more of the same

i know i’ve been kinda lax in posting, but really it’s because jovie is just doing more of the same.  only cuter, of course. 

she’s still talking up a storm.  it’s like almost every day we notice something new about her.  either a new word, a new sign, or a new gesture.  it’s been a crazy month!!

she’s kinda slowed down the walking efforts, and i assume it’s because she’s into the talking efforts more.  although, gramma & grampa were here 2 weekends ago and jovie decided to show off for them.  while i was on the phone in the other room, gramma even caught a picture of her walking w/ her walking toy with only ONE hand!  so i got to see it even if i wasn’t around.  (sorry i don’t have that photo)

she became interested again in that toy on my birthday.  so she’s been doing a little bit of both the past week or so.

but still, her fave thing to do is talk.  and now mimic.  (The Mr. is enjoying getting her to say inappropriate things, such as hiney- much to my prude chagrin).

let’s see…. how bout if i bore you document the things she likes to say & do:

kii = kitty,    baw= ball,    tii= bird,    mama, mommy,   dada, daddy,     up! (and now when she’s done eating that’s what she’ll say),     oh-oh,  bup!= bump,    dee-dee= baby (with sign),     wok=walk,    buh-boo=bubbles,  pup-pup or puppy,      yucky,   and hi!!  which she says a lot.  esp when she signs “phone”.

she signs:   baby, phone, kitty, more, flower, rain, milk, eat (mainly to mimic, not to actually tell us she’s hungry), fish (you should see her pucker!),  thank you, hat, daddy.

but she’ll also say “mao” when asked what a kitty says.   and she’ll growl or try to say “woof” when asked what a pup-pup says [which i have never ever growled to her for puppy.... The Mr. thinks she got that from the real dogs down the street].  

when you say something’s hot, she’ll immediately start blowing.  as well as if you talk about bubbles.    she’s starting to shake her head no (even when she doesn’t mean it!) and she blows kisses and just mimicked the “ssshhhh” sign.

she can do a high five.  & when she sees something sweet or a pic of someone (or kitty) sleeping, she’ll say “awww”  b/c she knows that’s what The Mr. & i say.   speaking of “awww”, she’ll make me do that a lot in the week because she SO knows how to love!  she’ll lay her head on my shoulder (after she says “up”) and she’ll just rub or pat my arm/shoulder.   amazing!

she can do all 4 stanzas of “if you’re happy & you know it”, and now she’s correctly anticipating a song we sing at the library. 

i’ve done a few google searches for this song. i can’t find it.  but we sing it every week…..   and she’s starting to like it.  she’ll kinda start singing what we think sounds like the beginning of the song.  so when we begin singing it, she’ll sign “baby”. ….. before we even get to the first stanza that says “when i was a little baby….”   it caught us by surprise.  all the while she shows us her big grin.

oh, and that grin now has one extra tooth on bottom.  she’s slow goin, but now there’s 7.  who knows when that other match will come in. there’s not even a speck yet!

enough with the words, here’s the fun:

i'm getting into mischief so i'll stay still for a pic.

i love to crawl & stand at the TV.

babble on

The Mr. & i are having a ton o’ fun w/ jovie these days.  (and we say over and over what a very different kid we have!)

she’s really wanting to talk.  she babbles all day. nonstop nonsense with LOTS of inflection & hand gestures.  she prob’ly gets that from me.  (The Mr. would agree.  & likely agree that most of what i say is also nonsense).

i spend a lot of my day repeating what she says, telling her she’s right.  trying to make up a conversation to go along w/ the string of nonsense.  but i lack a lot of imagination.  a lot of “uh-huh”s & “oh really!?”s come out of my mouth.  very exciting.

but she really wants to talk.  & sign.  sometimes we watch baby einstein videos before bath.  we have 3 that show different signs, and she is so interested in them these days.  she’s always enjoyed them.  from day one…back in january… for whatever reason, i guess she saw that i signed back, she’ll look at me (or The Mr.) and get our assurance of whatever sign is being portrayed.  you can see in her face just how intent she is on watching us sign the word.

and lately she’s taken it upon herself to sit in our laps for about 5minutes before crawling RIGHT UP to the tv, pulling herself up and gluing herself to it.  constantly looking back at us to make sure …………….of what, exactly??  that we’re signing? <ok> that we think she’s damned cute?  <check>

but now she wiggles her hands a lot when she strings her “sentences” together. lots of pointing.  you know- for emphasis.  because what she’s got to say is pretty important!

the coolest thing is when she gets so excited, and then she’ll say or sign something in context.  i love that.  it’s one thing to say/sign when you see a video for the 50th time, but yesterday we went to the store and she about had a fit to tell me that there was a baby right there.  that’s one of her latest signs.  and it was really neat to me, because she saw him first.  there was no prompting or prodding at all.  so this is a sign that she’s growing up. 

….here she is, not signing or anything, but crawling around talking.  can’t you just see how excited she gets?  no doubt she said something truly wonderful.

"you can't keep me still enough to get a good shot!"

the olden days

if you’ve read this blog at all, you’d probably get that i’m super nostalgic.  (especially since it seems i mention it in MANY of my posts).

and you may have gathered that i’m sad that jovie keeps doing that thing that babies do.  what’s that??  oh, um- growing.

if you’ve followed for a bit, you see that we’ve had some pretty good surprises when jovie decides to not freak out at certain new things.  (some examples:  eating baby food at first,  going to MOPS & the pool the first time).  so, i guess now that we have a happy toddler (!?!) and she’s been proving herself recently, The Mr. & i have made the dire mistake of just letting her experience something new without us prodding, practicing, and feeling apprehensive so we can be on our guard.

instead, we let our guard down.  cuz you know, (as we say over and over to each other) we finally have the kinda baby we thought we’d have way back then.

enter:  bubbles.  more specifically of the bath-sort.  as in a bubble bath.

oooohhhhh so those often longed-for olden days are back!  there’s the jovie we remember.  the one who detests bathtime to the point of screaming bloodymurder that even being downstairs with the tv on you can’t hear the tv.  those bathtimes.  the ones where, when she was a baby, would end up being messier than before b/c after you hoist her out of the bathtub (which she detested), she’d scream so violently that she’d poop all over the towel that, thank god, The Mr. (and not me) would be holding.

aaaaahhhhh the olden days.

so we have our baby back.

b/c we totally didn’t even think that a bubble bath would make her flip her freaking lid.  she LOVES bubbles, and it’s her favorite part of both library time & music class.  and “buh-boo” is one of her words. 

but even the very few bubbles we put in her low-filled bathtub was way too much, and she freaked out before she could even give it a chance.  FUH-REAKED out!

so i took the soap and erased* them & that wasn’t good enough.  so i drained the tub.  and that wasn’t good enough.  that was saturday.  sunday’s & monday’s baths (sans bubbles, no doubt) haven’t gone well, either.  oh please let this be a passing phase.  b/c bedtime around here used to be quite nice!

but, you know…. she more than makes up for it:

i love this walking gig

*am i the only one who knows how to erase bubbles with soap??  i remember being a kid and hating the washing part and saved till the water was borderline freezing b/c all the fun would disappear.

our week in bullets

• jovie had a fever last weekend.  it lasted about 5 days. with the exception of the occasional runny nose, or sneeze — she was symptom-free.   at the recommendation of the children’s tylenol bottle, we made an appt. with the dr.  & her blood test came back that there was nothing wrong with her. (no virus, bacteria, whatever….).   
• so we stopped taking her temperature.
• on monday (labor day) Dad took Jovie to the park since she A. has been couped up at home all weekend, and B. decided to not nap.  —i mean, come on!  dad’s home!—  i didn’t go with them.
• when they came home, he told me that i missed a pre-milestone of her holding onto him and walking about 20 feet barefoot in the grass!   up to this point, when we’d try to hold her, she thinks we’re helping her get down, so she sits and crawls.
• they immediately showed off their skills!
• 
• The Mr. likes to say “she’s walking”. 
• she’s not walking.                                   YET!
• on saturday we went to her first music class!  that’s a class where we pay a lot of money to have her watch the other kids and the lady with the guitar.
• she loved it.
• it’s every saturday… so i know very soon she’ll get into it.  she LOVES music!  i bet in a coupla more times, she’ll show off her signature wiggle dance.
• (we’re missing this saturday b/c WE GET TO GO SEE GRAMMA & GRAMPA!!!!!!!!!!!!!  so we’ll go this week to make it up)

last week was uneventfully eventful.  it’s currently Tuesday, and we’ve already had a decent start to this week.   stay tuned…..

rare occurences

Halley’s Comet:     can be seen once every 75-76 years.

a blue moon:  which is typically a full moon that doesn’t happen according to the monthly pattern.  (an extra one)

the likelihood of me eating pizza:   hasn’t happened in almost 35yrs.

and THIS:

truly.  let’s see—  

• she has slept in the car & then the carseat when she came home from the hospital. (3 days old)   
• she slept in her carseat-stroller when we went to the park the first time (1mo old), and again one other time. 
• she almost slept in the car the one time we went to the park & was fussy so we left & drove around [and around and around].  
• after screaming for a little bit, she slept on the way to & from Stone Mountain (4mos). 
• she slept for about 45min. on the way to greenville for thanksgiving (4mos). 
• she slept for 15min on the way to greenville after christmas.  
• she did sleep on the way to columbia from greenville on that trip.  about 30 minutes (5 1/2 mos).

and that is IT.  those are all the times sleeping has occured when not in a place designated for sleep.

until yesterday.  we came home from MOPS a little later than the last week, and alluvasudden i realized she was quiet.  which is normal.  but i look behind and what i saw was NOT normal.  she slept 10min in the car.  luckily, i was able to put her down for a real nap later in the afternoon as well.

i didn’t wanna take her out of her carseat….  we never get to see her sweetly sleeping anymore.  not since she became a lighter sleeper than the early days.  how many times has she even woken up when we walked up or down the stairs????  luckily, she’s not like that anymore, but still— we just don’t chance going in to check on her like we used to, much to The Mr.’s chagrin.

13

so 13 months came and went on sunday.  i said repeatedly how i needed to post.  to commemorate the number 13 of course.  but as you see, i didn’t.

as i mentioned in a recent post, i’m likely not going to go around and tell everyone that jovie’s 13mos old.  i’ll just say a year.  but still- 13 is kinda special.

here are some random goings-on:

1. just this morning she decided she knew how to crawl down the stairs.  & successfully did 4 of them on her own- i wasn’t even prompting her.  in fact, it’s been over a week since i tried to guide her down the last time.  guess she figured out now that it’s the same as getting down from furniture….
2. which she does ALL. DAY. LONG.  she’ll crawl to the window and stand up. and crawl to the couch and stand up. and crawl to the chair and stand up.  and crawl to the ottoman (aka baby gate) and stand up. 
3. she LOVES music.  when we sing to her, when we play it, when there’s a musical chime like if we reboot or something.  she’ll stop what she’s doing, give a little wiggle & a smile, and be on her merry way.
4. she is starting to cruise ever so slightly.  especially to get to the computer at one end of the couch.  she did better before she knew how to get down from the couch…. but now she knows it’s much quicker to crawl under my legs and stand up again to get to it.
5. yesterday she began to let go w/ one hand while standing up on me and/or the couch.
6. her bangs are ridiculously long.  too bad i can’t keep her cute all day long with a barette….
7. because she’ll eat it.  truly- she ate her barette!  so for the last month, we are probably more diligent than we need to be- but man, that was crazy!  she seriously ate that thing w/o any problem or our knowledge.  she was in the backseat while The Mr. was taking her to the park.  in less than 5 min. he noticed it was gone.  surely she didn’t eat it. not that quickly nor silently.  we tore the car apart several times.  just to be sure.  well, a few days later….. it was confirmed. so now she can’t wear one when she naps or rides in the car.  oy vey!
8. and now i see how easy it is. b/c she swallows a lot of her food whole too!  especially the yummy stuff.  (baby raviolis that i still have to quarter, veggie puffs from gerber that i have to break in half, etc…)  
9. she finally began to suck from the sippy cup spout.  i wish i had any kind of mechanical knowledge so i can invent the sippy cup that lets one or 2 drops out and that’s it.  b/c she’s been sucking it for quite a long time.  but every time i’ve tried the plug, if she wasn’t getting any, she didn’t know to suck.  so when i show her how to do it and start sucking in my cheeks, she just gives me her adorable goofy grin and laughs.  we’re still working on doing this more consistently.
10. recently she has taken to some links that she has.  you can usually find her crawling around with one in each hand.
11. after waiting for about a month for that tooth to finally poke thru, she now has an even set of teeth.  4 up top and 2 on bottom.  complete with spaces. 
12. it’s easy to get her to giggle these days, and i do it often.  it’s so adorable & surprisingly quiet.  i know she can be quite loud.  in her voice, and of course her cries/screams!  (she has never had that cute newborn cry). 
13. yesterday she ate PIZZA for supper!   did y’all hear me??  (unfortunately, it was “light on the sauce”- so i hope next time she’ll also enjoy it).

so now that she’s as old as she is, i just don’t ever think to have the camera poised on her so often.  all i have is video of the pizza.  i didn’t grab my camera. 

but here are a few recent shots of her, her rings, and her mess of hair!

july 31st

there’s something about jovie being a year old (*gasp!) that has changed the way time has passed this month.  i remember vividly this time last year.  we were still counting her life in weeks.  somewhere down the line, we began counting in months.  and now- save for a few milestone-ish-type-sounding months, we’re likely to just brush off and say she’s a year (*gasp!).

which is somehow making this time sorta fly by.  i looked at the calendar and saw that it was just a few weeks ago that we celebrated her birthday.

yesterday, i made a remark to The Mr. how “wow- tomorrow’s the 31st…” & he responded “yes. it’s usually the day where we’d have to take a picture with zigzag.”

i promptly threw a shoe and told him to shuttup.  ok, really i didn’t –but man! why they gotta do that?  her with the growing, him with the reminding.

so, yes. today there’s no picture with zigzag.  but she’s still fighting naps like she did one year ago.  anyone have a remedy for what to do when the baby won’t nap just b/c dad is home breathing the same air??

new developments

just in time for her birthday, jovie’s on the ball with keeping me pretty active.  in the past week or so, she had a few more breakthroughs (a la what happened late April)

2 weekends ago, she enjoyed some pool time w/ Dad.  & i heard him shouting for me.  so i quickly ran outside to see what was the matter.  and he said she’d been trying to climb the steps.  i saw her make a few attempts before i went inside to make her dinner.  when he came in he said that she did, in fact, climb 2 stairs.

the next time i took her to the pool, she spent some time climbing 3 stairs- and thus getting out of the pool altogether.

she hasn’t stopped since.  now she spends much of her pool time trying to hoist herself out of her raft & crawling out of the pool.

oh, and those 13 stairs we have in our house?  the ones w/o baby gates.  yeah.  she climbs those too.  all day if i’d let her.  we usually crawl up for a naptime and for bathtime.  and sometimes once for fun.  she was pretty cute today b/c there was a tiny wrist-book on one of the landings, and instead of stopping to play with it, she grabbed it and scaled the mountain with it. 

also, early last week, The Mr. was giving jovie her bath when again i was summoned.  this time, she decided to pull herself up to stand.  she has been doing this from a different angle.  usually she’ll crawl all over one of us and push down to stand up.  which i think is easier than trying to hoist yourself up from furniture (or bathtubs) at your height.  so finally, she pulled herself up legitimately.  and the next day, she cautiously tried again on the chair where i was sitting.

nowadays, she spends a lot of time finding me when i’m sitting & standing next to me.  the pride you see on her face is just melting!

as is her pride when she figured out how to sign “more”…. it comes out as a clap mostly, but she’s trying to “aim” it right.  she’s hit-n-miss on understanding exactly that it means “yes, please. i’d like some more of that”  because sometimes she’ll ask for more and then push it away when i give it to her.  she still doesn’t do the “all done” sign.  which may help.

now that she’s more active  (and i’m tired of her crawling around the same place overandoverandoverandover), i like to get her out more.  we’ll take some classes/activities in the fall when things start up again.  but i did find a gym down the road that opens for 2 hours so your kid can tumble & use the fun activities.  we’ll get a lot more out of it when she’s walking, but she had the BEST time crawling really fast over the squishy mats & going all over the place.  she was squealing and pointing excitedly.  The Mr. came with us & he said he’s never seen her like this.  it was a lot of fun. 

(it’s a great idea, too…  b/c i’m sure it helps promote gymnastics.  they start as early as 18mos w/ a mommy&me class.  so we’ll likely be doing more of this come january!)

she has even surprised me with at least 2 real kisses— mouth closing sloppy wet and all.

and to think it was one year ago today that i had my last dr’s appt where they said things were already progressing.  but to relax, b/c it could take even a week before i start real labor.  hmmmm the fun started in the middle of the night (2am on the 8th) & 26 hours later….   the journey began.

more about books

while we’re on the subject of books, i would like to make my own review.

as The Mr. mentioned a long time ago, i have a great collection of books.  being a first grade teacher will do that.  but i also love love love children’s books.  i love to read period.  but it was always so much fun to collect these children’s books.  i spent a lot of my salary on them thru’ scholastic.  (god, i miss scholastic!)  maybe it’s because i remember when the flimsy newspaper-magazine would get passed out in class when i was younger, and always circling a zillion titles…  never ordering any.  well, there was the one time i got to get Mad Libs!!   FUNFUN.

i digress….

i haven’t been very knowlegeable about babies’ books, though.  many of my students/ teachers would mention titles i hadn’t heard of.  baby classics like:  Goodnight, Moon, Corduroy, &  Guess How Much I Love You.

i did read corduroy while teaching b/c it was one of the books we read as a school.  the other 2 jovie had gotten as gifts.  the first time i read them was to her.

i have my own review of the latter.

if you hadn’t read it, it’s about a baby bunny & father bunny.   the author Sam McBratney thought that would be too simplistic for a baby.  so he calls them “little nutbrown hare” & “big nutbrown hare” each.and.every.time.   

not only is it a mouthful to say, but really?  “nutbrown”???  is that in the crayola 64 box?

well, it’s time for baby to go to bed.  so daddy begins to do so, and the baby says:  “guess how much i love you.”  the whole book then becomes this sad sad competition of who loves whom more!

you gotta hand it to the baby for coming up with ways to show dad how much he loves him.  of course he begins with his outstreched arms, as we’re all wont to do as littlies.  but nonono.  that’s just not enough for dad.  he then has to tell the baby that he loves him MORE…. simply b/c his arms are longer.

so baby tries to come up with ways to show daddy he’s loved, and each time, this NUTbrown hare has to show up his baby.  sometimes i read it to jovie more truthfully and i’ll say things like:

“oh really, jr, you love me as high as you can hop?  well, looky me!  i love YOU as high as i can hop.  and that’s sooooo much more than you, that i bump my head on this tree limb.”      “awww, that’s so sweet that you love me to the meadow.  i love you PAST the meadow, over the stream and all the way to gramma’s house, for that matter!  so there!”

so, yeah, i tend to take on a tone when i read this sometimes.

because, finally, this poor poor baby bunny has come up with so many ways to show his love.  surely his dad can’t love him more than that!  he exhausts himself when he says “i love you to the moon!  (b/c surely there’s nothing farther than the moon!)”

oh, but you poor poor baby.  even when you’re sleeping, that dad has to show you up & get the last word.  b/c of course.  he loves him to the moon……   and back!!

it might be a shorter book if the author just let the dad say “i love you infinity to the infinitieth power” like all the other very mature folks.

harumph!

luckily, jovie’s not as discriminant when it comes to books as her dad and i apparently are.  she loves them.  she plays in her bucket o’ books as much as her toys, i think.  and she knows the word enough to go get one when we ask.  (when she wants to, of course…..  ahem!)

here she is enjoying some bathtime reading:

um, honey- it's upside down.

if you say so......

aaahhh. much better!

and, yes. that is her baby bathtub in the big tub.  this was at the end of may, and the first night she actually went upstairs to her bathroom.  b/c until then we saw no need in breaking our backs.  kitchen sink it was!  then we thought that perhaps 10.5 months was certainly time enough to go to the big bathtub.

pool time

day 1- loved it. surprisingly w/o needing any coaxing at all.  immediately began to splash:

splashy-splash!!

day 2- more like how i thought day one would’ve been.  (you can’t hear the whine that accompanies this picture:)

i don't wanna touch the water

day 3- somewhere in between.      <we were an “expert” at going to the pool, so we didn’t bring any film…….     oops>

but it’s official.  our pool is open for business!  & days 4, 5, etc….  have been a great success!   she even loves her ladybug raft!

this is so cool!

oh, by the way,  this marks our 101st post!!!  thanks for keeping up with our adventures!