THE GREEN(wald) HOUSE … (growing rosemary & raising a little wolf)

Another month has flown by and my little girl continues to alternately drive me crazy and melt my heart…

Her latest game is to climb into the large trunk/toy chest in the living room and throw ALL her toys out on the floor…fun! She is also obsessed with Dora the Explorer - she still likes Elmo - but Dora is her BFF now and she insists on “watch Dora TV” as soon as she wakes up… I sometimes regret the crutch of Dora on TiVo and our portable DVD player - but I don’t know if I could get through this pregnancy without the distraction and time off that watching Dora provides…
She is still getting up earlier than I would like - around 7am - it seems she is solar powered and gets up with the sun - I am thinking we need to get some heavy black curtains for her room to see if it will help her sleep longer… Other than that - she is a pretty good sleeper - usually in bed by 8-8:30 - and she has even been having better naps lately - I can get around an hour out of her before she wakes up usually - instead of just 1/2 hour or so…

We took our first trip to the zoo this past month and Rosie absolutely LOVED it! It was great exercise for the whole family - Rosie ran around non-stop and loved seeing all the animals - and mommy and daddy got some exercise walking around the whole zoo for 3 hours… We went on the weekend as a family with Wes, Vicki and Holly - and then Rosie and I went back the next day with our playgroup. Rosie really is making some good friends (me too) with our playgroups - and in a weird synchronistic phenomenon - out of the 10-15 kids in our small group - 3 other kids (all boys) were born the same day as Rosie!!! crazy huh?

This is Rosie’s friend Noah - one of the 3 who shares her b-day - they had fun holding hands and walking around the zoo together…

Rosie also loves hanging out with her cousins - especially her cousin Ari - they run around and chase each other and scream - and they fight over toys - and just sit and read in their jammies (rare quiet time) - Her big cousins Noah, Cory and Marisa are fun to play with too…

And she is a little shadow of cousin Ella - everytime we see her she just follows her around and tries to be like big girl Ella - looking at her with adoring eyes…

She also got to play with cousin Stephen when we were in Florida recently - he is such a cutie - check out these eyelashes!

seems like such a waste on a boy!

She still has no fear - climbing everything - running everywhere - exploring, she loves to swim in GiGi’s pool or the ocean - and actually swam by herself with only swimmies helping her (mommy and daddy hovering closeby) at GiGi’s pool this past month…

A major change in our daily routine was the end of nursing this past month - it was a really smooth transition and I was happy about that. My milk had pretty much dried up - so she wasn’t nursing for nutrition any more - it was more of a comfort thing - but I was sore and tired and cranky and she was NOT very gentle with her nursing sessions - so I got fed up one morning and went upstairs and put band-aids over my nipples and showed Rosie “mommy nursie hurty” and she said “mommy band-aid” and that was pretty much it… I left the band-aids on for a couple days - but even after that -she hasn’t asked to nurse at all - she occasionally says “mommy nursie hurtie” or “mommy band-aids” and points to my nipples - but she seems to have been ready to wean. And I am enjoying a few months of a break before the new baby gets here and is latched on to me 24/7. Plus, with the end of nursing - Rosie and I can now cuddle together without her always having to have my nipple in her mouth…

3 more months until she is a big sister and we keep talking about what a big help she is going to be. I will ask her how she is going to help mommy and she will say “bring baby diaper” and “play toys” and “sing baby”. Speaking of singing - she pretty much gets all the words to “twinkle twinkle” and “abcd” (as Rosie calls them) - usually she makes me sing with her - but sometimes she will cut me off and say “no sing mommy” and she wants to sing all by herself - her tune and timing is totally off - but it is so cute to hear…