It's the Middle of February Already!?!

There are some things I didn't understand before becoming a parent. Like when I used to ask the little neighbor boy what happened to his legs when they had bruises on them. And then last summer, I learned how that happened when Cohen looked the same way from falling down, running into things, and just being a boy. Also, when my sister, Kel, used to have her daughter sleep with her in the bed. I was concerned about SIDS and her rolling over on Amira and I questioned it.

Tonight, Jovie is sleeping beside me as I write this. She has been sleeping in my bed for the past couple of months, right around the time that she stopped sleeping through the night. After sleeping through the night since she was about 2 months old, she now gets up two times in the night to eat. It's very easy to have her right beside me rather than accross the house to get her. It's also nice to be able to quiet her before Cohen hears her and wakes up because of it. Also, it helps that Joel has been working nights and there is plenty of room for her in the bed. Joel has one more week of working nights, and at that point she may or may not go back to sleeping in her room. Either way, it's what's working for us now. I like that parenting has made it easier to be less judging of others, although I'm sure these AHA moments are not over.

Jovie is almost eight months old! She is talking a lot more, saying ba, ba, ba all the time. She is close to crawling and can move from one side of the room to the other by rolling and pivoting around the floor. She gets up on all fours of rocks back and forth so anyday now I will have two mobile kids! Help me;^)

Cohen now has a very impressive vocab! And he can (and will) repeat anything he hears (even 3 or 4 syllable words that come out jumbled, which is super cute and kind of funny. He also recognizes family...Grandparents, his cousin, Amira, and his aunt and uncles. I love that he knows his family! As the previous post mentioned, Cohen is super into cars and trucks! He got the movie, Cars, for Christmas, and loves it! He brings me the remote and says "cars!" We have watched it a lot! And of course, we see Cars merchandise in every store so it has futher fueled the love. Cohen knows his name and how old he is. He can also count to five or so and can sing some of the ABC's song with me, most of this is from memory right now. We are also doing a music class at the community center. Cohen loves to dance and be silly and he has a blast at the class. His favorite part is when we bounce the balls on the parachute. They fall off the parachute and the kids gets get to run around and pick them up.

After Joel finishes nights, he will do six weeks of days at one of the hospitals and then he will finish the year (thru June) doing off service rotations like pedeatrics, family med, and ER which will be nice because his schedule will be lighter. The month of January was ridiculously tiring and a bit lonely as Joel was working constantly and studying in his off time. Thank goodness for friends! And TV!

goodnight cars

I just put Cohen down for his nap. Before he got into bed he placed all of his little cars and trucks on one side of the bed and then crawled in on the other side. I covered him up with his blanket and then he covered the cars up with the rest of the blanket. What lucky cars he has!

monkey see, monkey do

5 months

Jovie is 5 months old already! She has been rolling over for several weeks now. Cohen did his best Jovie impression the other day, he laid down on Jovie's blanket in the living room and did two full rollovers. Too funny, that one. Jovie continues to be a great sleeper. Erin just moved out the other day, so Jovie will move in her own room soon. I will miss having Erin around, but am excited to get Jovie into her own room and decorate her nursery. Erin signed on with Mayo Hospital here in Phoenix starting in January so she'll be in town a bit longer!

Cohen's vocab has really taken off now! He repeats a lot more words after I say them now. It's so neat when he surprises us by saying a word that we've been saying to him for so long, like car, boat, and the other day he said Erin for the first time! And I was on the phone with her and Cohen said it into the phone! How special! For the last several months, I'd say "Say Erin" and Cohen would say "huh?" every time. So it was pretty neat that he said it! His pronunciation of Jovie has evolved as well, she is now "Foo-vie." Cohen loves going to the park and playing on the playground. He likes the swings and the slides and is getting brave with climbing on the playground.

Joel is currently on a gyn rotation that keeps him beyond busy. They do a few surgeries each day. He has been working till 8 or 9pm, and still starting at 530 in the morning. This past week was an exception though. One of the surgeons was out of town so there weren't as many surgeries scheduled. Joel was home by 6-630 almost every night! It was awesome to have him home for dinner. His next rotation starts after Thanksgiving and he will do 12 weeks of nights. Not really looking forward to this either. He has a week of vacation coming up though, and Thanksgiving off! I am very thankful for this. Also, Amelia is coming next week and we are excited for her to meet Jovie and hang out! I am starting to study to take the state licensing exam. Most of the jobs I am interested in require me to be licensed so I need to do this before I can think about working. Right now, I'm having a great time staying home with the kids!

Happy Halloween

What boog?

Jovie had a fairly impressive booger that escaped her nose. I went to get a tissue and when I came back with it, the boog was gone. She got pretty excited when I asked her "where's the boogie?" (I later found the boog on her sleeve).

Voo-vie

Cohen has started to repeat many of the words I say. His Jovie sounds kind of like "Voo-vie." Also, Jovie is now giggling. It's really cute and funny.