Josephine Update!

As promised: A Josephine update. I couldn't have a Josephine update without talking about sleep. SIGH. I'm not quite sure what her deal is, but she fluctuates between two distinctly different schedules: 1) Sleeps like an angel from 8 PM to 8 AM, nap from noon until 2:45 PM and 2) Goes to sleep at 8 PM, wakes up crying one to five times, nap from whenever she finally falls asleep after I put her down at noon until 45 minutes later. Guess which schedule leaves me with a happy girl and which one leaves me with a crankopotamus? 

It's infuriating, because I KNOW she can sleep, and she's so much happier when she does, and she will go days in a row on the "ideal" schedule, and then all of a sudden she does the "can't sleep" thing for a few days. Maybe it's just hard being perfect and she can only manage it for so long? Who knows. After her worst nap ever the other day (2 hours of crying and fighting her nap, then half an hour of sleep), when I gave up and brought her downstairs, she asked me to put these sunglasses on her:

Of course I obliged. How appropriate that she has "crabby" sunglasses. (Thanks, Allerses! She obviously really needed them!)

Okay, moving on to cuter things. She is OBSESSED with crayons.

Unfortunately, this obsession involves eating the crayons and coloring on my walls. I guess that's the price you have to pay to raise an artist.

Whenever she sees a cow, she will shout "MOO!" Whenever she sees a sheep, she will shout "BAA!" Whenever she sees a dog, she will say "woof." The "woof" isn't quite as confident and clear as the other sounds, but she's working on it. She does the best woof when she sees her stuffed Clifford.

Speaking of words, I believe this is the current list of words in her vocabulary:

-Moo, baa, and woof (obviously)
-Ma/mama

-Hi (actually "HIIIIIIIIIIIIII-EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" with head tilted to side, big smile, and a wave)

-Da/Dada/Daddy ("daddy" sounds like "daaaaah-DEEEEE!")

-Uh-oh (and she usually puts her hands up to cover her mouth when she says it, like dropping something is a catastrophe)

-Ball (she said this all of a sudden and clear as a bell)

-Yeah (she says is over and over and nods her head)

-Bay (baby)

-Bey-ee (this means belly button, and her finger is usually inside of yours while she is saying it)

-Mee-ya (meow - when she sees a cat other than our cat)

-Kih-ee (kitty - for MoJo)

-Daw (dog - for Cleo)

-Kee-oh (Cleo)

-Dee (not sure, but she says it when she can't see one of us and wants us to come show ourselves, so she commands "DEE!")

-Weeeeee! (an expression of joy, usually when sliding - down a real slide or something she has made into a slide, like at the doctor's office the other day when she used the controls to make the part under my legs into a slide and slid down over and over, shouting WEEEEE! while the doctor asked me questions.)

And then there's this word ... it's hard to describe. It's like a combination of the sounds "goo" "goon" and "gee" (if that even makes sense) and she doesn't open her mouth to say it; it's more like a grunt deep in her throat. It's her all-purpose word, but usually means "what is that?" "give me that" "why can't I have that?" or "I want to eat that." Of course, we do the whole, "Oh, do you want this? Okay, I can give you this. Thanks for asking." But the word is hanging around. It showed up during the time period where she had started saying a few words and then all of a sudden got frustrated and stopped talking for a little while. My theory is she got frustrated because she had so much to say and only a few words she could say. Maybe she gave up for a little while? During that time, she only made that weird grunting sound. She doesn't say it as much now, but she keeps it around for emergencies.

She got a piggy bank for Christmas, and she believes it should exclusively be used for riding.

I guess I should have gotten her a rocking horse (I'm looking into it).

She is still the busiest little bee you will ever meet. She NEVER. STOPS. MOVING. EVER. 

She is really into all types of imaginative play. She got tea sets and fake food and a doctor kit for Christmas, and she is ALL about them.

She likes to play chasing games with dad. She LOVES having dad chase her: she squeals as she runs away, then when he catches her, she just dies laughing. Jeremy also started a new game where he hides around a corner, and when she goes and finds him, he squeals and runs away, so she dies laughing and then chases him. 

She is interested in whatever dad is doing. Jeremy would disagree, but I think she is way more interested in him than she is in me (I don't blame her; I'm pretty boring).

She LOVES brushing her teeth.

The dancing. OH, the dancing. I wish I had a video of all her crazy-awesome dance moves, but whenever we turn on the camera, she stops dancing and mugs for the camera. But, my current favorite is this move: she puts her arms out straight behind her, bends deep at the knee, then bounces her behind up and down. This is the best picture I have ever managed to get of it:

 And here is one to illustrate just how seriously she takes her craft:

She was in the midst of a deep head-bang. :)

She is testing her limits. There are many things that she knows she cannot touch, like the DVD player, so she will go up slowly, and SLOWLY reach out a finger to touch it, and you don't even have to say "no," you just have to say her name, and she will turn around look at you very seriously, and shake her head no. The other night she touched the laptop while Jeremy was playing her music on it, and Jeremy said no, so she touched a few other places on the laptop (still no), then she touched the table right next to the laptop, and Jeremy said, "Yep, that's okay to touch," so she went around touching things (the couch, a book) and looking at Jeremy for approval.

Even in the deepest of her funks, she can always be cheered up by Jeremy pretending to hurt himself. In this clip, Jeremy had just slipped and fallen (on purpose) and Josephine loses her mind:

It's slightly disturbing to me, but you gotta do what you gotta do to stop the screaming and crying. :) 

All in all, she is growing faster than I ever imagined, and she is a feisty, fun, smart little kid. :)