Scaredy Cat, I mean Kid

This is only picture I've gotten recently of Josephine smiling. : )

Josephine is going through a phase where she's afraid of everything. She's afraid of the animals, the pool, rocks being thrown into the pond. She's showing some strong dislikes too--being barefoot in the grass (she cried and stood on one foot when we put her in it), being barefoot and needing to walk across the doormat, touching the pine needles on the ground when she goes down the slide at Grannie and Papaw's house. On the other hand, she is loving the water hose. I planted a flower garden in the back yard last week and we go water the flowers everyday. She laughs and cackles when I turn the sprayer on. As long as she doesn't get really wet, though. I gave her her own watering can this morning. She doesn't quite get the concept yet, but she still enjoys it.

Josephine Update:

• Josephine can say the word "more". She's been signing it for awhile now too. She opens her mouth wide very deliberately says "mooooorrrrr". Very cute.
• We started swim lessons this morning. She cried for the first 15 minutes. She loosened up a little bit by the end, she'd lay on her stomach while I "drove" her around the pool. No smiles, though. We have another lesson on Thursday. Hopefully she'll enjoy it next time.
• Josephine is feeding herself with a spoon most of the time. It gets really messy. She refuses to eat vegetables without them pureed like baby food. She'll eat fresh fruit, though. Baby cereal is still her favorite food--it's so weird. That and bananas.
• We got Josephine a basketball goal. It's just tall enough for her to "dunk" the basketball. She and Nathan like to play together.
• She has a toy that is two cubes with different animals on them. Each side has half an animal on it, you match the two cubes to make the whole animal. Josephine is obsessed with this toy. She has no problem finding the other half of the animal you show her. She has trouble physically putting the two halves together, though. She won't play with it by herself so Nathan and I have to help her with it. It gets old. She loves it, though, so we play it anyway.

Josephine stepping onto our back patio with her watering can and bowl.

Josephine holding her watering can. The sunlight is hard on her eyes so she gives us this look all the time now.

Josephine and Nathan at the zoo looking at the elephants.

We took Josephine's wagon to the zoo with us. She liked sitting in the bottom instead of in the seat.

Happy St. Patrick's Day, Belated!

Josephine (15 months) sitting on a bench at the zoo.

We had another big weekend in Nashville this week. Aunt Leah and Uncle Brian had a "we've-finished-the-house, everyone-come-see-what-we've-done" party. They did a great job. I can't imagine how many man-hours were put into the house! Josephine got to play with some kids her age on Saturday night. They were all so sweet and got along very well. Thanks for having us all over, Leah and Brian!

Last week had such good weather! Josephine and I took a walk almost everyday. She plays in the driveway some too. (Our yard is about 100 square feet with a tree right in the middle.) I'm looking forward to when the warm weather returns. Last Monday we went to the zoo with the Randolph's. There are several pictures below of the kids. Despite the missed naps, they had a good time overall.

Josephine Update:

• Walking has been replaced by running around the house. She can really move if there's something she wants.



• She finally drank some milk the other day. One of her books on colors has a glass of white milk. She knows that I drink milk, therefore we have some, and she convinced Nathan to go to the kitchen and get her some white milk. I haven't pushed it, but hopefully she'll start drinking it. She's getting better about drinking just water. I usually put just enough juice in her cup or bottle to change the color a bit (sometimes she won't take it if it's clear). She drinks alot during the day. So much so that I have to put her in disposable diapers at night instead of cloth diapers. The cloth diapers aren't as well "sealed" and leak out when they get completely full.



• Nathan is working with Josephine on numbers. One of Josephine's favorite toys right now is a LeapFrog toy that sings about counting. Josephine was showing 1,2,and 3 with her fingers the other night. I don't think she's done it since, though. That's a hard thing for babies to do.



• I made Josephine a book on shapes last week and she seems to enjoy it. Colors seems to be much easier for her, though.

Josephine playing with Emily and Elizabeth at the zoo. The zebra was a big hit since it was so close to the fence..

Josephine, Elizabeth, Emily, and Drinnen sitting in the bird's nest in Kid's Cove. We couldn't get Josephine to smile even though she was enjoying herself.

Josephine and Nathan making the beaver face.

Josephine sitting in her papasan (sp?) reading her book. This is a book I made for her about 6 months ago on the different parts of her face. She loves looking at the pictures of herself even though she knows all the parts of her face.

Josephine playing outside in our driveway. I got her the truck she has in her hand for her to play with outside. She's starting to get the concept of rolling it around on the ground, but mostly she brings it to me to roll for her and she goes and gets it and brings it back to me.

Papaw made a toy box for Josephine. She's very proud of it.

Josephine fell asleep in Leah's arms on Sunday. It was very sweet.

Six teeth, no one noticed.

I noticed a new pearly white in Josephine's mouth this afternoon while she was laughing. The opposite tooth is coming in on the other side, too. She was sick all weekend with a cold, or so I thought. We didn't check to see if she was getting any teeth. The total teeth count now is 3 1/2 on top and two on bottom.

Josephine was in a pretty good mood most of the weekend despite being sick. She's trying new words all the time now. Most of the time she'll say a word once or twice then not say it anymore. She's big on words that begin with 'b' now. (Maybe I should try to get her to say "Beth" since she won't say "Mom" anymore.) She says 'basketball', 'blanket', 'balloon', "beacock (peacock)' and some others I can't think of. As far as her colors, she can say 'black', 'blue', 'red', 'yellow', 'grey' (sometimes). She knows most of the colors now.

She has a few new tricks too. Grannie taught her what a gorilla does. Josephine will "beat" her chest when asked what a gorilla does. Also, if you ask her what her name is she usually points to her belly with both hands. Every once in awhile she actually say "JoJo". Josephine has a new fish face too. It looks alot like the beaver face, but it's still just as cute.

Here are some pictures that I took today.

Josephine has been playing with the stuffed dog she got at Christmas and her ever-present passy. Her hair is getting very long. Nathan says that she looks like a squire from the middle ages.

Another picture of her, the dog, and her passy.

Josephine has enjoyed putting things on the diaper changing mat (don't worry, it's clean), including herself and Naomi. : ) In this picture she is putting her rubbed duck on the mat and covering it with her blanket. She's a very sweet girl.

Just a cute picture of Josephine.

Granna stayed with us Saturday night because her power went out at her house. Josephine enjoyed her company.