11 Months Old

Well I am clearly not an avid blogger. I think of doing it every now and then, but fail to write anything down. That's one of the things about having a kid...there is just such little spare time. It's funny because we have whole weekends with nothing planned and I have grand visions of getting a million things done, yet all I can manage to do is get to the grocery store and do a load or two of laundry. Of course it's all worth it because we get to spend our unproductive weekends with the world's most adorable, little human, even if all we're doing is watching her tear around our house like a tiny tornado.

Josie becomes more fun every week. When she was 6 months, I wrote that I wanted to make that phase slow down. While I do wish all of these phases would not go so quickly, each one has been more fun than the last.

At 11 months, Josie is extremely mobile. She crawls really quickly, and has moved from her army crawl (which she started a little before 6 months) to being an all fours with her belly off the ground. She now also does a funny little crawl with one foot on the ground and one knee on the ground. I think it's a precursor to walking, which is not far away. She can cruise around the house pretty quickly, walking behind her toy car. She can also stand on her own for about 10-15 seconds without falling.

Josie is eating all sorts of different foods. Like a good Wisconsin girl, she loves meat and cheese. Her other favorites includes Cheerios, sweet potatoes, peas and carrots, grapes, blueberries and bananas. Also....she is NOT allergic to peanut butter!! The new advice is to get peanuts to kids early in order to prevent allergies. We had her tested because of my allergy and the results were negative. I of course was still super paranoid, but we fed her some Bamba snacks today and she did not react. (Bamba snacks are Israeli peanut puffs - thanks to our neighbors for sharing them with us. ) I hope she doesn't develop an allergy as she gets older. It's no fun having to worry about it and of course, having to give away half your Halloween candy after trick or treating.

Josie is interested in anything and everything. Emily takes her to ECFE with Christopher every week, and the ECFE teacher has commented on how engaged Josie is. They sing a song at the end of every class that has hand motions that go along with it, and Josie tries to do those along with all the older kids. She signs for "all done" and waves goodbye and hello. She seems to understand us when we ask her questions. The other day I asked her to go get a book to read and she grabbed one and brought it right over.

Speaking of books, she loves them. Her favorite activity these days is going to grab a book from her shelf and bringing it to one of us to read. As soon as we're done, she moves on to the next adult in the room to read again. And then back and forth and back and forth. She bounces up and down while we read with a huge grin on her face. But she only wants to read certain books. She'll pick through a huge pile until she finds the one she wants. Some of her favorites are Barnyard Babies, Dear Zoo, Bubbles Bubbles, Bedtime Bear,and Peakaboo at the Zoo. She still loves I Am a Bunny, The Going to Bed Book and Goodnight Moon.

It's hard to believe she's almost one. She continues to be sweet, smart, determined and adventurous. I can't wait to see what the next month will bring.

7 months

8 months

9 months

10 months

11 months

Summer Recap

We had a very busy summer. Josie went camping twice - once with Emily and Ben and their friends near Hinckley and once with the whole Kurth family near Kenosha. We went to Hayward to spend time with friends Haley and June, and to Minocqua to visit Grandma Fay and Grandpa Otto. We spent a whole week with Baba Ralph, Meema Jo, Uncle Robby and Aunt Andri, Uncle Ben and Aunt Emily and Clare and Christopher in Evansville. Josie had her first outings to the Terrace and the Farmers' Market in Madison. We went to Detroit Lakes to see friends Garrett, Laura and Signey. We went to the Minnesota State Fair. We went swimming a lot, which Josie loved. (Although we did have to keep her from drinking lake water.) We went on lots of hikes and walks around the neighborhood. Here are some of the highlights!

First camping trip!

Camping at St. Croix Falls State Park, Hinckley

Union Terrace with Uncle Robby

Practicing for college at the Union Terrace, Madison

Blueberries. Yum.

Josie and her buddy, June

The beach at Lebanon Hills Regional Park, Eagan

Our backyard!

Driving her car at the park...

Minnesota State Fair - in a Badger outfit!

Getting ready for football season - Go Pack Go!

6 Months Old!

It’s hard to believe that our little girl is already 6 months old. I know it’s cliché, but the time is just going by too quickly.

Josie is happy. She smiles a lot, especially when she sees her parents, her Aunt Emily or her cousins. She has a hilarious little grunt-like laugh. Her dad makes her laugh more than anyone else.

Josie is strong. She could hold her head up at 3 weeks, roll over at 3 months and at 6 months she can army crawl across the room at a pretty good clip. She loves to grab the newspaper, computer cords or anything that is not one of her toys and stick it in her mouth.

Josie is determined. She will zero in on a toy (or the newspaper), and make her way across the room to grab it. She has a tiny little yellow ball that she loves to hold and switch from hand to hand. It’s the perfect size for her little hands and she moves it back and forth with amazing focus.

Josie is opinionated. We have recently started her on solid food. She likes peas and sweet potatoes. She’s not a huge fan of avocado. When she’s had enough she lets us know by clamping her mouth closed and grunting at us. She cannot be persuaded to change her mind.

She loves books, but has clear preferences for which books we read to her. She loves reading “The Going to Bed Book” and “Goodnight Moon” before bed. She loves “I Am a Bunny” and “Moo, Baa, La La La.” She grins and grins while we read them to her and she loves to grab them, close the cover and try to shove them in her mouth. However, she does NOT like “But Not the Hippopotamus” or “The Very Hungry Caterpillar.” If we try to read them to her, she yells and swats at them until we stop.

Josie is sweet. She loves her grandparents, her cousins and her aunts and uncles. She especially loves Baba Ralph, Grandpa Otto and Uncle Ben. There’s something about men, apparently. She just adores Aunt Emily, who watches her every day while we’re at work. Her cousins Clare and Christopher are already her pals. They make her smile and laugh every day. We’re so grateful to Emily for watching her and that she gets to spend so much time with her cousins.

The other morning when I dropped her off, Christopher ran over to say hello. Josie’s face broke into a huge grin and Christopher handed her his blanket - his most prized possession. It is so sweet how close they are already and I can’t wait to watch them grow up together. They are going to be troublemakers. Very sweet little troublemakers.

I wish I could make this phase slow down. Josie is developing a wonderful personality, but is still small enough that we can cart her around easily. She is becoming independent enough that she can play on her own for a while, but she still needs lots of cuddles from her parents. The smile she gets on her face when I get home from work makes my heart melt. 

Everyone says it’s hard to explain the love a parent has for their child. In some ways I feel like Josie has just been part of my life forever. We go about our daily routine. Josie makes us smile and laugh and we feed her, change her diapers and play. But every now and then I become completely overwhelmed by how much I love her. It makes my heart hurt and brings tears to my eyes. I can’t believe how lucky I am to have her and to be able to share her with Andrew. We are truly blessed.

Just a few days old...

One month

Winter baby.

Two months

Tummy time!

Three months

Already a rebel.

Four months

Five months

Mimicking the buffalo?

Six months

Happy girl.

The First Two Weeks

Everyone tells you those first two weeks after birth are hard. They are not lying. We brought Josephine home after 3 days in the hospital. With nurses and other staff in and out of the room every hour, we had barely slept there. We were exhausted and overwhelmed. When we brought Josie home she was jaundiced, so we knew we had to take her back to the doctor the next day.

Our first night at home I did not sleep. I had a lot of trouble breastfeeding and Josie barely had any wet diapers, so I knew she hadn't had much to eat. At the doctor's office, they confirmed she had lost more than 10 percent of her birth weight and we needed to do supplemental feedings. We didn't have a breast pump yet, so we had to trek across town to pick one up. We had to wake her up to feed her every two hours and then give her an ounce of breast milk through a tube and syringe. While this on its face doesn't sound terribly stressful, when you've barely slept in days and you're still physically recovering from child birth, it's horrible. We were so worried about how tiny she'd become. On top of it, her bilirubin level was too high and she needed a bili blanket. Fortunately, we did not have to take her to the hospital for this treatment. Someone brought the blanket to our house and she wore it for 2 days. She looked like an adorable glow worm.

We tried various sleeping arrangements those first two weeks - but mostly I slept in our recliner with Josie on my chest. This was not ideal, nor considered a safe way to sleep, but it was the only way either she or I could get any sleep. I must admit, I didn't hate it. Having your little baby on your chest is just about the greatest feeling in the world. And knowing the sound of your heartbeat is what's comforting her is pretty amazing.

At her two week check up, Josie had gained back her birth weight and then some. She was seven and a half pounds and doing great.

Andrew was home with me the first two weeks. He took care of everything around the house while I fed the baby. It pretty much felt like that was all I did. Since I'm writing this a couple of months after the fact, it doesn't seem so bad. But at the time I was fairly miserable. Fortunately babies grow and change fast, because those first two weeks are really hard. But we got through them!

Just a few days old...

Our tiny glow worm.

Josephine's Birth

Our new adventures began when we welcomed Ms. Josephine Elizabeth to the world on Monday, December 1, 2014. She came to us three days late after a fairly easy pregnancy. The labor was not as easy, but was pretty incredible nonetheless. Here's our labor story.

I started having contractions on Saturday night, but they were pretty sporadic. So with the temperature in the single digits on Sunday, we decided to walk around the Rosedale mall. We did a little Christmas shopping, and I stopped walking periodically to breathe through a contraction - which looked totally normal I'm sure. We got Potbelly's sandwiches - I decided to skip the hot peppers for fear of what that might do to me during child birth - and we went home to watch the Packers beat the Patriots.

At about 11:00 that night, contractions started to become more consistent. Andrew downloaded an app to track the time between and the length of the contractions. I ate about five bowls of cereal and tried to get some sleep between contractions, to little avail. We arrived at Regions Hospital at 5:30 a.m. on December 1, after having labored at home for six hours.  Contractions were about three minutes apart and getting more intense. For those who haven't experienced it, imagine feeling like you have to take the biggest BM of your life but you're not allowed to go to the bathroom. That's what it feels like.

We spent the day in the labor room. Most of the time it was just the two of us. We listened to music, walked the halls and I bounced on the birthing ball. We talked and Andrew got me lots of graham crackers and jello. It was actually a pretty relaxing experience for a lot of the day. Our midwife and nurses were in periodically to check my vital signs and the baby's heartbeat. I took a couple of hot showers, which helped ease the pain of the contractions.

Finally at 3:30, it was time to start pushing. Things were no longer relaxing. The contractions became very close together and extremely intense. I did not get an epidural, so every single second of every contraction was very real. Andrew had turned the TV to a channel that played relaxing music and showed nature scenes. Between contractions I completely zoned in on the TV to watch deer frolicking in a meadow. I could barely talk. Andrew made me drink water or cranberry juice. His was the only voice I could hear, and he was amazing. He encouraged me every step of the way, and I would have been lost without him there.

After 19 hours, including two and a half hours of pushing, Josephine finally arrived at 6:00 p.m. The pain was instantly gone, and there was our little girl, up on my chest. It was incredible. We noticed that her hands looked just like mine. Her face was mushed up from traveling through the birth canal, but she looked a little bit like Andrew. Her lungs certainly worked - she announced to the world that she was there. We had seen the videos in our birthing class of a brand new baby trying to latch on to eat right after birth, and it happened! It was amazing, she knew exactly what to do. I held her on my chest for almost two hours and it was the best two hours of my life. It felt like five minutes. Andrew cut her umbilical cord. Our little family grew from two to three. We were thrilled.

Josie's first picture

Eating her little hand

Our new little family