DOUBLE HALF BIRTHDAY!

A very happy half birthday ... to BOTH of my girls! I still forget every now and then and am startled to realize they have the SAME BIRTHDAY. Good lord. The SAME EXACT BIRTHDAY. I just started hyperventilating a bit when I wrote it. Remember how crazy I got before Josephine's first birthday? Now I have to find a way for them to share a birthday and have it be special. Yes, I am thinking about all this on their half birthday. Only six months left to figure it out! LA DEE DA!

Anyway, look! This past Saturday we had a 2-year-and-six-month-old girl and a six-month-old girl! And they have half a cake each! And their cakes say "2 1/2" and "1/2," respectively. And J has 2 1/2 candles and G has a half a candle! (heh.) (I wanted to try to cut it in half longwise, but thought better of it in the end).

Josephine was over the moon to have us sing to her and to get to blow out not only her candles, but her sister's as well. 

 
She's a giver.

She even offered to eat her sister's cake! What a helper!

We let Genevieve play with a little piece, and she had a blast. She didn't get any in her mouth (whew), but she had fun. I'm glad I loosened up my sugar rules long enough to let her smear it all over her face.

So, you want to hear about the famous girls of the house? Let's start with the oldest:

Josephine weighs 34 pounds and is 37 inches tall! I'm no mathematician, but that's roughly 6 feet tall, by my best estimation. She also talks non-stop (in huge, long sentences), she picks up on things very quickly, sings all the time, and is so funny. For example, she started saying "Wait, wait, wait ... that's SO WEIRD!" to me and Jeremy. We have no idea where that phrase came from, and she really draws out that pause in the middle, and we are hanging on her every word to see what she says. Then she laughs and laughs at how funny she is.

She still loves to read and is getting really good at memorizing her books (quickly! after only a few readings!). The first book she memorized was Corduroy, and now she has moved on to Gerald and Piggie books (by Mo Willems). If you've read I Love My New Toy, you'll understand what I mean when I say she acts out the entire story:
"I love my new toy!" 
"What does it do?"
"I have no idea!"
"Maybe it's a throwing toy! I love throwing toys!"
"Here, try it!"

The "I have no idea!" is the best part, because it sounds so great in her little voice. She has taken to saying it all the time. 
"Josephine, what's that in your hands?"
"I have no idea!"

She is also more creative than ever. She is always "being" something or somebody, and without any coaching, she "puts on" the costume for the animal or person. For example, out of the blue, she will come over, "put on" paws, use her fingers to draw stripes all over her torso, draw whiskers on her face, then get on all fours and say "My* a tiger!" and she's a tiger for ... well, at least an hour, sometimes days. Her favorite things to be are a tiger, dinosaur, bunny, and birdie. In fact, on Saturday she told us she was a birdie, then Sunday (still a birdie), informed us she was a black birdie, and this morning, the first thing she shouted was "DADDDDDDDY! Come down the stairs and open the door for black birdie!" She will ONLY answer to "black birdie," and will correct you if you call her anything else. She will also say "NO! My a black birdie!" if you just say something to her without specifically calling her a black birdie. She is so smart and cute and creative, but if I hear that phrase one more time ... never mind, she just told me again. Sigh. "My a black birdie," indeed!

*I have had a few people ask me about the pronoun confusions, and honestly, I'm not worried. She used to use I, my, and me appropriately, but all of a sudden she is using "my" in place of "I," but she is also WAY ahead in other areas of language, so I figure it's no biggie. The pediatrician isn't worried either, so either am I. It's this new thing I'm trying: not worrying.

Now the little one:

Genevieve was 18 pounds and 4 ounces the other day! Lordy be! No wonder my back is all jacked up from carrying her around in that carseat! She is also moving around like a champ. She has mastered the scoot and the army crawl, and even does some hands-and-knees crawling in little bursts. She also started leaning on one arm in a model-esque pose (Yes, I wish I had a picture of it, too. You will just have to use your impressive imagination.), Frankly, she's too cute for words, these days. Wildly adorable. Her smile is like a beacon in a storm. 

She has also started eating some food. I didn't really want to (I have no idea why), and I definitely didn't want to start before six months, and then I wanted to skip over the rice and oatmeal that messed up Josephine's gut right after we got it all fixed (grr!) and was going to go straight for veggies, and then the pediatrician thought some of Genevieve's poop problems might be helped with some oatmeal, so we started last week. She was such a champ that I have given her a few finger foods to let her play around and enjoy food time. The other night I gave her some steamed sweet potato chunks, and she had a blast playing with them, putting them in her mouth, and just experimenting. She even got a tiny chunk, mashed it and swallowed it. Like a real person! I'm not going to go whole-hog on the baby-led solids train, but I like the idea of giving her some chunks to let her experiment/stay busy while we eat and then toss a few spoonfuls of something into her after that.

Her favorite person is still Josephine, but now Jeremy and I come in a very close tie for second, so that's good news. She's still very alert and observant and brilliant as all get out (of course). She's a doll. She still sucks at sleeping, but she has her good days. We're working on it.

And look! Look at the passage of time! (This works even better if you hum/sing "Sunrise, Sunset" while you look at the pictures)

I had to show you the whole lot of them because it's exactly halfway through 52 weeks and all. 

Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers / blossoming even as we gaze. (I realize that might not make sense to some of you. Watch Fiddler on the Roof. LOVE that flick.)

There they are. My little love bugs. My big, grown girls. Love them so much. Next time: less schmaltz. (Well ... maybe. No promises.)