Josephine is Two!

Poor, Jo.  She turned two over ten days ago and I'm just now getting around to writing a little something about her crazy butt.  In my defense we've been on the go, traveling to Boston and back, and time has just simply gotten away from me.

So, where to start.  Josephine.  She is something.  She is strong-willed, loving, silly, weirdly aggressive, and growing up way too fast.  Her sentences consist of at least four words and she can clearly verbalize what she wants in either a normal tone of voice or by screaming as she is more likely to do.  She loves dogs but is scared to death when they get too close.  She is also still in the throes of "stranger danger" and has been for a very long time.  While she exudes confidence the minute she thinks we're abandoning her she becomes a mess.  We have noticed a small change in that it takes about five minutes for her to get over it rather than 50 so that's promising.

Josephine will only do what Josephine wants to do though, with a little bargaining, she generally comes around.  Time-outs are a daily threat for her and she's beginning to realize that there are times when mommy means business.  Naturally, I understand this is also a stage of toddlerhood but she has a little more emphasis behind her stubbornness than Alex ever did.

She loves her big sister.  Anything Alex does Jo does.  She wants to be next to her at all times and often, after she wakes from her nap, the first thing she wants to know is where her sissy is.  They do get along very well, though have their fair share of fights as any couple would.  This afternoon, for example, Jo was particularly upset about something only she knows and I asked Alex to fetch Jo from where I had left her on the side of the house.  Less than a minute later they come around the corner, hand in hand, Jo with slight tears in her eyes but overall happy again.  That is all I can ask for as they grow; I wish this helping and caring relationship continues through the rest of their lives.

Josephine is silly.  Much sillier than Alex.  I tend to think of Alex as my "old soul."  She's more serious than most three-year-olds and her silly behavior sometimes comes across as forced.  Jo, on the other hand, she commands an audience for her antics and makes sure all are paying attention.  She eats doughnuts with her feet (something I allowed because we were at the beginning of a ten hour car ride), does interpretive dancing to any song, likes to make silly faces, sings along to songs, and overall loves to be the center of attention.

She is also strangely aggressive and often gets a wild eyed look as she's strangling me or wiping my face or "braiding" my hair.  Seriously.  I think she's out to get me and the look that crosses her face, as it changes from a loving little girl to possessed toddler, tells me as much.

Josephine is also a lot more girly than Alex.  She likes baby dolls, dressing-up, stuffed animals, and clothes and shoes.  She actually likes for me to do her hair, often asking that I braid it which is impossible yet I pretend as if I've done so...not sure how long I'll be able to pull that off.  She also recognizes Gap packages and quickly starts undressing in order to try on the new clothes.

In all it would be a lonely life without Josephine.  It would also be a quieter life but that's not such a big deal.  She's the perfect match for her big sissy and the perfect ending to our family.

Our little goofball

 

Happy Birthday To Me

Today is my 33^rd birthday and I have a few thoughts.  Things have changed.  For starters I now find myself trimming nose hairs and my light-but-totally-there mustache.  I also regularly pluck a hair or two from my neck which have grown unruly.  Today, I discovered broken blood vessels alongside my left nostril which no amount of concealer can cover.  It makes me wonder if I should cut-out alcohol altogether so as to avoid looking like a complete wino by my 40^th birthday.  Pffftttt!  After having the girls it would seem that my chest (as in ribcage, perv) has permanently expanded as have other parts that take up a wider area than before.  Although, I will say that I will not be ashamed to put on a bikini this summer provided I keep-up a workout routine and maybe stop eating multiple bags of Cadbury mini-eggs, chocolate birthday cake, and drinking glass bottles of Pepsi.  Guess which one of those was an impulse buy (and in case you’re thinking it was the six bags of Cadbury mini-eggs you would be sadly mistaken).  Anyway, things are not looking good and I can’t wait to see what will happen in the next 7 years…*long pause*

There are other aspects that aren’t so bad, relatively speaking anyway.  While most people get their Bachelor’s degree by the age of 22 I am getting mine this summer at the age of 33.  Maybe not what my parents had in mind but if you ask me I kick-ass more for doing it now than doing it earlier.  I’ve also discovered an ability to run helped along by the fact that I frequently find myself pushing 60 extra pounds of weight around.  I would say those are my two biggest accomplishments for the moment.

So, here I sit.  This year my birthday falls on a Friday and in years past that alone would have been cause for celebration.  As it is, the only thing I can possibly fathom for a fun-filled Friday birthday is to do some homework and maybe get a movie from Redbox.  So, yeah, things have changed.

Happy 1st Birthday, Josephine!

I thought time went by quickly when Alex all of a sudden turned 1 and then 2.  Now, my JoJo is turning 1 and I really cannot believe it.  I remember during my pregnancy the guilt I felt about making Alex step aside and allow a new member into our family, in a way pushing her out of the way.  But now I see that Jo is the Ying to Alex's Yang...or maybe it's the other way around.  Alex is strong willed (we'll just go with that).  Jo is strong willed also but she does it with a smile on her face.  While Alex got my quick temper and frustration Jo got my sense of humor.  As I told Marcus one day when we were riding in the car and only Jo was responding to my silly faces "She gets me."

So, in honor of the tiniest Tepaske here are some stats about Josephine Margaret:

1. Her nicknames include:  The JoJonator (my favorite), Silly Goose, Joge, Joes, Gorgeous (or should that be "Jorgeous," ha!), and JoJoes.  None are particularly original though I am found of The JoJonator.
2. She can stack rings like nobody's business and is working on shape sorting and oversized puzzles.
3. She's been walking since she was about 10 months old so she's practically running now...at least her waddle has gotten faster particularly when she's grabbed something she knows she shouldn't have.
4. She likes to dance by bouncing up and down and turning in circles until she falls.
5. She can repeat "Mama," "Dada," "Baba," and "Haha."  No real words yet though she does babble quite a bit.
6. She eats like a champ and as of today gets her one night time bottle of milk.  No more breast milk/formula for us for the rest of our lives (yes, that means what you think it means)!  Huzzah for us!
7. She loves to give hugs and kisses but she'll hold it against you if you've been gone all day and deny you either one of those.  She still loves to snuggle.
8. She loves to do whatever her big sister is doing which is a good and a bad thing.
9. She thinks whatever she does is funny.  For example, she'll go in the kitchen and put a colander on her head and stand there laughing until someone laughs with her (which we do).
10. She loves everyone in her family and quickly warms up to people she may not see often.

Her physical stats are: Height 31 inches and weight 22.8 pounds.


Happy 1st Birthday, JoJonator!

Alex's Second Birthday!

Alexandra is two!  For Alex's second birthday we had a beautiful kitty cake (courtesy of grandma) and ice cream with grandma, grandpa, Uncle Jonas, and Mimi.  Alex clearly understands the concept of presents which is sad because the innocence is lost forever.  Anyway, there isn't much else to say except I'll write down some of her stats below:

 

Weight:
25 pounds

Height:
33.9"

Teeth:
She has 12 teeth total.  I think she's missing about 8?

Hair:
It's baby fine but past her shoulders.  The bright blonde is growing out and it's growing in just a tad bit darker.

Words:
  Too many to count.  She's stringing three words together and every day learns a new word (though whether she understands its definition remains to be seen).

Favorite games:
Chase, hide and seek (though she's a horrible seeker and even worse hider), kicking and throwing her ball, "on your mark, get set, go!", playing with her toys, patty cake, peek-a-boo, dancing, and tickling are just a few of her favorites.

Favorite songs:
"Itsy Bitsy Spider," "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," and whatever music is playing that she can dance to.
Favorite books:
Olivia, Gossie, BooBoo, Fancy Nancy, Curious George, I Love Cats, anything that has flaps to lift and generally any book at all she will read.  And read.  And read.
Favorite TV shows:
I hate that she watches TV at all but after having JoJo it's become a small part of our day while I attend to Jo's needs.  Anyway, she loves Dora the Explorer and "Melmo" and Abby Caddaby.

We are working on:
Cleaning up after ourselves, using our words when we need or want something, being polite, not whining every time dadda shows up, and listening (she is slowly mastering the art of procrastination).

Milestones reached:
I'm sure she's surpassed her preemie status as she has extraordinary fine and gross motor skills, her language is right where it should be, she soaks up new information like a sponge, she can run, jump, kick and dribble a ball, and loves to go down the slide at the playground.  She's still a little thing and doesn't realize just how little she is but that's OK.  What she lacks in size she makes up for in her fearlessness.

Alex and her Elmo Balloon

Happy 1st Birthday!

Well, I can't believe it but today is Alexandra's first birthday.  It is amazing to me how quickly this past year went.  Between hardly getting any sleep and constant diaper changes it's amazing Marcus and I survived and feel like it all went by way too fast.  The changes we all have gone through in 12 months are amazing but none more so than Alexandra herself.  She went from a crying, barely cognizant, tiny person to a mobile, Buddha bellied, full of personality person.  To capture that here are a few of her stats:

Weight:
19 pounds 2 ounces

Height:
29.5"

Teeth:
Her two front, bottom teeth are just poking through

Hair:
Thicker and blonder but still barely there

Words:
"Mamma," "dadda," "keh" (kitty), and "ball."  We are currently working on "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious."

Favorite games:
Rolling the ball; stacking her colored rings; using her shape sorter; "chase" which equates to her crawling away very fast then slowing down to hear if you're coming, speeding it up when she hears you coming and laughing her head off; clapping her hands or anything that makes a pleasing (to her) sound; pushing her wagon back and forth a million times; hugging her stuffed animals; helping load and unload the dishwasher; reorganizing the Tupperware drawer; giving open mouth kisses which could explain why I'm home from work today; and putting her forehead on our forehead, eyes looking into ours, while flicking her tongue in and out like a lizard thus sending us over the edge with laughter.

Favorite songs:
"The Wheels on the Bus," "Itsy Bitsy Spider," "Over the Rainbow," "Hush, Little Baby," and  Bach's Concerto in D.

We are working on:
Waving bye-bye, being gentle with Lasagna (not to mention mamma and dadda), walking, multiplication, and listening better.

Milestones reached:
To be honest I have no idea if she's reached her milestones or not.  I know she does things some babies her age do and she doesn't do things some babies her age do.  I don't really care as long as she's happy which she is about 95% of the time.  The other 5% of the time tends to go downhill during nap time or bed time when she's not exactly thrilled to be left behind in her room.

Happy 1st Birthday!