How Lucky You Are Jocelyn and Ian...And Me:-)

For the past month, Poppa has been hard at work for you both, Jocelyn and Ian, to create a playroom in our basement. We had a 50's style wood paneling area in our basement that Poppa has spent the past 5 weekends from 7-7pm every Saturday and Sunday filling a million holes and seems, sanding them all down and then painting about 5 coats of primer and paint to cover the dark wood and brighten up the room. He has also been drilling some seriously aggressive holes in the cement that are our walls to run cable and electrical cords. He was worried a few times when the drill started to shoot sparks and the room started to smell like burnt wood but he finished the job! He removed cabinet shelves in order to paint and then had to replace them. He also spent an entire day painting heating pipes to avoid having to enclose them in with wall board, which now surprisingly blend into the rest of the room. After the first couple of weekend days, Poppa would head downstairs thinking he only had a few things left to do and every weekend day, I would eventually have to come down the basement stairs at around 6:30pm to tell him that you were waiting for your tubby time.

Pepere has added his handiwork to the room by learning how to put a banister on the stairs, walling in an already semi-enclosed tv cabinet, and framing out a couple of doors. It was pretty amazing to see your Poppa and Pepere working together this weekend to frame in the remaining door (and the cat door within the door) and put the finishing touches on, what I have to say, is a pretty cool little playroom for you both. Poppa was certainly glad to have the job mostly finished Sunday afternooon and proceeded to fall asleep on the floor while you, Jocelyn, crawled around on top of him. I regret not having taken before pictures but as soon as the carpet is in, which goes in tomorrow, and the furniture is in place, I will post some pictures to show the fantastic job that your Poppa did for you!! And, of course, many, many thanks to Pepere for his help as well!!

Jocelyn's Report Card from the Orthopedic Surgeon

Jocelyn followed up with the orthopedic surgeon a couple of weeks ago and received a very positive report card of her progress. Her left hip is almost identical to her right hip and he anticipates no long term issues with her joint. Anything under a 25 degree angle is normal and her left hip is at 19 degrees (her right hip is at 17 degrees). He said she can stop wearing the brace at night as soon as she figures out how to take it off herself. Poppa seems to think this may be some form of an IQ test!!

Milestone of the week club

Seems like the development milestones are coming fast and furious these days - Jocelyn only started crawling a short time ago, and since then not only has she stood up for the first time but she has even taken a few tentative steps forward with the help of a walker toy designed to help her keep her balance.

Today's milestone, which Julie and I just learned (it happened while Grammy was watching her) is that Jocelyn just did her first numero uno on the potty. A few weeks back Grammy approached us with the idea of trying to have her potty trained before Ian arrives. We were pretty skeptical, but Grammy insisted that it could be done. Well, she may be right.

I can't help but chuckle at what makes us happiest these days.

We've been lax in taking pictures lately because we've been pretty focused on converting part of our basement into a playroom. It's just about done so hopefully we can rectify that soon. We need to post some shots not only of Punky, but also of Julie's belly, because Ian is starting to announce his presence with authority.

Upright

It was just a few weeks ago that Jocelyn started crawling - after being in the cast for so long it took a while for her legs to get strong enough to propel her around. Since then she has progressed very quickly, and is not only standing up now but taking side-to-side steps while holding on to a surface. This is going to bring baby-proofing to a whole new level...especially since one of her favorite surfaces to lift herself up on is the shelf on which our TV sits.

Christmas morning

Although not technically Jocelyn's first Christmas morning (as she was born on Christmas Eve last year), this was for all intents and purposes her first experience with it, and ours as parents as well. It was absolutely as wonderful as one can imagine - one of those times that make Julie and I wonder why we didn't start trying to have children long ago.

When we brought Jocelyn downstairs, she seemed at first to not really understand what was going on, but quickly sensed that the toys we had laid out were gifts for her. She got happier and more excited as she went on, which of course made us more and more happy and excited for her. Here are a few shots from the day:

Here is one of the first shots we took - she is just figuring out that all the toys set up in the living room are for her.

First time on a rocking horse!

More than happy to share gifts with Boomer, who stayed overnight on Christmas Eve along with Grammy and Pepere so that they could share the experience on Christmas morning.

This is one of my all-time favorite shots of her. Seeing her laugh and smile is one of life's great joys.

Figuring out the unwrapping of presents. I think she was taken aback a bit that it was all of a sudden OK to rip the paper off those boxes that had been sitting under the tree for a bit.
By the way, her pajama top pretty much says it all.

Dog tired (it was about 6:15AM when this photo was taken) and couldn't be happier.

Later in the day at Grammy and Pepere's - starting to get the hang of opening gifts now!

A rider from Aunt Jenn (who also hand-knit her sweater) and Uncle Greg was one of her favorite presents!

First Birthday, December 24

We had a very small 1st birthday party for Jocelyn on Christmas Eve. Although we plan to have a bigger "half birthday" celebration for her on June 24th every year (so that she doesn't feel her birthday and Christmas presents are getting merged) and include many more family and friends, since we were hosting a little gathering on Christmas Eve we decided to have a small b-day celebration before kicking off the holiday festivities. A very generous friend who works at the coffee shop down the street made an absolutely beautiful cake shaped like a Barbie doll in a flowing gown (thank you again Sue!). Jocelyn got her first taste of cake, and the early returns were very positive!

Admiring the gorgeous cake (she is eating a chunk from the doll's back side so that we could get a shot of the cake intact in the picture).

Showing off her Christmas outfit which Grammy bought for the holiday (thank you Grammy!) and waiting for her next piece of cake to be cut.

Thanks to Grammy bringing her to reading hours a few times a week, Jocelyn loves books. When we handed her one of her birthday cards she started flipping through like it was a little booklet. A good omen!

The Christmas Photo

Those of you with children know that taking the photo for the family Christmas card can be a stressful experience. You want the picture to be *just right* and inevitably the little one, who may have been an absolute angel just before getting dressed up in the cute holiday dress bought for the occasion, suddenly turns into Little Miss Crankypants and wants to crawl around rather than sit in front of the tree. You are doing your darnedest to keep the camera trained on her, waiting to capture even a hint of a smile, and Momma is in your ear yelling to "just keep shooting, there's bound to be a good one in there." (I'm sure that's exactly how Ansel Adams approached every shot.) Then the cats decide to go for the ornaments and knock down a few presents, further distracting the little one and upsetting the perfect scene Momma had laid out in front of the tree. Good times.

Luckily we recovered by remembering that, when the weather was warmer and we used to take Jocelyn on the swings at the playground, the one thing that would always make her smile and laugh was Momma doing funny walks in front of us (think Monty Python) while Jocelyn swung in my lap. These shots were taken while Jocelyn was watching her do something that I would liken to a monkey trying to feed while jumping on a pogo stick. Whatever it takes, baby!