Not Amused.

Father's Day or not, Josephine establishes her boundaries.

Conehead therapy?

She's sitting up in her bumbo as of today! Maybe a little gravity will drag down that cerebral bulge!

Hedgehog Advocate Extraordinaire

Cowpoke

Josephine recently had her first visit to Lost Prairie where she got a brief glimpse of the land that's been in Sean's family for what is now eight generations. I felt like Mufasa telling her how, someday, aaaallll this would be hers. You could almost hear an inspirational soundtrack developing-- the wind blowing through the trees, the rustling grasses, birds squawking, the bellows of distant cattle, [the oil compressor two properties over], locusts buzzing, a random dog bark-- all joined in a harmony fit for any heartwarming Disney movie... And then Sean sort of ruined the awe-inspiring moment by getting technical and explaining, "Well, not back there, and only up until that treeline where there's a fence, and it stops at the road if you were to keep walking in that direction..." etc. Not sure she caught all the details, especially because she seemed focused on squirming, sweating, and squinting in the immense Texas heat, but that didn't stop us from taking some photos and generally enjoying our visit. (I'm just relieved that the cattle were nowhere in sight. I know Sean would have wanted pictures of her practically sitting on the beasts, and I have certain maternal concerns about one of her sudden cries instigating a stampede and us all being trampled to death or fatally impaled by a longhorn).

I'm guessing since she's bigger than a cow skull, she's probably not the littlest cowpoke anymore. There's probably one out there smaller. She is the loveliest.

You might have seen Sean's latest post. Here are a couple of out-takes...

... like father like daughter. But we refrained from putting a cigar in that little fist (AND I'll note that Sean's cigar was NOT lit during this little episode. We opted to keep her tiny lungs cancer-free and sacrifice a little authenticity.)

STEP EIGHT: Find Pediatrician

I didn't realize this was a step in recovering from the strain of pregnancy until the end of Monday. Takes the "official" care off your tired shoulders. I no longer have to be the wisest one-- there is now a number to call with an awesome nurse practitioner on the other end, and a very respectful, kind, sweet doctor. It is a relief. I feel just a little more recovered now.

So at 11 1/2 weeks, Josephine had her first pediatrician appointment. (Yes, Mommy is running 3 1/2 weeks behind, but that's pretty good for me!) Dumpling is now a hefty 14 pounds, 3 oz. I'd have actually guessed she was at least 15, so I'm a bit surprised that she came in lower. But thankfully she's slowed down the whole gain-one-pound-per-week stint. My arms are tired enough, as is. This weight has her at the 95%ile. (It's fun being at a pediatrician now where we get to hear percentile info!)

Unfortunately, she seems to have inherited her mother's short legs, because she's all out of proportion. If they had a percentile for trunk length and cheek roundness, I'm sure she'd hit 95%ile there too... but because of those squat stumps, her length is only in the 75th (she's 23 3/4 inches). Ah well. Maybe her dad's leg length will kick in later.

Since Dr. Boes is supportive of alternative vaccination schedules, we're doing the Dr. Sears one where she'll only get one vaccine with aluminum at a time. (I haven't done a ton of research about this or anything-- just read The Vaccine Book. According to Dr. Sears, there's limited research about the build-up of aluminum and its toxicity, so since our co-pay is low and I don't have to take time off work to take her in, there's no reason to bunch up a lot of aluminum vaccines at once... just in case.) So today she got her DTaP (Daptacel) and Rotavirus (RotaTeq) vaccines. Handled them like a champ, although clearly the RotaTeq stuff tastes preeeeetty nasty, and YES a needle in the thigh DOES hurt. She made a quick recovery from the pain, seemed extra fussy the rest of the day, had a 100 degree fever yesterday (Baby Tylenol helped), and today seems especially drowsy. Hopefully these side effects won't last much longer...

In other news, this last week and half has held a variety of milestones for Miss Josephine!

We are now reaching and grabbing with success (left hand preferred, and seemingly the only one discovered-- should I be worried about this??). This has also led to a pleasant increase in thumb sucking!

We also rolled tummy to back ONE time so far, unassisted in any fashion! A few other times with slight assistance; it turns out that being in a disposable diaper helps. I'm afraid she might encounter a few cloth diaper handicaps along her developmental way. But she doesn't actually seem to know how to do the rolling thing, because since the first time, I haven't really seen a pattern of understood behavior. So I think it might have been a fluke-- the arms, head, legs just happened to move in the correct direction at the same time, which resulted in rolling. Usually we just get one appendage doing the correct thing. Here's a shot of our typical ending point-- stuck.

Anyway, best of all, on Saturday, June 13, I SWEAR she mimicked back "Thank You" like six times in a row! And since then, she's said it clearly several times (garbled, many times), although on whole, not much compared to all her other babblings. Obviously she can't do the "th" since she's lacking front teeth. But she does have a two-syllable "ank-coo!" :-) I'M SERIOUS! Well... coincidence or not, my efforts to teach her the phrase have been reinvigorated! For those of you who haven't heard this yet: I don't much care if she says "mama" when she sees me, so we haven't practiced that. Even before she was born, I decided if she could just look at me and say "thank you" all the time, my motherhood experience would be that much more rewarding. So ever since her emergence we've been working on "thank you" multiple times per day. It's always just been a fun game where I say it and she smiles really big. Finally getting a mimic out of her was AWESOME... I actually shed a few tears because it caught me so off-guard-- she'd hadn't even been anywhere close to saying anything like it, and then suddenly, June 13, she looked at me and said it SOOOO clearly! I said it back, she said it back, I said it back, she said it back, you get the beautiful idea. Lovely.

Update: Okay, I'm sure you all think I'm delusional (and that's possible), but since I started writing this on Monday, it sure seems to me that she has started using her "ankoo" as a reward for when I do something she likes. For instance, she loves her swing. So if she's fussing away, and I put her in the swing, TWICE now since Monday, she has immediately stopped crying, looked at me sweetly, smiled, and said ankoo-- the word she knows I want to hear. She also did it this morning when I finally fed her (I was trying to get a few things situated and she did NOT have the patience for it. So when I was finally ready, she latched on like a hungry, starving monster, and after a few minutes of shoveling food into her face, she broke away peacefully to smile, make eyes at me and say "ankoo" before getting back to business.) These moments are hilarious to me. She has no idea what Thank You means, but I really think she knows I want to hear her say it. It seems that several times now, when she's been especially pleased with me, she's done her darnedest to respond with that little word. Which works out perfectly, because those are appropriate times to thank me. :-)

Anyway, it's going to be the cutest thing when she starts mimicking it on cue!

And now for a few more pictures from our travels. In all my moaning about how trying it was, I actually failed to point out that we had a GREAT time seeing everyone, and I'd do it all again in a heartbeat. It was such a treat to visit with our friends in Atlanta and see how much their little ones had grown. I also got to know some of Sean's extended family better while we were in Teague! Here's Josephine with her 4th cousins:

The newest one is Brayden; he was born just a week before Josephine! Josephine's wearing a hand-smocked dress given to her by other members of this same extended family... Dena and Carlos. According to Josephine, such a pretty dress obviously deserves to be christened by spit up, hence the different outfit she's wearing above, and in the black/white photo below.

Sean's parents live on a creek. There is a gazebo by the creek. There is a tree by the gazebo. Look what we saw on the tree:
Had to have been about 6 feet long. Here it is swimming away-- it was so eerie to watch. Have never seen a snake that huge outside of a zoo!

And of course, the places and clothes might change, but the people and pose remain constant. Josephine and Jo:

It really has been wonderful getting to see everyone!

Happy Birthday, Sean!

You're a little older now, but just as cute.
Happy 28th.

Love,

Jenny and Josephine

Great-Grandmothers

Part of the reason behind some of our recent trips was so that Josephine could meet her great-grandmothers. She LOVES these folks! They have the best cooing voices AND light-reflecting glasses! Fascinating!

Here she is with Gam, Sean's paternal grandmother, who came down for a visit in May:

My paternal grandmother flew to Bedford to be there when we visited my parents over Memorial Day Weekend. Here are the four generations:

Our trip to San Antonio was to see Sean's maternal grandmother. Four generations:

My maternal grandmother hasn't been able to see Josephine yet; she lives in St. Louis. So how about a picture of her holding me and my brother instead? By the way, her mother, who emigrated from Italy at the age of 11, is Josephine's namesake.
(...and yes, I still make that exact same face when I have cookies to eat...)

Yay for Great Grandmas!!!

SEVEN and SIX

With 7 of 12 done, I should be officially 58 1/3% recovered from pregnancy. Technically. Not sure I feel it though, and probably won't until key things like weight loss and figuring out how to be productive are achieved. Something tells me those will be steps 11 and 12... Meanwhile, here are steps 6 & 7, backwards.

STEP SEVEN: Travel.

This one's a stretch. I'm not sure it has anything at all to do with pregnancy recovery. Mostly it's just something we've done, so I might as well turn it into a blog post and use the handy theme I have going. I feel like one of those cheesy preachers doing a sermon series titled with catchy alliterations. Never dawns on them that certain sermons are about as unrelated as an apple in a bin of papayas. Like God, Glory, Grace, Golf. Golf? Really?? It's like that. Travel?? What? Why?

But here's how I'll tie it in: it has to do with confidence and learning lessons. Might as well take the semi-routine you have established at home, throw 5 million variables into the mix and find out whether you can still swim.

In the end, I don't know that we swam with well-executed strokes, but we did manage to not drown, which I consider an achievement in and of itself. Since Memorial Day, we've been to Bedford to stay with my folks for several nights, San Antonio for a day trip, Atlanta for the majority of a week, and Teague the following weekend for several nights. That a lot of moving around in less than a month.

Here's how Josephine generally feels about all this travel:

Atlanta was definitely the hardest. Hence the post about the beer bottle buckle opener. Never have I felt quite so desperate for a nice, cold anything-containing-alcohol as I did after our first day of travel, during which the only form of transportation we lacked was boat. Did car, bus, train, plane, a pied. Well, bicycle-- there was no bicycle of any sort. So we lacked boat and bicycle. Okay, there were also no blimps, zip lines or camel rides. I guess maybe that day of travel wasn't as difficult as it might have been.

Anyway, now that all the travel is behind us, I'm proud of us, and I'm happy we did it (and that it's OVER). Of course, the litany of things awaiting my attention back here at home isn't exactly fun. Stuff like finding a pediatrician (and Sean and I also need dentist/doctor appointments-- so I have to find those people, too), attacking our jungle of a backyard, finishing some of the thousands of projects I'm in the middle of... But at least we're home.
Here are a few pics from our trips. I have more on my camera that I need to upload, so I'll post those next.

Jason with Janell at her Special Olympics State Games, which we attended while in Bedford.

Josephine being inspected by Wuzzy (my Aunt and Uncle's pom who happened to be sporting the child-friendly appearances of a lion). They were meeting Josephine for the first time during our trip to Bedford).

Josephine being held by Aunt Darla, above, and Auntie Em (Sean's cousin) below.

Sitting with Grandpa, sporting her Shiner onesie, courtesy of the Palmers.

With Sean in Atlanta. You can see her little red fingertip in the photo above. We've been told it's a birthmark, but also that it might go away in a few years... conflicting reviews. Meanwhile everyone thinks we've pinched her finger!

STEP SIX: Challenge New Dictator

Okay, so at Wendy's FABULOUS advice (a twice experienced friend in Atlanta, who draws on the wisdom of her mother-in-law who has 4 kids and 11 grandkids), I have been challenging Josephine's dictatorship ever since my post about the sleep routine business. I'm happy to announce that we successfully regained the throne!

The basic premise passed down from the 11-time grandparent, to Wendy, to me, is simply to try to keep Josephine awake during her last cycle of the day.

And now for the tedious details: For the most part, the Baby Wise techniques have been serving us well. These worked for Wendy, too, with both of her children, and several other friends of ours-- everyone we know who's tried them has been happy with how it's gone. So of course they told us to read the book. We did and decided to give the ideas a shot, which thankfully, proved useful for us, too. (I believe it's had some publicity otherwise, so I'd like to clarify that Baby Wise does not promote hyperscheduling-- though by directing certain aspects of the baby's life you do tend to end up with a natural routine. In short, and leaving out various important nuances, the aspects you direct as a parent are making sure the baby gets a full feeding when she eats-- avoid snacking-- and keep her awake for a period after she eats during the daytime cycles, then lay her down for a nap when she shows signs of tiredness, but before she falls asleep so that she doesn't learn to depend on anything to fall asleep. So the routine is: feed, awake, sleep. But the whole routine is still triggered by the baby's cues-- yawning, rooting, etc. We just find that we're able to tell when the rooting is just for comfort sucking, and when she's actually hungry, because we know how long it's been since her last full feeding. This also made it easier to learn the difference between the sounds of her hungry cry and tired cry and the gassy cry, etc). Anyway, I know there are a million variations of parenting techniques out there, and of course, parents just have to do what they are comfortable with and what works for them. I totally respect that-- no approach could ever fit everyone.

Moving on. From the time my milk came in, I have found Josephine to be predictable 95% of the time, which is nice when it comes to planning your day and knowing fairly accurately when to expect her to wake up hungry (from start of feeding to start of next feeding, Josephine's cycles are usually between 3 and 4 hours). As I indicated in the sleep post, what I couldn't predict was which nights she was going to stretch out the cycles and sleep longer, and which ones she was going to want to eat every 4 hours overnight. This is where Wendy's advice proved invaluable! Apparently the key to more nighttime predictability is that last cycle. This tidbit is not mentioned in the Baby Wise book. But like Wendy pointed out, it is worth the small amount of frustration she incurs as we attempt to keep her awake between those last two feedings, if it means she will be tired enough to go right to sleep after the last feeding, and then sleep quite soundly for as long as she can. (Plus the frustration was just transitional. Unless we've got her really exhausted from too much activity during the day, she no longer minds being awake that last cycle-- she seems pretty wired that way now).

To be specific, here are our results: after trying to keep her from napping much in that last cycle, or more realistically, at least not falling into a deep sleep, she immediately went at least 6 hours between night feedings and never looked back. (We'd previously had that every now and then, because she was just generally a pretty good sleeper, but this was no longer an intermittant achievement. This would have been when Josephine was almost 4 weeks old). A week later this was stretching into an average of 8 hours each night, and three weeks later she was consistently at 9.5-10.5 hour stretches. We hung out there for a while, but in this last week, we've actually passed the 11 hour mark a few times and even hit 12 once! Although, in my opinion, 12 might be a little long at this point, because it seemed her naps were shorter the following day, and I'm guessing that's related. The problem with that is she can't DO anything to keep herself entertained or wear herself out. So being awake so much during the day is a little draining on ME. So I think the 9 or 10 hour mark is better because she naps longer.

I should also clarify that the Baby Wise authors explicitly disapprove of letting babies sleep so long overnight at the age we were letting Josephine sleep, especially for breastfeeding moms who need to establish their supply. But my supply seemed ample, (if I got worried, I pumped to increase demand) and Josephine could live off the fat in her cheeks alone for at least a week. ;-) Okay, I'm kidding (...sort of... see pics below). My point is that she was gaining plenty of weight, so a longer overnight fast wasn't hurting her. Also, it was comforting to have both of our mothers' adamant support of just letting Josephine sleep and not worrying about all the rules that doctors have now. (My mom's an RN and had 4 kids herself, the first of which also slept "through the night" quite early. Note that only the first of my mom's four slept so well. So we're enjoying this little treat and braced for the fact that any future children might terrorize us. I certainly don't want to give to parenting techniques credit that belongs to the baby's nature... it is definitely true that Josephine is just a REALLY good sleeper, and we are VERY lucky. Of course, it's like I've told a few people... God only gives us what we can handle. So there isn't much point in us being proud of the fact that God clearly thought we could only handle the very easiest of babies.)

Here is our not starving baby...

See the NY onesie outfit above? You will not believe what her LOVING daddy said.
"She looks like a fat man in a leotard."
Gasp! Shock! Horror! Outrage! How could ANYONE say that about precious JOSEPHINE???

Necessity...

...is the mother of invention.

Ah ha! You are all prepared for something great now, aren't you?? "WHAT," you wonder, "has Jenny invented out of necessity? Here she is, travelling with an infant (on Josephine's two month birthday, by the way! Happy Birthday, Josephine!)... Surely she has acquired sage wisdom, maternal insight, helpful advice, etc?"

Well, sort of.

My discovery is thus:

The average belt buckle makes a GREAT beer bottle opener.