Josefina is one!!

 Oh my little Josie girl!  I can't believe you're already a whole year old!!  It seems like just yesterday I was sicker than a dog and didn't know if I was in labor or dying or both.  You are changing by the day and hard to keep up with these days!

First off, we call you "Ho-sie" a lot because when we went to Madera right after you were born they all called you Hosefina, instead of Josefina.  So we call you Hosie Hosie a lot.  You don't seem to mind.

You are crawling all over the place and are starting to "prairie dog" quite a bit where you sit on one foot underneath you and the other one out at a 90* angle.  It's adorable.  You have finally started pulling up on things a little bit, but you have NO clue how to sit back down most of the time.  We have one step going from our family room to our kitchen and it took you about 2 days to figure out how to crawl up the step.  So now you crawl up to the first step of the staircase too any chance you get, but again, have no clue how to get back down.  You also like to crawl up on the fireplace hearth which scares me because it's about a foot drop to the wood floor below.  You still don't roll at all, but you will stand hanging on to our hands now and have attempted to take a few wobbly steps forward a few times.  You sit up in bed, or kneel hanging on to the side, but you have no clue how to get back down so you scream and you've been getting us up 2-6x/night lately, which isn't my idea of fun at all.

So yeah, your sleeping has left some to be desired lately.  You're sharing a room with Ben and you're in the pack n play.  We give you a bottle to go to sleep with, but you're waking up multiple times a night.  Half the time I go in there you're sitting up, which is interesting because in your bed is the only place you can sit up or get into any other position from on your back.  You won't do it anywhere else.  I try to let you fuss a while, but you usually just get more and more mad and scream louder and louder and I'm worried you'll wake up the other kids so I get up and give you a bottle typically.  Lately I've been giving you way watered down formula because once we are done with this last container of formula, I'm not buying any more and you're going to be getting water in your middle of the night bottles instead of milk because I'm not going all the way downstairs to get you milk out of the fridge when you wake up.

We've transitioned you mostly to organic whole milk.  We mixed it with formula for a few days, but now you're on whole milk for your day time bottles.  You get one in the morning, one at nap and one at bed (and then 1-3 in the middle of the night when you wake up).  I've been giving you Miralax in one of the bottles and probiotic and Karo syrup in others to try to help your poops.  They are still rather large and hard and you get way fussy when you're trying to poop.  It's hard to get you to eat sometimes as you don't seem too interested in most food a lot of the time.  You'll take a bite or two and then you start throwing it everywhere, which is annoying.  I need the dog here to clean in it.  I think you're still gaining weight but I honestly have no clue has you haven't had an appointment with a doctor since 6 months and we haven't had a scale for the past 3.5 months.  You still have some chunk on you so I guess you're getting enough to eat.

You have been whiny lately.  You want to be held but you want to play too so you whine to get down and whine to be picked up.  But you are also super playful which is fun.  You love to be chased, especially when someone is crawling after you.  You do these sweet little nose-wrinkled laughs and then put your head down and charge forward.  You love to clap and bounce if you hear a song you like.  You are a mama's girl, but you are also good with going to the nursery or to other people.  You were a little unsure of Santa, but you didn't cry.









You have 2 bottom teeth and 2 top teeth (one front and one one over) with the other 2 top teeth coming through.  You're in size 4 diapers and size 18 month clothes.  Your feet are pretty small so you probably wear size 12 month shoes.  You will sometimes drink 3 oz's and sometimes 8+ oz's.  You usually go to bed by 830pm and are up by 8am (with a few wake ups in there) and then take a 2-3 hour nap daily.  You wave bye bye and sign more, milk, all done and water.  You say hi, bye bye, mama and dada.  You LOVE seeing animals and get super excited and flap your arms when you see them.




















Part of me is so excited to watch you learn and grow but part of me just wants you to stay this age forever.  (As long as you sleep through the night...)  We love you sweetie peas.  You are the perfect completion for our family.

Happy 6th birthday Benji Boy

Oh Ben.  It's hard to believe you're already six years old!  You've grown so much this past year!

You are still my very tall boy and you're still built just like your daddy.  I need to measure you to get your height but you went through a spurt this year where you grew at least 2 inches in 2 months.  Your feet are a size 13/1 and you wear a 6/7.  I have to tighten your pants as far as they will go because you're so skinny, but you need the length.





You are all boy.  You love anything that makes noise and you always have food on your face.  Always.  If there is a toy around that makes noise, you will find it and want to play with only that toy.  And if there isn't a toy that makes noise, you beat stuff on things to make your own noise.  You also LOVE music.  You are very interested in the piano and playing Mary Had a Little Lamb or the songs the piano automatically plays.  I need to get you into music lessons because I think you'd really enjoy them.  When we took a tour of your new school, we passed the "string" room and it really caught your eye right away.

You are such a shy boy.  You are pretty reserved most of the time, unless you are upset, and then look out.  You can still throw some epic fits with screaming and yelling and your feelings get hurt VERY easily.  I think you are more of an only child stuck in a big family sometimes.  You like your time and your space and you fight like crazy with both Abbie and Jamison.  They know how to push your buttons and you know how to push theirs and you do it to each other quite frequently.

Josie on the other hand - you LOVE your Josie.  I am pretty sure you view yourself as her protector.  You are so good with her and no one makes Josie laugh like you do.  You can almost always get the big belly laughs out of her and I think she can sense your good heart.

Right now, you are our challenging kiddo.  You have a very negative outlook on pretty much everything.  If things don't go exactly your way you use the word "never" a lot.  "I'll NEVER get to do it."  You don't like to help me (or anyone) with much of anything and when I ask you to help you always say "I'm not a good helper."  If we ask you to read something or a question you don't know you say things like "I'm too dumb."  If we get on to you about misbehaving you say things like "I'm a bad boy."  Or "I'm not good."  Or "You don't like/love me.".  We are kind of at a loss as to how to handle this situation.  You won't ever say "I love you" back to us when we tell you we love you and there have been many times I've wondered if there is some diagnosis of something for you.  Other times you're perfectly fine.  I'm not exactly sure what's going on but we're going to figure it out.

You can be the sweetest boy ever.  You have an infectious smile and the best belly laugh ever.  Daddy can really make you laugh when you guys wrestle.  You LOVE video games and were introduced to Minecraft recently.  You are also very very smart.  Your first kindergarten teacher, Mrs Marks, told us that you were, by far, the most advanced student in her class and that you understood concepts that most other kids in her class couldn't.  You are starting to read and sound out words and you show a lot of interest in math and science. 

I love you, Buddy.  You are such a mystery to me sometimes, but I hope that you always know how much I love you, even if I don't exactly understand you at times.  Here's to our next year of growth together!

Josie at 11 months

Well you're off to the races this month Josie Peas.  You are crawling everywhere at full speed.  You look like a little bull dog to me when you put your head down and charge ahead.  It's adorable.  When you want me to pick you up you follow me around and ram your head into my legs.  It's pretty cute.  You are just starting to pull up to your knees sometimes and you have no problem sitting up when you're on your belly.  However, you are like an upside down turtle when you're on your back.  You can't/won't roll from back to belly so you just cry when we put you on your back because you can't sit up from your back or roll over and crawl.  We try to roll you over and you act like you're scared when we do it.  It's kind of odd.  I'm not too worried about it because you are crawling and pulling up, but it's strange.  A few times I've found you sitting up in your crib and I have no clue how you got to the sitting position in there because we put you to sleep on your back.  It always surprises the heck out of me to find you like that.

You are definitely getting a little better at communicating what you want.  You say mama, dada and bye bye and sometimes I think your "muh's" are "more's".    But if you see something you want you start flapping your arms and making your really excited noises, and it's usually involved food or animals.  You squeal when you're happy and get the most pitiful look on your face when you're sad.

You've cut down on your bottles yourself.  You can drink out of a straw but sippy cups confuse you.  You still won't hold a bottle yourself, but you are starting to hold some sippy's sometimes.  You pick up most foods and at least try them although you're still not a really huge eater.  This trailer living and road trip across the states has been rough because it's hard to keep "baby" foods on us, and you don't like most of them anyway.   You still only eat about a half of a pouch of baby food at a time.  You are drinking more water now, and it's not helping with your constipation at all.  I'm hoping once we get to NY we can get you to a ped that will give me something for you.

 

 

You still only have those 2 bottom toofers, but I think you're going to be getting your top ones soon.  We weighed you recently and you are 21lbs.  I figured you were around that.  You are the perfect size - healthy and a little bit chunky, which I just can't get enough of your fat hammies.  I squeeze on you all the time.

 

 

 



You seem to be more of a mama's girl than the other kids were at this age.  It's nice to have at least one that prefers me.  You are starting to clap a little bit and you like to "dance" when there's a beat you like on.  Your sleep lately has been pretty darn bad...  You're waking up multiple times a night and we aren't really able to sleep train you because we are in such close quarters with all the other kids.  It's been pretty exhausting.  Hopefully after we get the constipation figured out and those top teeth poked through things will be better in the sleep department.








I just can't get enough of you and your perfectly round little face, you huge chubby cheeks that I kiss all day long and your big brown eyes that watch everything so intently.  We love you more than you'll ever know, Sweetie Peas.

Josie at 10 months

My little sweetie peas, you just couldn't be more sweet if you tried!  Your daddy and I (and your big sister and brothers) all marvel at what a little sweet heart you are.  You are such a happy baby for the most part, although lately you've been a little bit crabbier.  You're more aware of your surroundings now, and you get bored if we stay at home (which is currently in the trailer...) all day.  I get it though.  I get bored too and you only have the same 2 bins of toys that you've had for almost 2 months now.  We're all ready for a change.

You still aren't super interested in food.  You like to try little bites of what we're eating, but usually after a few bites you're pretty good.  Unless it's eggs.  You really like eggs.  You're not a big fan of us feeding you anything on a spoon still.  You still like your bottles and have maybe 25ish oz of formula a day, although you won't hold your own bottle yet.  I'm sure that's because we hold it for you all the time.

You are finally starting to crawl a little.  It's not full on crawling, but it's getting up on your hands and knees and then putting your butt down in a different place.  You kind of scoot around which is cute.  You're like my little puppy because you always come over and put your head on my leg and bump me a few times to get me to pick you up.  I love it.  And sometimes you'll grab on to my leg and pull yourself up to your knees.  You still don't like to put a ton of weight on your legs when I try to get you to stand up on your own.  You can, but you try to bounce and that doesn't work very well.

Your sleeping is still fairly good.  This trailer living is rough.  You are only getting one nap a day most days for about an hour, sometimes 2, around noon.  So by 730 you're ready to cash it in, but the big kids aren't even remotely ready to go to sleep.  So you fall asleep and then 15-20 mins later they wake you up and then you got your little cat nap so you're good for the next 2 hours...  It's been rough.  Some nights we haven't gotten you to sleep until after 10pm and you're absolutely inconsolable by then.  It's not fun at all.  But you usually sleep until 6-730am and I give you a bottle and you go back to sleep until 730-8am usually.  We're getting there, slowly but surely.  Luckily you do pretty well sleeping in your pack n play anywhere because this next month you're going to be sleeping in lots of different places.

You say mama a lot now.  I'm fairly certain that was your first word.  You can wave bye bye and you love throwing your chubby little arms up for "so big".  We're working on clapping and some sign language with you and you watch pretty intently when we do it.

You are the joy of the family right now.  Abbie just loves helping with you and is constantly asking us to carrying you everywhere.  Ben is your favorite person and that boy can make you laugh like no one else.  Jamison just wants to be by you because he sees the big kids fighting over you... He's actually a turd to you sometimes and bonks you in the face with toys.  You love copying him though and get excited when he gets excited.  You look up at him so innocently and then he smacks you in the head with a truck...  Poor girl.  But you still trust him and want to be by him.  He's working on being nice to you.  I think he's just jealous since you get some of the attention he wants.  (Story of our life - we deal with that with all over you.)

If I could freeze you at this age right now, I would in a heartbeat!  You love you Josie Peas!