursed well and slept well at home that night, so I figure it must be okay. I did spend extra special time with her Wednesday night and while I was working from home yesterday.
Big developmental news...Joey actually grabbed one of her hanging toys on her play mat yesterday. She did it several times, so I know it wasn't just a fluke. Everyone cheer with me, "Yeah!". Also Joey is full on in thumb-sucking mode. Sometimes she even stops nursing to suck her thumb. She also opts for sucking during the middle of the night when she is hungry instead of crying and waking me up. From the time she was in the womb, I coached her to NOT suck her thumb...I'm sure this is just my first lesson in "kids don't always do what you tell them".

I had to do it...

I called the daycare center during lunch to check in on Joey. They said she was happy and having a good day. She had already taken a nap and had a bottle and was asleep again. Not the exact schedule that I had in mind for her, but I have to learn to let go of some little details here and there. As long as they treat her well and love her, she can take lots of naps.

I'm lost with out her...

I knew the day would come, but it did not make it any easier....today was the first day of daycare. I told Josephine it was school and got her all dressed up (will post a photo after work). She seemed very happy and excited this morning, but when we got there she looked very confused. The staff was excited to see her and eagerly whisked her away to the nursery as I was giving her one last kiss on the cheek. I thought I would be okay, but a few miles down the road I glanced into my review mirror and I didn't see that sweet angel looking back at me. That is when I started to cry. I hope that she has a good first day and that they love her and give her lots of attention. But I am already counting the minutes until she is back safe in my arms cause nobody can love her better than me. I anticipate that I won't get a lot of work done from home tomorrow, I'll be too busy cuddling with Joey.

Home again, home again...

We are back at home, not unpacked or settled in...but home. We had a great trip up to Boston and got to see everyone. Josephine had a wonderful time meeting all of her family and got more attention than she knew what to do with. She slept fantastically well while we were away, and it continued over at home last night. I don't want to jinx myself...but could a few more hours of sleep be headed my way? The airports where not as scary as I thought they would be and she was a great flyer, up until we started to land back in Washington...that is when she decided to throw up. Luckily it was as we were landing and I caught it in enough time that we were able to contain it to her clothes her blanket and Steve's fleece. We went through a record 5 outfits yesterday!

Today Grammie and Gigi come down for a short visit as I am considered full time back at work as of today.

Teething?

Could teething be the reason why Joey has been so fussy and sucking her thumb like crazy? I did what my mother in law always recommends when I have a problem...I googled it! It turns out some kids do start teething around 3 months, although most not until 4 or 5 months. I had to drop some paperwork off at the pediatrician yesterday so while I was there I spoke to a nurse about the problem. She confirmed that as early as 6 weeks prior to the teeth breaking the gums the baby can experience the pain and discomfort. Could this be the cause? I'm not sure yet, but I got some baby tylenol and chilled the teething rings just in case. How can she be growing up so fast?
We are all packed up and ready to take our first family flight! We are flying to Boston today to see grandparents, cousins and aunts. I am nervous about the logistics, wish us luck.

Fussy, fussy

Josephine has been very fussy for the past few days. I am wondering if it has anything to do with the non-stop attention she got for four straight days from both Steve and I. Ever since we have tried to settle back into our normal routine, she has not been in a very good mood. She will lay there and scream. Not a crying scream, but in her adorable very high pitched voice, just scream. I know it is nothing serious, cause when I walk the 2 feet over to where she is laying and say "hi" to her, she smiles that big gum smile and talks to me. Needless to say it is very hard to get work done with either the screaming or the getting up to talk every 5 min. She likes the TV, so I am very tempted to put her in front of it and put a Disney DVD in, but I am torn of the guilt of bad parenting for doing it.
She has also started sucking her fist like crazy. She had done this in the past when very hungry...but never was consistent with it. Now she goes crazy on it. You can hear the slurping from the next room, it even wakes me up at night. It is a comfort thing now more than a hunger thing.
Oh, and we had a vomit free night last night...YAY!

It's official

So yesterday it became official, I have diabetes. My Dr. had told me to pretty much expect the gestational diabetes to turn into type 2 after the pregnancy due to the fact that I was diagnosed so early (10 weeks earlier than normal). I was hoping that losing 50+ pounds would help, but it did not. I can't say that I am surprised, my lifestyle prior to Josephine was anything but healthy. In a way, this is a good thing because it is forcing me to become a better person. It is a small price to pay for having such a beautiful daughter and I want to be able to run and keep up with her as she grows.
On another note, the vomiting continues...one episode a day for the past 4 days. I have been to the Dr. and they are not too worried. She also doesn't seem to be too upset when it happens, so we just keep hoping it will pass. I am beginning to wonder if she could be allergic to something I am eating...any thoughts out there?

We're back...

...from our first mini family vacation to Williamsburg. We had a nice time just relaxing and spending time with each other. It was great to finally have Steve around to spend time with us. Josephine got to go to the pool for the first time and we think that she is going to be a good swimmer, she loves the water. She had a nice public meltdown in the Colonial area visitors center...so after that we decided it was best if we did a short self tour of the area. There were some outlets near the resort so we hit up the Carters and the The Children's Place for some good deals on clothes for Joey (all 12+ months, lots of 18 and 24...cause I already told you we had enough clothes for right now!). All-in-all it was a really great weekend; we had 1 diaper blowout, 1 major meltdown, 1 night when she slept for 7 hours again and 2 vomiting episodes...I call that a success!

I have added more albums, including photos from this past weekend, I hope you enjoy looking at them.

TGIF!

We have had a busy week. We were back in the office for work yesterday and had a lot to get done from the home office since we are taking the day off today. We had a bad night last night too. Josephine got sick again. For those of you that do not know, she was getting sick quite often (we think it is due to reflux) but has been much better lately. However, we still have these really bad episodes. I call it vomiting the Dr. calls it spit up, but when I watch her expel over 2 oz of milk...it hardly looks like spitting up! After she had a chance to recover, she went on a 3 hour nursing binge where she eats for about 10 min every 20-30 min. Needless to say it is exhausting for me. We finally went to sleep around midnight and were up every 2 hours after that. I actually fell asleep during every nursing session last night!

Today we are off to Williamsburg for our first official family getaway. We have rented an SUV since we have so much stuff to travel with. I'm sure that we have over packed, but we just want to make sure that Joey is comfortable away from home. Me...I'm learning to fall asleep anywhere and I am really looking forward to a 3 hour nap in the car!

Hump Day!

So we have had a good week so far. Grammie came over Monday afternoon and spent the night with us. We hit the mall for a bit of shopping while she was in town, we are both addicted to buying clothes for Josephine. Grammie left Tuesday morning to head up to Mass to see family and we spent our Tuesday working both from home and in the office for a bit. We got a nice gift from our friend Beth, 3 large bags of clothes from her daughter Olivia who is 10 months old. Needless to say we have a TON of clothes. Did I mention that when Kyle was here over the weekend we organized her clothes and had to get 2 more (she already had 1) storage bins for under the crib and in the closet? Like I said, a TON of clothes.
Today I plan to be a little more low key. I will start to pack everything Joey will need for a weekend away in Williamsburg. Someone so little should not need so much stuff!

What does 7 hours of sleep feel like?

FANTASTIC! Josephine reluctantly went down at 8pm last night and I didn't get to see her gorgeous face again until 3am. To make it even better, we were only up for 30 min before she went back down and slept until a bit after 6. WOW, so this is what rested feels like. I don't think that I have slept 7 straight hours since before I was pregnant.

No more lazy weekends

I think they ended when Josephine came home with us. I hope that we will eventually get them back. I guess we are our own enemies though, cause we are the ones that insist on running errands and going out with Joey in tow. Saturday morning started early with all of us heading downtown to the race expo for the Army 10 miler which Steve was supposed to run in, but was unable to due to a calf injury. I ended up sitting on the floor giving Joey a bottle while Steve was getting his stuff. That night we went to a friends house for a great Oktoberfest party, where we ended up sitting at a table alone trying to get Josephine to take her second bottle of the day. Sunday, Steve left us for work yet again (but I think that we have seen the last of weekend working for awhile now). So it was a girls day out, where Aunt Gigi came down and hung out. Trips to Wal-Mart and Target, with Gigi trying to give Joey the bottle in the back seat of the car as we are driving between the two. All-in-all, Josephine has gotten the hang of going out and about and slowly she is getting more used to taking a bottle on these outings, but still making it just difficult enough to be exhausting. Like I said, we are our own enemies. I think that I will stay home with her for a few days now!

As political as I will get...

So I know that this blog is dedicated to my daughter, but from time to time I'm going to talk about other things. This is one of those times...

Under the weather

So at just 2 months, Josephine has her first cold. I have tried taking her temperature (via the armpit) and I am not getting anything...but she has awful poops (remember in the blog description I said it could get "stinky") and pooped through 3 outfits already today. She is so congested that she was having trouble nursing this morning. This afternoon she has what I am assuming is post nasal drip causing her to cough and gag a lot and even spit up a bit. Poor thing, this explains why she slept so much of the day yesterday. Topping it off, I have developed a sore throat this afternoon so looks like we might just be passing something between us.

It was not all bad today, we had a nice visit with some of our "radio" friends, Rick and Regina. They came by for lunch and to meet Josephine. Regina gave us a very stylish outfit from The Children's Place (which we will save until the bad poops have passed) and Rick gave us diapers (which come in really handy at a time like this). It is so nice to have such great friend to share this time with.

2 month battle wounds

Today my little peanut had her 2 month doctors visit. It was a very eventful morning, where I actually had to wake her up to dress her and get her to the appointment on time. (8:30am appointments worked well prior to having a baby...now I think I'll go with the afternoon options!) So here we sit 5 shots, 1 oral medicine, a dose of Tylenol and a bug bite later. She cried, but not as bad as I expected and I managed to keep myself together for the most part.

Last night she actually slept for 5 hours! I was just reading in one of my many books that babies her age actually can sleep up to 7 hours at night. She is normally a 3-4 hour girl at night and really only does one 3-4 stretch. For example, she will sleep from 8p to 10p and then wake up to eat, go back down and sleep to 1a or 2a then wake up and eat, go back to sleep and then wake up around 3a or 4a and eat, then sleep again until 5a or 6a. Needless to say it is an exhausting schedule as we are usually up for 45-60min each time she wakes. So today I give thanks for Josephine throwing me a bone and giving me an extra hour or two of sleep!

Happy Birthday Steve!

Today is Steve's birthday, the big 32! Steve has been very busy at work lately and asked that we celebrate his birthday on Saturday instead of today. So Joey and I are off to Tyson's Corner where we will meet Aunt Gi-gi to shop for his present(s).
On a side note, I've been feeling a lot like a single parent lately because Steve has been putting in so many hours at work in the past few weeks. It will be nice when this project wraps up this week and I get my partner back. I'm sure that Joey will enjoy "going turtle" again too! (To see pictures of "going turtle" scroll to the bottom of the blog and view any of the numerous pictures of Steve and Josephine cuddling.)

Yeah! I finally did it!

Well, I finally did it! I started my very own blog. I have been wanting to do this for years, but needed the motivation. That motivation came into my life 2 months ago on July 29, 2008 at 8:02pm when Josephine Katie came into my world. She is such an amazing human beign and I wanted a place to share my joy with the world. I plan to write about all of her latest developments and the day to day life we share...the good, the bad, the funny and the sometime stinky!