she looks like a million bucks

so, i’m thinkin.  if HE *can earn a million with this look, why can’t SHE??

sadly, i did not take this picture of him... it was on hollywoodgrind.com

surely someone would pay me lots to sit here and be cute, too!

 * many thanks to zac efron for letting me steal his picture unbeknownst to him!

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??

tutu redu

here she is at 2mos

here she is at 6mos

and here she is now, at 1 year*.   as you’ll be able to see, getting a decent picture has gotten considerably harder, now that she’s not a blob content with being blobby.  even at the 6mo, it was right before she was sitting up.  now….  sitting up is a rare occurence.  b/c that gets her in prime position for crawling all over the joint!

all this hair makes me look like a bighead

mommy's right. i can't keep still!

i've got the toe-flex AND the toe-point down pat!

*i always thought how silly it is that people tend to speak in “months” for an insane amount of time… for instance: “my child is 46 months old. ”  no…… that means you’re child is about 4.  but now? i sorta get it.  b/c for me to say one YEAR is just gut-wrenching. 

still, i hope you never meet me & hear me respond that jovie is 139 months old!

(thanks, again, aunt barb! we’ll make this great tutu worth your while)

requisite photos

i apologize for not posting some pics earlier.  last week was pretty busy, i guess.  aunt jo-jo & michaela came for a visit.  then we headed to gramma & grampa’s for a visit and a very helpful babysitting deal while The Mr. & i went to a friend’s wedding.

the birthday weekend was a success.  thursday (actual bday), The Mr. & i went to lunch, ran some errands, and got her pictures made.  we gave her our gift to unwrap.  i’d post the video of her unwrapping, but really, we don’t want to waste about 10min of your life watching her watch the box.  we gave her a little push/ride-on car that she has no interest in yet.  well, save for the little piece that she likes to pop off in the front.

saturday the 11th (her due date!) we had gramma & grampa, and kenny & amy & their baby over.  unfortunately, my bff wasn’t able to make it with her daughter.  but amy had made the cutest ladybug cake for the occasion (thanks, amy!) and we all enjoyed ourselves watching the babies watch each other.  we dipped in the pool and then cut the cake.  this time, we even tried ice cream.  let’s hope she does, in fact, have some grampa & me in her.  b/c at first taste, ice cream was NOT her friend.  we have good video, at least!

but here are the money shots:

actual birthday, first tastes.

ladybugs galore

(by the way— the plates/napkins came from the cutest online store! they sent me better than average emails tracking my order with poetry. was fun! the cups i had fun dotting myself. i’m quite the talent. you know, compared to the awesome freakin cakes that amy made. that were also delish!!!)

i like this birthday thing!

thanks to the participants.  & thanks to The Mr.  (greatest ever!) for cleaning her up & feeding her a lot of supper afterwards.

(we missed you, beck!)

happy birthday

happy birthday jovie! our pretty little baby.

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.

just add water

here you have it, folks…

the growth of a little bean:

on second thought, i guess you add very little water.  supply lots of milk & food.  need ample amounts of patience.  plus another heaping tablespoon.  a few scoops of humor, and a bucket full of love.

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!