Saturday, July 14, 2007

More pics . . .

As you may have noticed I've done the last few posts all at once and I'm tired, so I'll just leave you with a few more pictures.





My baby elephant . . .

Josie at first resisted walking on grass-she would always head for the sidewalk and the result never failed to crack me up. She also does this whenever I put her in a dress.







A Pic Post.

Coming after the camera . . .

Sleeping baby.
Helping papa (see that gigantic bandage on her arm-this was after her first doctor visit where they decided they need a vat of blood out of my child!)

Cute in the park.


Itty bitty pool.

The pussycats . . .

A lot of people have asked how the cats are doing with Josie-and the answer is: pretty good. They are fascinated with each other-Josie watches where they are and follows them-but gets really excited when she gets close and starts flapping her hands around, which scares the cats of course. So-we've been working on petting the cats and she's getting better.

Roxie is interested in Josie but scared so she keeps a bit of a distance. Toby, however, is quite funny. He hates it when she cries and both cats come running if she wakes up in the middle of the nite or something. He meows to her and even jumps in the crib and gets in her face as if to comfort her. This, of course, completely ticks off the girl and I inevitably have to scoop him up and throw him out of the room to calm her down.

Toby also loves bedtime. As soon as I sit in the glider with a bottle and a book (with Josie of course), he jumps on my lap, puts his paws on Josie's lap and gets comfy. Josie will only sit through one book at best after her bottle unfortunately and then I have to disturb him to get up and put her down in the crib. He'll love it when she wants to read and read . . .

The funniest thing, however, is bathtime. Toby has never really been afraid of water. He always jumps in the tub after my shower. He used to get in the shower with me and sit at the back of the tub-but he got nailed with the shower spray one too many times. I never take baths and now I find out I've been depriving him of the experience for years. He even once got in with Josie instead of waiting until she got out-but she gets a bit crazed in the tub and he didn't last long.

Please to enjoy (ever watch The Soup?):


The adjustment period.

The first couple of weeks were really rough-I must say. Josie was sick, teething and jet-lagged. She didn't sleep for more than a couple of hours at a time. So we were both exhausted. She wouldn't let me out of her sight and whined all the time. Unless there were other people around of course. She was always quite charming around visitors and at other people's houses. She's very social.

I finally had to take charge of the sleeping situation because we were both miserable. I was in tears one night at midnite surfing online for sleeping strategies while she screamed in the next room. I finally decided on one and stuck to it and after a week or so-she became a pretty darn good sleeper. Goes to bed about 8ish and up between 5:30 and 6am. She usually takes 2 naps a day too-for 90-120 minutes each. Couldn't ask for much better.

So-now that we've settled into a routine for the most part-she a pretty happy kid. But she's very stubborn and strong-willed. Not a mellow child by any means. And a total ham too. She cracks me up. She does want to be held a lot-actually now she wants to walk holding your hands-which is great, but hard on the back!

Sampling of the mood changes the first couple of weeks:

Happy Josie:


Mad Josie ( I see this face a lot-mainly between the hours of 6 and 7pm):

Yeah, yeah-I'm a slacker . . .

Okay-for those of you that have dial-up service can probably understand why I haven't updated my blog since I've been home-just too frustrating to do much other than check email every couple of days. Oh yeah-and there's a little someone who doesn't like it when I'm on the computer-or actually-SHE wants to play with the computer. So-there you go.

However-I'm at my parent's house this week and after banging my head against the wall and finally giving up on IE and downloading Firefox-I have been successful in logging in to Blogger.

Wow-where to start?

I suppose with the trip home. Gee-that was fun. Can't wait to do it again! Ha! Seriously-over 30 hours of traveling-including an 8 hour layover in Seoul. I didn't sleep for over 50 hours. All in all-Josie did great. Slept the entire flight from Hanoi to Seoul (thanks to a little Benadryl and the fact that the flight was a red-eye.) We kept her up all day in Seoul and did the Benadryl thing again for the flight to San Fran. She slept for the first 4 hours of the flight. Long enough for Mom and I to enjoy the perks of business class. Drinks, dinner, dessert, coffee and a movie. Then came the middle 4 hours of the flight-or Absolute Hell as I remember it. It could have been so much worse. Josie's crying really didn't bother too many people thanks to headphones and the white noise of the air system. But I was so tired at that point that I could hardly function. And mom had taken something to help with the aches and pains and it made her drowsy. She kept offering to take a shift (meaning walk the girl or watch her while she slept so she didn't roll off the seat, etc). So I would close my eyes and try to sleep and hear or feel something and open my eyes to Josie squirming off the seat or attacking the computer as it played a Baby Einstein video or something and poor mom sitting asleep upright. Of course, I didn't have a lot of sympathy at the time. Didn't have much patience for anything really. Shocking, i know! Really, it didn't matter though. Couldn't fall asleep anyway.

Our San Fran to Portland flight was delayed a bit-so we sat on the tarmac in coach with Josie on my lap. I was in a middle seat with her and of course the person in front of me just HAD to recline her seat. Josie's face was about 2 inches from the back of the seat. She was a wiggle worm and I was so annoyed (yes, yes I know-shocking again!) at that person I didn't try too hard to keep her from kicking the seat. She fell asleep right after takeoff and woke up when we landed. Perfect.

Some pics:

Cute kids in the Seoul airport on their way to Detroit for a "creativity competition".



Josie in her very own business class seat-all for the price of a lap ticket! WooHoo!

On our way-I think we look pretty darn good for being awake for about 30 hours at this point . . .