eatin’ time

as i mentioned before, so far jovie is a good eater.  but i can’t help my own hang-ups with it.  for instance, we’re trying to not give her rice very often because it seems to hurt her belly.  (what i didn’t mention in our last post is that on top of the teething was the holy hell of bellyache all day long!}

well, not feeding her rice cereal doesn’t sound like a very difficult thing to do, but i can’t seem to get it out of my mind that if i want to feed her a veggie, that doesn’t go very well with oatmeal.  it took a while for me to break out of the thinking that if i fed her at “dinner time”, it should be rice & veggie.  “lunch time” could be oatmeal & fruit.

i still don’t have a clue of how much she should be eating because she doesn’t seem to care one way or another if i feed her or stop feeding her.  she gives me hardly any cues.

the only thing i think i’ve learned is that she only likes fruit if it’s “fresh” or warm.  if it’s too cold, i get the sour/gag face.  i think it has to do with the vitamin c they add to it.  i’ve tasted some of the fruit, and it is quite tangy.

this week, though, i wanted to finish up the half-eaten jars i had.  one veggie & one fruit.  so, i let go of my hang-ups (because, yes. i do logically understand that she doesn’t know or care what she’s eating and what it pairs with) and i fed her apples/plums combo with green beans.

i didn’t mix it all together, but still:  eeeewwwww!

to interchangeably eat string beans and then fruit and then beans… and have it all on the same spoon.  i shudder.

funny thing is, she didn’t seem to mind.  in fact that was prob’ly the best she’s eaten the apples/plums when it wasn’t the first day!

all i thought of the whole time was of her uncle kenny.   i can vividly recall more than one argument discussion at the dinner table where my dad would go nuts express displeasure at watching my brother pile all the food together and eat it all at once.  his response was always that it goes to the same place.  jovie seemed to agree.  (by the way-he is now considered a very talented cook in the family)

clearly unlike me. i was definitely a “don’t let any food touch each other” kinda gal.  i hope the picky gene has stayed away from jovie!

heaven & hell

unbelievable!  not only did the Hawks win their game, but Jovie was an angel!

gramma & grampa said that she barely even cried.  i think it totally helped that we were able to put her down for a nap before we left.  we (of course)left detailed instructions about feeding & entertaining this kid.  & i even mentioned about how to watch for sleepy signs if she needs another nap- they could try it.  (totally not expecting it)  and she napped again!

what??

we sooooo couldn’t have done this 6months ago. 

they let us know all the fun things they did and how well she played.  we were so relieved.  we had a good time ourselves.  and everyone said that the 4 1/2 hours didn’t seem that long at all.

so, thanks gramma & grampa!

so that’s the heaven.

the hell?  oh, that was yesterday. 

for about 6 months now (no kidding), people have told us/asked us if jovie’s teething.  what with the lakes of drool & hand always in her mouth.  even when we mention that she started waking in the night at 4mo.  we don’t consider that to be true, since it’s been almost her whole life! 

in december, we went to the dr. and she pointed out the little tooth pockets for these teeth that are bound to come…..

last week when i stuck my finger in her mouth, i could finally (sadly) feel the top little ridge come through.  so all week we’ve been checking and watching.  the tooth next door is also starting to come through.  but it was the weirdest thing that it poked it’s little head out w/o much ado.  she didn’t fuss particularly worse than any normal fussing time.  night wakings were the same.  we thought we had ourselves a brave little girl.

well, remember- i’m the one who thought how lucky i was that i began labor without the singlest smallest clue whatsoever.  HA.  i shoulda known….

yesterday was absolutely miserable.  i honestly thought i had my 3 week old baby back.  except she is much heavier. she demanded to be held all day long.   it was horrible to watch her.  tylenol didn’t seem to have much of an effect on her (but for 2 nights seemed to help her go back to sleep).

today she seemed much like herself again!

so, there’s only, what??  30 left to go?  not to mention these aren’t finished yet.   yikes!

gramma & grampa

this past weekend, we went to greenville to celebrate the engagement of a longtime friend.  gramma & grampa were not in the least bothered by having jovie come for a visit.

the car ride up there was fantastic.  better than The Mr. & i expected.  definitely NOT like the last time! the ride home was a different story.  ranked inbetween the wonderful of saturday and the hell of xmas time.  but truthfully, that was about how i expected her to be.   but we all survived, and she came right home and took her nap (finally!)

the trip itself was good.  we had some friends come over to visit while we were at g’ma & g’pa’s… and at first, she got a little overwhelmed.  which made us decide to not take her to the party for an introduction that night. 

however, gramma & grampa said she didn’t make a peep once i put her to bed and we had a good time at the party!  i think they’d  rather babysit her while she sleeps

jovie enjoyed hanging out with everyone, once she got used to it.  we had fun outside, she liked exploring all the new places, and she (of course) enjoyed looking at grampa’s fish.  she also got to sit in a different high chair and eat a WHOLE JAR of food.  since i wasn’t going to deal w/ refrigerating, i just gave her until i thought she was done….  and she ate it all up!  apparently i’m not feeding her enough!?!?   that was quite a surprise to me.

here she is…. clearly about to follow in daddy’s (& gramma’s) footsteps:

daddy's girl

and now, this weekend, gramma & grampa are coming here because they can’t get enough of jovie are being extremely generous and letting us go to an atlanta hawks game!  unfortunately, it’s not a night game, though.  and jovie will not be asleep for 4 hours!  (and if you’re paying attention, that will be the longest i’ve been without her- and obviously the longest she’s been without at least one of her parents).

 

do wish them luck!  i’ll have to remember to post how it all went.

assuming we come back…

daddy’s little girl

for the past 2 weeks or so, jovie’s been playing around with her sounds & babbles.  The Mr. was overjoyed when she began saying “dada”.  i told him about it, but she wouldn’t show him until the next morning at 6am diaper change.  it was soooo cute. i went in so i could feed her.  and what is normally a quiet and calm (no talking) diaper change, i hear The Mr. loudly excitedly whisper & prompt:  “dada!”  “dada!!”….   it was melt-your-heart cute! 

also, last friday, jovie got to enjoy some good quality daddy time while i went out spending a small fortune shopping for some cute clothes.  he said she was perfect the whole time.  i came home right in time for bath.  & it was great. b/c so rarely am i gone from her that those enormous smiles usually saved for daddy were finally used for me!   in fact, she’s 8 months old (who let that happen??)  and i was gone 3 hours.  that is the longest ever!     ???

unfortunately, The Mr. has been fighting a cold for a few days, and wanted to keep his distance.  we’ve been lucky enough that in all this time, jovie’s never been sick.  nary a sniffle.  he would like to keep it this way.  i’m sure it was hard on him to only see her from a distance & make goofy faces.  i was afraid she’d get mad, b/c i think i’ve mentioned before that she LOVES her daddy.  he’ll come home from work and she will kick her legs and wave her arms soooo excitedly that sometimes it hurts.  all to be held by dear ol’ dad.

she accepted only seeing him.  that was better than nothing (a la holland).  but i know she’ll be tons excited when he comes home from work today, feeling better & waiting to hold her & play.  as evidenced by the fact she woke up last night and there was no amount of consoling her i could do.  finally, he scooped her up, and she dozed quite easily in his arms!

she may look like me, but he’s got her heart!

march FIRST

last saturday, we spent some time enjoying outside.  it was a nice warm day.  jovie was in a short-sleeved onesie.

sunday?  yeah. pretty different:

um, welcome to georgia.

i (of course) doubted the snow they were calling for…  but it was gorgeous to look at.   since it never stopped snowing the whole day, we didn’t get a chance to take a walk. 

next time it snows, she will be able to have so much fun in it!  let’s hope that won’t be 5 years down the road…