Neighbors

I haven't take lots of pictures recently, but here are some from a while ago that I hadn't posted yet. Josiah is with our neighbor and her daughter. He's modeling a pair of Croc knock-offs that they gave him. God's been gracious to give us kind neighbors here too!

9 Month Stats

Josiah had his 9-month check-up this afternoon. Here are the stats:

20 lbs. (75%)
29 inches (75%)
18 inch head circumference (50%)

He's definitely slimming down since he started moving so much!

Off He Goes!

The preciousness never stops. And neither does Josiah...

He discovered the joy of rolling his cars around, as opposed to flipping them over and examining the wheels.

How cute is this child going to get? It just melts my heart!
(You also get a good shot of those top two teeth coming in.)

Off he goes! He's really fast, but has terrible steering. Our house doesn't have too much room to go before he bumps into something.

"OK, Mom, I'm ready to mow the lawn with Daddy now."

Kissy Face

9 Months

9-month fun facts:

• Josiah is currently obsessed with the ceiling fan in our room.
• Eats solids 3 times a day, nurses 4 times. LOVES Gerber/off-brand puffs and Cheerios and has gotten really good at putting them in his mouth. He's not as enthusiastic about other finger foods I've tried, even if he likes them pureed as baby food.
  

• Sleeps from 7ish-6:30ish at night. Generally takes two naps. He's started napping for over an hour more often, which is nice! He's gotten much better about laying down for to sleep, but sometimes he fights it.
  
• Just cut his top two front teeth!
  

• His shape sorter and tractor are his two favorite toys. He's started trying to put the shapes into the holes instead of just dumping everything out. He doesn't normally match the right shape to hole yet.
  
• Still enjoys his bath, but now he likes to crawl and stand in the tub, which is causing issues.
  

• Says "da da" for most things, including Daddy (but also Mama, the fan...). Occasionally we hear other consonants.
  
• Has started signing milk the entire time he's nursing. It's hilarious.

• Walking with our hands is his most favorite thing ever. One day he took off on his own with his push toy, but hasn't really done so since.
• Crawls from the living room to the kitchen to find me - so precious.
  

Laundry Helper

Small Group Cookout

On Saturday, our small group Bible study had a cookout. It was perfect weather, good food and lovely company.

Frank, Bekah, Christy, Leah and Chris

Our family and the fearless leaders, Mr. Steve and Daria.
Notice Josiah's new face. We think it's his attempt to make a kiss.

In case you were wondering, the small group is through the church we've joined down here: The Church at Brook Hills. We love it and are very blessed to hear wonderful teaching on Sundays and participate in encouraging camaraderie.

The boy was getting tired!

Ahhhhhh

Pincer Grasp

Josiah has completed, but I would not say mastered, his pincer grasp. He's feeding himself now, but very slowly.

Hindsight being 20/20, picking a Cheerio-colored rug to go under our dining table may not have been the best idea. Oh well!

Cute Little Pickpocket

I'm pretty sure the little bandit is memorizing my credit card numbers. How could I press charges with a smile like that?

Videos

Sorry for the video trouble. I had the YouTube videos set as private, so that might have been the problem. Let me know if you can see them now. I tried loading them through Google and they say they're having technical problems. Anybody have any tips?
Let me know if you can see them now.

Pulling Up

Crawling

Our First Video

We have been taking video of Josiah's growing up, but for reasons that you don't want me to go into detail about, we haven't been able to post them. We're working on it, so maybe we'll have a year in review sometime. These were taken from the new camera I mentioned earlier. We'll see how this works! My apologies for the sideways view. I didn't realize you can't rotate video images (or at least I don't know how to).

Here is Josiah "walking." More to come

Side-By-Side

God has blessed me with a wonderful group of women here in Birmingham. It's a group of medical wives called Side-by-Side that meet weekly to study God's Word and support each other in loving our medical hubbies and raising our children. Monday we had a farewell party for a few of the girls who are moving. It was a little chaotic with all the kids, but lots of fun. Josiah was the youngest (besides Liam, the little baby), so he just sat absorbing what all the big kids were doing and playing with all the "new" toys.

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Thinking Inside the Box

Parker Was Here!

We got a special treat on Friday - Parker came to visit! Long story, but he was in Atlanta, and I wasn't sure if we'd be able to see him, but he drove all the way over for just a few hours of visit. Jonathan was working, but Josiah got some good hang time with his Uncle Parker. And I enjoyed having a good conversation with my brother. We never get to hang out just the two of us anymore; it was really precious.

Josiah doing his favorite thing - walking.

"Oh Uncle Parker, I love you!"

The sad part came later when Josiah refused to take a nap, a repeat performance of "Standing Is More Fun Than Sleeping." Parker helped me stand firm, but we both really wanted to go get him! That was not fun, but we did have a good discussion about discipline...

Mother's Day

We had a wonderful first Mother's Day. First we heard a really encouraging sermon at church and got to see a friend get baptized. Then Mom and Dad came over for the day. Our original plan was for a picnic, but we ended up eating our picnic at our dinner table. It was still very tasty and I didn't have to cook it. Then we went to the botanical gardens to see the roses and take a plethora of pictures. Then my sweet hubby went out and got us Sonic for dinner, which included a lime cream slush. Yum!
I narrowed it down to a mere 95 pictures between my Dad and I. Josiah wore his Grammy outfit for Mother's Day. We had several attempts at a family shot. I can't decide which I like best, but I think it's the first one.

This past week...

Josiah has morphed dramatically. From a baby to a crawly, exploring little boy. Actually it seemed like it was overnight. Jonathan had two overnight calls this week, and when he came back from both I told him, "Our son changed while you were gone."

Here's what I'm talking about:

• He's full-out crawling now. Hands and knees, turn around and he's somewhere new. He's also moving to a sitting position unassisted and pulling up often.

• He STOOD independently for several seconds. (This is not it, but a cute picture nonetheless).
  

• His hair is getting so long we have to start parting and combing it.
• He's starting eating our table food. I was holding him while making mashed potatoes (what can you do one-handed?) and gave him some of the boiled, pre-mashed version. He enjoyed that. I had also set aside some yellow squash that I planned to steam and puree. Jonathan gave it to him raw and he gnawed on a pretty big chunk.
  
• Instead of taking wobbling steps when we "walk" him, he goes into a run. He makes pretty good time!
• He "spoke" his first word. He definitely is communicating in sign language for "milk." No surprise this was his first.
  

What happened to my baby?!? Welcome to the next season!

PS Loads of Mother's Day pictures coming next.

Happy Mother's Day!

To all of you!

Free Cone Day

This post is a few weeks old because I used the great new camera that GP gave us. It's a small digital, so I don't have lug the big one everywhere. I'm excited about it, but I just couldn't get the pictures off of it.

I made Jonathan plan for a surprise family date. Free Cone Day!

Now at UNC, the line at Free Cone Day was around the block and you waited for an hour because it was within walking distance of a college campus. The B&J here in B-ham is in the affluent part of town. We waited for 1-2 minutes.

Josiah making a move for my sticker.

Jonathan and I both got Triple Caramel Chunk. Josiah settled for our cone wrapper. It wouldn't be a blog post without Josiah putting something in his mouth.

Then we tried out our new backpack. I snagged it at a consignment sale. It's really lightweight and Josiah seemed to like it.

Jo-Mo grabbed the sunglasses off the top of my head.

Jonathan enjoying the solitude of the forest.

Advancing to the Next Reading Level

Josiah decided baby books are a bit limiting. How many stories can one read about farm animals and sleeping and the ABCs? It's time to move on to some advanced literature.

He decided to go for the Chronicles of Narnia. A wise decision.

The next day he flipped through Harry Potter as well.

A Whole New World

This morning I woke up as normal to Josiah on the baby monitor. He wasn't crying, just talking, "Da da. Da da." Then I heard a few notes of "Lullaby."

His CRIB MOBILE? How is that happening?
As I scurried to his room, I found this.

Huh. He's never been standing in the crib before. Well isn't that just precious? A little worrisome, but cute.

Cute until nap time came around.
Why nap when he could stand? It was fun for the first few minutes, but then he started getting sleepy and consequently upset, but wasn't about to give up the standing. I went in a few times to lay him back down, but ultimately he fell asleep, completely exhausted, as such.

Pitiful. Adorably pitiful.

He slept through me taking these pictures and me moving him to a lying down position.

Imperfections

One of the dangers of blogging, especially blogging about kids, is that I tend to put my best face forward. And Josiah's best face forward. It's human nature, but it's a bit deceiving. I've confessed to Jonathan and others that I get envious after reading some blogs: their spouses are perfect, and their kids are perfect and their hair is perfect - how is it possible?

I know I've been encouraged when I read blogs in which people are real about life and parenting. We're a family of sinners in a fallen world. While I won't turn this into a full confession booth, I thought I'd present a few of the less rosy stories of parenthood. I don't want to complain either because the overarching truth is that we are abundantly blessed.


Josiah's been fussier lately. Early wake-up times, and then this week he's had a cold. Plus, his personality is just developing: he knows what he wants and doesn't want. We're learning as parents how to decipher this and also treading the early waters of discipline.

We went to Olive Garden last weekend with my parents. Josiah's been practicing high-pitch squealing lately and was exercising his vocal skills at the restaurant. They were happy noises, but the people shooting us annoyed looks apparently didn't know this. I turned to Jonathan and said, "It's official, we are those people."

Several weeks ago, I put Josiah down for the night. Normally he goes down without a fuss, but after ten minutes of quiet, he started wailing. Sometimes he cries for a few minutes before settling, but this cry sounded different to me, distressed. So I cracked the door to check on him. I was shocked to see something outside the crib. The poor thing and straddled his crib bars and gotten his chunky little thighs stuck. It was like Pooh Bear in Rabbit's hole.

Then the other day I put baby sunscreen on him for our normal walk. We've used this same exact bottle several times before, but this time he started rubbing himself all over and breaking out in hives. He had an allergic reaction to it! We had to rinse it all off him.

So there you go, a little bit of the gritty side of parenting. Does everybody feel better that you're not alone?

8 months

Josiah was 8 months old on Monday. As you can see, getting these pictures has become more, errr, active.

Can I see your camera Mom? Or the strap?

No really, I really want to see it.

OK, fine. This ribbon will hold my interest for approximately 4. 25 seconds. No more, no less.

Things I want to remember at 8 months:

• He's sleeping through the night, but getting up really early since the time change. We're checking into blackout curtains at the advice of some friends.
  
• Standing is his absolute favorite thing. Cranky? Stand him up! If he's sitting and I'm on the floor with him, he'll squirm and maneuver until his head is facing my way and grab one hand, then the other hand, so he can pull himself up. He's getting into full crawling position more, but doesn't utilize it often.
  
• He's doing much better in the nursery, and they report him smiling and playing. The cutest thing is when I go to pick him up, he sees me in the window and starts crying. Crying because he wants me to get him or is afraid I'll leave. Melt my heart.
• He's eating solids 2-3 times a day and nursing 3-4 times. We started trying Cheerios and fruit puffs. He loves them. I think they'll be the key to making it through the grocery store trip. We've also tried yogurt and avocado, and he liked both.
  
• He often gets mistaken for a girl by strangers. Normally he's wearing a more gender-neutral outfit, like green or yellow. But it's not like I'm putting the child in lace and ribbons, people. Then they always say, "But he's so pretty." I think it's the long eyelashes. And of course everyone comments on his cheeks and how fat he is.
  

To the Blog-Checking Faithful

Internet is down at our house, so I've set up temporary operations from the blessed, WI-FI enabled public library. And they even have toys for Josiah, although he's currently occupied with his bag of diaper wipes.
I'll post as soon as we're back in action, but for now the bulletin has the time priority!