Love

Mama: I love you
Josephine: I love you too
Mama: Do you know what that means? I love you?
Josephine: Yeah.
Mama: What does "I love you" mean?
Josephine: It means "I'm so happy"
Mama: Yes, yes it does... I'm so happy I have you.
Josephine: I love you too mama.

2 years

*oops, forgot that I had this saved and hadn't published it yet...*

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Josephine, Jojo, Joey,

Several days ago you had your second birthday. Turning two was pretty fun for you, you practiced holding up two fingers for weeks leading up to the day and you answer "2" to any question where an amount is appropriate.

How old are you? TWO!

How much is it going to snow today? TWO!

Do you want some more rice? TWO!

You are finally old enough to understand how to open up presents and even fake excitement when it's just socks. Actually you are probably genuinely excited to get socks. Your birthday this year was a car theme. I didn't plan on that ahead of time but every time we'd walk through the toy aisles you'd loose your mind trying to reach for all the cars and trucks. I told your aunts and your Nana that if they weren't sure which gifts to give you for your birthday and which to save for Christmas that they should give any car or truck gift on your birthday. Then you saw a few minutes of the Cars movie on TV one day and proceeded to loose your mind all over again for the next week asking to watch it again but we didn't own it and it wasn't on TV anymore. So you got the Cars movie, and a million different kinds of cars and trucks as well as other nice non-car things for your birthday. I even molded candy into shapes of cars on pretzel sticks for you. Blue candy, your favorite color.

I made a dump cake for your birthday, with mixed berries. Last year I made a berry pie but didn't let you have any because you were in a white dress, this year you just plain didn't like the cake. Sorry.

Christmas, two(!) days later was just as fantastic for you. I'm really really impressed at how well you did during your three day party. Opening presents, saying thank you, and you didn't have a melt down at all which is awesome since you melt into the floor pretty regularly these days.

Sorry but it's true baby, you are like the wicked witch and sometimes when I talk to you my words are like water. I tell you it's bed time and the next thing I know I'm standing in a puddle, and it's screaming at me. You cannot have as much chocolate as you can hold in your lap, you may have one piece. Boom, splash, screaming puddle.

This year was pretty awesome.

You are getting good at posing for pictures. (duck face)

You perfected the somersault.

You have become a much better eater, trying more things, eating more at meal times, and using a fork like a pro. (Scrambled eggs in an ice cube tray?)

We took lots of walks this summer. You were finally brave enough to sit in the swings and then absolutely refused to get back out. You were nearly passed on from exhaustion and heat but if I stopped pushing you all of your energy would come back and your head would spin and other kids at the playground would suddenly burst into flames. You like the swings.

We were outside a lot this year but nothing is as fun for you as playing in the snow.

I even built a sledding hill in the back yard for you. You LOVE it. Is loving snow something all kids do?

You finally met a big chunk of your extended family this year and refused to acknowledge any of them. For the last year and a half you have ignored all strangers by clinging to me as tight as you can and then looking off into the distance like What? I don't see anyone? Do you hear someone? Oh let's look at this blade of grass for a minute.

You also danced your butt off this year. I don't have a suitable video of you dancing to share here but you have to believe me, you are a dancing maniac. Every commercial with a catchy jingle must be re-wound ten times (thank goodness for DVR's) and you regularly ask for us to put on a music channel and dance with you. Your dance moves are incomparable. They are probably my most favorite memory of your second year, your fancy dance moves.

Finally, you decided you'd like to use the potty this year. Mostly. I had just bought a huge supply of flushable diaper liners and ordered a travel potty that I was going to give you for your birthday but before it even arrived you were wearing undies all day and sitting on the big potty. You refused to sit on the potty with the small seat adapter thingy once it came...whatever. You still have accidents when I forget that you are still just two years old and I have to ask you to sit on the potty a few times a day. You have so much fun playing that there is no time to stop and pee.

Your favorite food is Papa's dirty rice and Costco's rotisserie chicken. Your favorite color is blue; I have to prove to you that your clothes have blue on them or you won't get dressed. You sing Yo Gabba Gabba songs all day. Someone taught you to say shut-up and you say that more than any other word, though I don't think you know what you are saying really. Your aunt Sarah tries to teach you a bad habit every day ( when asked what you are doing you answer "nothing", on Sarah's prompting you tell me I am crazy or stinky, and if I'm not carefully watching, your aunt will tell you to go ahead and wipe your hands on your shirt...)

Mostly though, you have been the most powerful motivation for me to work hard and be a better person. You have made me laugh so hard I cried on many occasions and love so hard that I cried on even more.

part two

Josephine really really really loves causing chaos, order is for babies.
She watches you stack up blocks and can hardly wait for the last tier before she winds up and Godzilla's your structure, squealing with delight.
She lines up the shoes kicked off by the door, backs up, and runs full speed with her arms swinging wildly, knocking them all around like a human bowling ball.
She "helps" with the laundry by waiting for at least three diapers to be in a stack before grabbing each one and slinging it behind her.
You don't even want to know what happens to her dinner.
Josephine is very loving and thoughtful.
When she decides to leave the living room to explore the hallway or to follow grandma to her room she always stops before rounding the corner to say "later" and blow a kiss to all of us still on the couch.
She always signs "more please" when she wants a sip of your juice or another bite of food.
She makes the sign for "please" on my chest instead of her own if she wants to nurse.
When asked to be gentle she will lightly pat my cheeks. If I'm lucky she'll then put both hands behind my head and pull me in for a super hug.
In the morning she'll sit up and reach for me to pick her up, when I do she always has her head a little down so that it wastes no time getting to my shoulder. Good morning hugs are the best kind.

11 months

elf
Originally uploaded by wi77ow

Dear Josephine, dear dear Miss Josephine,
I am so tired.
The end.

Ok, no, I can write more, but seriously baby, Mama is tired.

When a woman is pregnant her body does some amazing things to prepare for her baby’s arrival. It stretches in ways you wouldn’t believe, it nourishes and protects the growing baby, and it prepares to produce milk when the baby arrives. There is one other little know miracle that the mother’s body performs while gestating though, her brain starts melting. It’s true, a part of the mother’s brain turns into a puddle that sloshes around for a while before leaking out of the tear ducts the next time she watches a commercial with a happy ending. It’s the part that remembers the difficult and horrible times of labor and also parenthood.

If a mother’s brain could remember how painful labor is she would never have more children, but a few weeks or months postpartum and she is looking back at labor like it was a stubbed toe. If a mother could recall every exhausting 2am, 3am, 3:30am, 4am…waking, and every tantrum at the grocery, and every hours long crying session then I think there would be a babies category on EBay.

This brain melting is so very important though, for survival and for sanity. Luckily the part of the brain that remembers the good times swells to fill the space of the puddle. I know that I’ve wanted nothing more than for you to please sleep one more hour, but when we get ready to go to bed the next night I’m not dreading waking up seven times, I’m looking forward to the morning when you’ll pull my face to yours and give me kisses to wake me up. That’s your new thing, kissing, you kiss everyone and everything. Even right now you are sitting on my lap as I type this and you are leaning back every few seconds to give me a kiss. I like this new game. A lot. It might not be the best idea to put your mouth on everything during cold season, but it’s awfully cute. You kiss the dog, your toys, even papa’s scruffy face, and when there’s nothing right near by you sometimes stop in your tracks, bend down, and kiss the carpet. I will really miss this when you stop.

When we get ready to run errands in town I’m not worried that you’ll throw another tantrum when I don’t let you run free and clean off the shelves at Target (even though you probably will). Instead, I smile thinking about how you love to sing as loud as you can while sitting in the cart and everyone in the store stops to tell me what a wonderful baby I have. They don’t even know how wonderful you really are.

There have been days when I would have given my right arm if I could get a babysitter for one hour. I just want to spend a little uninterrupted time organizing computer files or picking up our room without you following behind undoing everything I set straight. One day I got my “wish” and even got to keep my arm. Grandma watched you while I went to see the new James Bond movie. I spent most of the movie thinking about you and absolutely not relaxing. You may be exhausting but you are also so delightful and I miss you every moment you aren’t around.
You are quite rambunctious now. I have spent time with babies before and usually the boys are wilder than the girls. You break that stereotype, shatter it, you are only getting bandages and icepacks for Christmas. You really like to spin until you fall over, which is pretty funny to watch. Sometimes you don’t even bother to spin, you just belly flop right where you are standing. Then other times you try to run as fast as you can through the living room and crash into the couch or a pillow on the floor. You are really good on your feet but you still manage to trip every once in a while and knock your head on the coffee table.

You LOVE dancing to any and every beat. There are the obvious times to dance like when you push the buttons on one of your noisy toys or when mama is watching that Beyonce video again, and the less obvious, like the beat of the security alarm at the mall, which you’ve rocked out to in the shopping cart many times.

You can’t stay still for very long, nor do you even want to. You even walk around when you have a book open and are “reading” the page with the cat and dog on it over and over.
But it’s at night when you really show off your inability to slow down. Even in your sleep you keep going and going. I’ve witnessed you laugh and smile in your sleep for months now, but recently you’ve also lifted your head to give the air a kiss before lying back down. It was precious, as was the time you reached out one hand very deliberately, pinch two fingers together and bring them to your mouth. You were dreaming about having a snack and you gave a big smile “eating” your treat. It’s terribly cute how you dream, but oh how I wish you would just sleep through the night. Like I said before, I’m so veryzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…

10 months

I'm undecided.
No, not on the upcoming election, but on how I feel about 10 months. The highs and lows of this month have been so extreme and so many that perhaps what I need to do is make a comparison list. Here it goes:

THINGS I DISLIKED ABOUT 10 MONTHS

1. You have stopped sleeping for longer than 4 hours max at night. Why would you do that? 4 hours? And that's on a good night! You wake up doing this horrible whinny noise and I lay still hoping you'll put yourself back to sleep, but oh that would be too easy. Instead, you sit up, find my face and grab hold of my nose with your razor sharp talons. Sometimes I give in right then, but other times I'm feeling a little more masochistic and I pretend to still be asleep. That's when you start kicking your little hammer heels into my ribs, face, throat, etc. I'm so tired.
2. Everything tastes better off the floor! Also, everything looks better over there! Everything I give you to eat gets tossed to the floor and when the last piece of banana is finally off the table you want out of your highchair so you can walk around eating pieces of dirt and trash off the ground. Then you find anything I have placed on the coffee table, stacked on the ground, put away in your toy box, etc, and you toss it behind you. Thank you, but please leave the decorating to the grown-ups for now.
3. For about 50% of your day you are very unhappy about your physical position in the universe. The whining to be picked up and then the immediate clawing to be put back down is driving me a little bonkers. It would be less annoying if when I put you back down you'd go play, but you don't, you cry to be picked up again, then claw my face, cry, claw, cry, claw....Oh My Gosh What?

THINGS I LOVE ABOUT 10 MONTHS

1. You've started singing along when I sing silly songs to you. Even cuter, you sing along in church. Every Sunday another lady turns to us after service to comment on how precious you are, how well behaved, and how cute it was that you knew to sing when we sang.
2. While I'm on the subject of mimicking, you know how to hold a phone to your ear and say hello. You don't stop there though and that's the best part, you will hold anything to your ear and walk in a circle around the room babbling on and on and on. I've seen you pull one sock off, hold to the side of your head, and for at least a full minute you walked around talking and laughing before you noticed I was watching you. What are you talking about? Who are you calling? Who are you mimicking? Goodness knows I never answer my phone.
3. When you aren't clinging and crying and clawing you do pretty well entertaining yourself. Often you just walk around the house stopping to examine this or that, answer a call on your hair brush, and then when I can no longer hear you stomping around I know exactly where you are. You have a club house under the dinning room table and you are happy to sit there for long stretches of time. I love catching you under there, it's adorable, but I have to wonder, are you planning something? Should I be concerned about some kind of baby overtaking?
4. There's this thing you do with your tongue now that's pretty funny. I guess it's because you have those two teeth on the bottom that you are still getting used to. You know it's funny when you poke your tongue out and you do it when we're playing to get a laugh out of me. You know all the tricks to get me to smile and laugh, like starting a game of peek-a-boo or running towards me only to turn at the last minute and crash into a pillow. I love playing with you.
5. You know how to cuddle and give kisses now. I can ask for a kiss from you and I LOVE that. You kiss the dog, you try to kiss the cat, and you give your mama kisses. That right there might be worth double points.

Ok, so it looks like the pros outweigh the cons for 10 months. 11 months, are you paying attention? It was a close race, but I guess 10 months was pretty good, I'm not surprised.

you can just skip over this one

Can I just be a blubbering, gushy, stars in my eyes mother for one minute? Maybe it's the beauty of the changing colors of fall (probably), the fact that I'm already thinking about Josephine's first birthday (maybe), or maybe it's the long island ice tea I'm finishing (nah). I feel like I just realized that I'm a mother. It's not as if I didn't know it before, or that I didn't love it already. I just had that feeling of awe, that feeling of being enormously blessed and challenged. I remember all the grief I've given my parents and I know Josephine will give me as much trouble, but I don't care about that now. I mean, have you seen that gorgeous face? Have you heard that beautiful laugh? I am so in love.

8 Months

Josephine,

This month has been packed with firsts that I hope to never forget. I have a perpetual calendar that I write things on, like your first word, mama, and the first time you took a few steps before crashing into my lap. Next year when those dates come back around, I'll see that July 30th 2008 you got up on both knees to crawl for real instead of the army scoot you've been perfecting. I'll document all of your milestones for sure, but this month there was so much more that I want to remember besides.

I don't want to forget how we share a piece of chocolate sometimes in the afternoon. I put a square of whatever chocolate grandma has around the house in my lips and you try to bite the corner that sticks out. My little baby bird has to give her mama a kiss if she wants to have a taste. I have no idea how you still manage to get chocolate all over your face, a candy goatee framing that perfect smile of yours.




I want to always hang on to the nights that you would get a second wind. You would practice your hollering all day and with your pipes all warmed up you'd play a very loud game of come catch me Papa. A game that has you yell and scream and laugh until Papa crawls over and you try to scamper away but you only manage to tumble over onto a pillow. Then you laugh even louder and send Papa hiding behind the pillow and the game turns into the loudest game of peek-a-boo in history.


You are very good at playing with everyone. You know when you are supposed to laugh even though you don't get the joke and you can always get any one's attention back on you if we dare take a minute to talk to someone else in the room. You also know how to tear your diaper off if I don't put it on backwards. You tear one side half way open, look to see if I have seen what you've done, then finish the job as fast as you can.



I know this won't last forever, but I wish it would: I love when you stare at me when you are sitting in the shopping cart and when I look into your eyes you give me the most genuine smile one person has ever given another. You smile like you know how much I love you. You smile like you have to show all the love in the world in one facial expression.

Here's something I don't have a picture of, my most special time with you in the morning: I bring you in the shower with me now. I hold you in my arms for the first minute and let you hold your hand in the stream of water, then set you down with some toys while I wash my hair. You do just fine in there, then I stop the drain and let you splash in the bath while I towel off. If I don't set you down fast enough though, you fall asleep, just conk right out without warning on my shoulder. It's hard to describe the special feeling of having your tiny wet body snuggled up to me, your arms wrapped as far around my neck as they can reach.

Month 7

Everywhere I take you, Josephine, people stop me to tell me how beautiful my baby is. They comment on how much hair you have, pull on your tiny toes and then ask me how old you are. Do you know what I have to say now? I have to say 7 MONTHS. BAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I would have written this earlier but I've been having too much fun playing with you lately, and I hesitate to write this but, Finally. Not that you aren't always a totally fun baby, but this past month has been a little rough for your mother's nerves. The separation anxiety paired with increased mobility left me with about 15 sec to myself everyday. 15 seconds is not enough time to go to the bathroom by myself, FYI.
This month you and I went on an airplane, four airplanes actually, and we survived. My best friend Kelly, her fiance, and their daughter Paris finally got to meet you. I haven't seen them since you were in my belly and Paris was soooo confused about why I ate a baby. How else could there be a baby in my belly?
You and Paris were BFFs almost immediately. There were so many moments that the two of you were quieltly playing and unaware that I was watching from the kitchen and I just died from the picture-perfectness of it all. The sappy fantasy that two young girlfriends have that one day they will have babies that will be best friends...for a week that fantasy came true. Those moments made all the crying on the plane and pooping in the airport totally worth it.
When we got home you waited a few days before you had your first real fever. I'm pretty proud of myself with how I reacted to you being a sicky baby. I wasn't the nerotic first time parent, I was the cool and composed rational parent that shushed the crazy family that asked if I was taking you in to the doctor's. You were fine, you are fine, but that's it honey, you aren't allowed to get sick again this decade.
You know what? I don't know if I have much else to say about this month. The more I gush about how cute and smart and fun you are, the more I sound like every mom with every baby. And I'm not every mom, and you aren't every baby, and I don't want to sound like we are. At least not in these letters to you. So this is all I can put out there this month, Josephine. I love you so much.

Month Five

I organize all the pictures I take of you by month and when I had to create a new folder with the name "month five" I was kind of upset. In many ways it seems like time has gone too fast, and I know I say this every month, but it's true. Sometimes though, I am just so impressed at what an incredibly fun person you have become in just five months.

Josephine, you laugh every day. Every Day! You sometimes get fussy and want to be picked up and then grandma or papa come around the corner and you start giggling like you have just heard the best joke. At this point I am still your favorite person, I'm the only one who can feed you, but you get a little tired of looking at me by the end of the day and I don't blame you at all.

You have officially all-by-yourself rolled over, but more impressive is how fast you can spin in a circle. I can put you down for a nap and one minute later check on you and you are facing the opposite way I layed you down and you've pulled one of your stuffed toys under your head like a pillow.

You have really grown in your noise making this month. There's this thing you do sometimes when you see grandma, you suck air in and make a noise like a zombie and grandma always makes the noise right back at you and you think it's just the best thing in the world. Other days you practice squealing as loud and high pitched as you can. Usually when you are in your highchair the squealing starts, along with furious kicking and throwing of all toys within reach.

You are so full of new tricks! One trick that I'm not sure I understand is the scratching. Always with the scratching. Laying on the couch, scratch scratch scratch. Nursing, scratch scratch scratch. Sitting in your highchair, scratch scratch scratch. Scratch scratch scratch.

You might think that the best thing this month is that you have started sleeping though the night on occasion. It is great, but I'm still sad that you don't like to snuggle as much anymore. Sometimes you still wake up in the middle of the night and if it's early enough and I'm awake enough I put you back in your bed after feeding you, but sometimes I fall asleep with you by my side and instead of your head finding my armpit like it used to, you start flailing your arms and kicking you feet so hard that it's like trying to sleep through an earthquake. (the only time I've been someplace where there was a registered earthquake I actually did sleep through it, so whatever, you know what I mean. You kick a lot.)

No, the best thing is when you see me come into the room and you squeal, and smile, and kick your feet so fast you almost take off in flight. The best thing is when I come into the bedroom as you are waking up from a nap and your little brown fuzzy head is peeking up just enough to see who's coming in and you get a big smile on your face as you quickly duck your head back down, rub your face, and pop back up. The best thing is when you are nursing and you feel so comfortable that you start singing between moments of sucking and you look up at me, waiting for eye contact so you can laugh and go back to nursing and singing. The best thing is that I know you are supposed to be my daughter and I am supposed to be your mother and I have never been more sure of anything in my life.

Month Four

Four months huh? Can you believe it's been that long since you were ripped from my belly? Of course being only 4 months old you don't really have any concept of time do you? Well for me it's been a 4 month long blur. And to be honest, this whole 'time flying' business is starting to piss me off.





This month you have become quite attached to your mother. I admit though, that sometimes? the feeling is totally mutual. There may have been many moments that I wished someone else would take you so I could just make a freaking sandwich. But this month has been filled with moments of missing the hell out of you when you were only napping for 30 min in the other room. When I pick you up out of your bed I tell you how I've been missing you and I hold your little body close and try to memorize what that moment feels like. The feeling of your breath on my neck, the weight of you in my arms, how your body melds perfectly into mine, it is all so precious to me.



After all that mushy missing you business I look at the clock and see you've only napped a total of 15 min in the last week and WHY AREN'T YOU TIRED? Oh right, that whole sleep regression thing. I've read horror stories about babies that start their 4 month regression and don't go back to sleep until after their 9 month regression. You aren't that kind of baby though, tell me you aren't that kind of baby. Mama is tired.



(falling asleep on the couch)


I do understand though, that the reason you aren't sleeping is because you are learning all kinds of new tricks. To date you haven't mastered any of the more recognizable milestones like rolling over, crawling, writing a novel, or cutting teeth, but you haven't been without accomplishments. You babble on and on with new sounds every day and it's one of my favorite things in the whole world to look into your eyes and listen to you tell me about all the dreams you had last night. You also mastered spitting. Yep, it started with some funny sounds, then raspberries and spit bubbles, to finally full on spitting in my face. You find this pretty funny too I might add, even though you don't know what you are doing, luckily you prefer the raspberries.

You are laughing a lot more. You like the mirror and when I kiss you near your armpits the best. I also discovered that you love bouncing in my arms. I'm not talking about the kind of bouncing you see mothers doing at restaurants when their babies are crying and other diners are giving the stink eye (ahem Buca di Beppo), no, I'm talking about serious bouncing. I have a huge exercise ball that I use instead of a rocking chair and for the first three months of your life you would fall asleep almost instantly when I would hold you and bounce lightly. Now, however, you get excited when I sit down on it because you know I'll bounce you real high, and you open your mouth as wide as it'll go because that's what you do when you are really happy. You sometimes erupt into a fit of laughter, but mostly you just try to open your mouth a little bit wider than your face will allow.




(laughing w/ grandma)

We made the switch to reusable diapers this month. I'm happy with it, you seem unfazed, but everyone else in the house seems either grossed out (Martha) or just kinda confused about why I would want to do this (grandma and grandpa).


*I want you to know that right now, as I am uploading pictures to this post, I went to put on my PJs and your grandpa, (who is now "papa") attempted to check his email on my computer. If I had taken one second longer, all my work would have been lost and you would have no memory of ever meeting your grandfather.

You know what Josephine? I can't believe how big you've gotten. Seriously. You are exclusively breastfed, no formula or solids, you were on the small side (of the healthy average) when you were born, yet you weigh in at the top of the charts now. As of today, you are in the 90th percentile for weight and 80th percentile for height. Is grandma sneaking you candy?


The next thing I want to say is pretty difficult to express accurately. When you are older, I want you to be able to read these posts and understand a little bit what it is like for me to be your mother and how much I have always loved you.

Before you have a baby you can't know what it's going to be like when you do. I knew I was going to love you, I was already in love with you before you were born, but I love you differently today than I did in the first few weeks of your life. See, this is where I don't want you to misunderstand me; I LOVED you like crazy the moment I saw your puffy face peek over the curtain in the operating room. But....most of what I did for the first few weeks was instinct. I still act on instinct everyday, but now I also know who you are and can make day-to-day decisions based on our relationship. I know there will come a day when you won't be able to stand me. You'll slam the door to your bedroom, open it, slam it again, and write about how I just don't understand you in your diary. Until then, I am going to cherish every snuggle, because that's the relationship I have with my daughter today.