October 2007

Naomi and Josephine at the playground.

Josephine climbing the yellow thing. She did it all by herself. I only needed to help her down.

Thaxton and Josephine at Boo at the Zoo. Thaxton loves to drive and Josephine wasn't too crazy about having her personal space invaded. She finally gave up and let Thaxton ride in the car the rest of the night and she sat in his stroller.

Josephine continues to talk more and more everyday. She can repeat anything you say. It's funny to hear her repeat "Holy Snikees!" or "Mike Wazowski!". "Rhinoceros" and "hippopotamus" are still my favorites. Did I mention in a previous post that she knows her last name? She also knows our first names. She's so smart. : )

Counting is one of her favorite things to do. Sometimes she can count 1-10 and other times she skips most of the numbers (although they're always in the right order). She tries to hold up the right number of fingers for each number, but that can be tricky. She has 1, 2, 5, and 10 down. One thing that she knows that amazes me is the difference between number and letters. She'll see words and say "a, b, c's" and see numbers and say "numbers". I was wearing a shirt that had NYC on it yesterday. She pointed to it and said "abc's" then pulled at my shirt and said "turn page". I thought that was funny. When she's saying "and" it comes out sounding like "e" and a firm nod with raised eyebrows usually accompanies the word. For example, if you say "you're going to your grandparent's house" she would usually replay "and mommy" or "and daddy" or whoever else she thinks will be there.

Josephine used to love to brush her teeth. Now she hates it. Does anyone know how hard it is to force a toothbrush in a toddlers mouth and brush her teeth??? Just one more fight during the day. She fights me over most things now. Changing her diaper and clothes usually causes one or both of us physical pain. To brush her hair we have a routine of running in circles around the house (me chasing her with the brush). I can actually do a better job brushing her hair while she's running than when I try to hold her down to do it. We don't use doggie ears very often anymore (small ponytails on the top/side of her head), we're sticking with barrettes. Sometimes it's a fight to get her in her carseat. She's getting so strong that it's getting harder and harder to force her in. She's not as consistent with the carseat as she is everything else. Probably because she loves to go places. She gets excited about anyplace we go.

One sweet thing Josephine has been doing is putting her hands gently on my cheeks. She'll lay on top of me, lean in, and put her hands on my face. It's so sweet. She'll gently pat my arm or let sometimes too. She pats her own legs too. My grandmother used to do that all the time. Could the habit have skipped 2 generations?

We celebrated Papaw's birthday last week. He came and picked Josephine up after her nap and took her to the park. She loves playgrounds. Nathan and I went over for dinner. Josephine enjoyed her time with Papaw.

Josephine is obsessed with Winnie the Pooh. She never cared (or even knew) about it until Disney World. She loved the ride. Now she'll find Pooh everywhere. She knows all the character's names, too. She has hand-me-down pajamas with Pooh and Piglet on them. She asks to wear it every night.

Granna's new baby chicks.

Jonah the cat, Jo the kid, and the egg basket.

We went to Granna's this morning to look at the new chicks at the farm. Josephine was very excited. She got to feed them, but not touch them. She actually pet a horse today. Lately she's been crying when the horses come near her. One of the horses is particularly mellow and friendly so she's good to pet. Josephine wouldn't sit on her, though.

Last night Josephine and I went to Elizabeth's 6th birthday party. Josephine had a blast. We went on a hayride, Josephine played on their slide and swings, and she had a cupcake with yellow icing. She decided that she was ready to go home when she fell down a few feet off a ladder. It wasn't a bad fall, but we left after that. She was worn out.

Nathan was watching the first episode of Star Wars the other day. Josephine got so excited about it, she knocked over her cup of juice. (She's been waving her arms when she gets excited lately.) Jar Jar was her favorite. Nathan changed the channel when a fight scene came on and Josephine cried.

Josephine and I (ok, mostly me) carved some pumpkins this week. Josephine wasn't too excited about cleaning out the pumpkin at first, but on the 2nd one she was more willing. Although, she didn't understand why we didn't put the guts back into the pumpkin. She "helped" carve one of the pumpkins. She held the end of the knife while I cut the pumpkin. She gets very excited when she looks at the pumpkins in the driveway. I haven't taken any pictures yet, I plan on carving some more. Plus, it's hard to operate a camera when you're up to your elbows in pumpkin gunk.

I Love You

Josephine playing in the bubbles.





I got my first unsolicited "I love you." from Josephine yesterday. We were playing on the couch and she was giving me a hug. : )



Josephine's language has really improved over the past few weeks. She knows her last name now and who else has the same last name. It comes out more like "Andsonder", but I'll count it. She'll say "Josephine" now, too. Next step is to put the two names together. That's quite a mouthful for a toddler.



She's starting to negotiate to get what she wants. She wanted a wipe and I told her no. She said "Just one." I was impressed, but she still didn't get one.

This morning when I was getting her out of her carseat, she had spilled Cheerios on her lap. She looked down and said, "Cheerios everywhere." I had to agree.



She has learned the word "need". She "needs juice", she "needs crackers". Jo used that one with Nathan last night. She hasn't tried it on me yet.

We went to Josephine's first Kindermusik class. There were only a couple other kids in the class, and Josephine really enjoyed it. She participated more than I expected and she had a smile on her face most of the time. She shook the shakers and walked around the room with everyone. Little Gym went well last night after being gone for 3 weeks. Josephine was very excited to be there. She wanted to hang on the bar most of the time.

Josephine's strep is much better. She still have some congestion, but she's back to her old self. She's still sleeping longer hours than she wass before we went on vacation. She's going to sleep at 8pm now instead of 9pm. She's hitting the terrible twos a couple months early I think. Taking her to the grocery store is a hassle now. She refuses to do what I ask her to and stands in the middle of aisle crying. Maybe she'll get over it soon. (Yeah, right. : )

Disney, Part 4

We're finally home from Disney. The past few days have been too hectic to post anything. Josephine has strep throat. : ( She came down with it Tuesday. She woke up in the middle of the night on Tuesday with a 104.4 fever. We put her in the tub and gave her meds and her fever came down a bit. We flew home on Wednesday night and I took her to the doctor on Thursday. She's doing a little better now, but is still feeling bad.

Animal Kingdom


The three of us at Animal Kingdom.


Josephine as she sees a giraffe on the safari and the Animal Kingdom.

We went to the Animal Kingdom on Monday. It was a nice park. We took the safari twice. Josephine got to see elephants, zebras, lions, giraffes (and a baby), and alot of other animals I don't know the name of. She enjoyed seeing all of them. It was very bumpy so I didn't get any good pictures of the animals. We also went to the bird show. She sat as still for that as she does for the one at the Knoxville zoo. We made a big mistake at the Animal Kingdom though. We took Josephine to A Bug's Life 3-D movie. She wouldn't wear the glasses (thank goodness), but it was loud, dark, puffs of air, and water squirts. She was scarred for the rest of the trip. Anything that was dark or loud scared her. The petting zoo was probably Josephine's favorite thing at the Animal Kingdom.


The llama at the petting zoo. And Josephine.

Miniature Golf


Miniature golf -- not for toddlers. She liked throwing the ball into the hold or using my putter to push the ball in.

Miniature golf was kind of a disaster with 3 young children. If no one else had been there it would have better, but the kids had a hard time staying with us and letting everyone have a turn. During the 9 holes, each child cried at least once. But everyone smiled more than once, so I guess it was more good than bad. : )

Magic Kingdom, Third Time

We went to the Magic Kingdom for the 3rd time on Tuesday. We didn't go until around 11 because we knew we were going to eat dinner in Cinderella's castle late that night. Josephine wanted to ride the horses (carousel), of course. We rode it about 7 or 8 times throughout the day. We were with the Randolph's most of the day. One of the fun things we all did was ride the race cars. Each adult rode with a child. It started to pour down rain half way through the course. It was fun. We got to ride Space Mountain and there was no wait! Elizabeth rode it twice, we didn't think she would do it. She was just tall enough.

In the late afternoon we thought Josephine was feeling warm so we went to the first aid office in the Magic Kingdom and she had a small fever. They gave her some Ibuprofen and she perked up after that. I thought it was her teeth causing the fever, I didn't know she was coming down with strep throat. The parade of lights scared Josephine so we took the cranky toddler up to Cinderella's castle and walked around. Once the parade was over the Randolph's came up and Emily and Elizabeth found out that we got to go up into the castle and have dinner. They were so excited. Josephine is too little to know or care, she just wanted to eat. It was almost 9 pm, so everyone was pretty tired. We got to watch the fireworks through the windows at dinner. The fireworks freaked Josephine out so Nathan took her out of the room. Dinner was excellent. We were the last people to leave the restaurant and almost the last people to leave the park. It was nice seeing the park so peaceful and quiet.


Winnie the Pooh was one of her favorite things at the Magic Kingdom.


The Randolph's and Josephine getting ready to go up into Cinderella's Castle for the dinner.


Group picture. It was 10pm, we were all tired.


This is what Josephine thought about staying up so late on Tuesday and at the beginning stages of strep throat. It wasn't pretty.

Josephine riding the carousel for the thousandth time.

I don't remember which day this was. I think it was the second time we went to the Magic Kingdom. All three of us rode in the same car while Josephine drove. It was alot of fun.

Home

We came home on Wednesday. Josephine was feeling okay and her fever was responding well to the Ibuprofen. We had to be out of our room by 12pm but our flight didn't leave until 5:30pm. It wasn't worth going to a park and Josephine wasn't up for doing much, so we hung out in the airport for the afternoon. It didn't go as badly as I expected it to. We had the computer with us so Josephine got to watch her Sign Language movie (I didn't bring any others) for a little while. When we were at the gate there were some other small kids that Josephine played with. There was also a huge window that looked out to some planes, which provided some entertainment. The flight went smoothly and Josephine took a nap. It only took a little over an hour fly-time. Papaw, Granna, and Naomi were at the airport when we got back. Josephine was so tired.

Josephine had a 102.5 fever when she woke up Thursday morning so I took her to the doctor that afternoon. Apparently strep is going around in both kids and adults right now, which is strange especially this time of year. Josephine hates the antibiotics so we have to pin her down and force it into her mouth. Luckily she hasn't learned to keep her lips together when she cries. It doesn't take too long to get it in. Hopefully she'll be better tomorrow. She's still pretty crummy today.