Cabbage Patch Fate (and a little about how Josie got her name)

In 1982, when I was 3 years old, my Mom was one of those crazy Moms who stood in line for hours at Toys R Us to get me a coveted Cabbage Patch Doll. Once the store opened, she had to make a mad dash to the dolls, grab one, and make it back to the checkout before another mother tried to take it from her. She seriously told me that she saw other mothers STEALING the dolls right out from other fellow mother's carts! It's a madness that we will probably never face in today's world of pre-ordering and internet shopping. Anyways, it was my first Cabbage Patch Doll (little Cindy) and I loved her dearly. I only got to keep her a few years, though, because my mother was also one of those mothers who was so generous that she was always giving away any toys that we didn't play with on a daily basis to anyone she met that she felt was in need. But my first Cabbage Patch Doll was still a fond memory none the less.

When we became pregnant for the first time, as soon as we found out it was a girl and quickly decided on her name, I started to just casually scan the Cabbage Patch Doll shelves whenever I was in a store's toy section in search of one that was named Ellie. I thought it would be a neat keepsake for her to display and then play with when she was older. Well, I never did find one on the shelves, but I did eventually find one on good ol' Ebay. Little "Ellie Addison" now sits proudly on a shelf in Ellie's room.



I started the search again when we found out Josie was a girl. Only her name wasn't Josie then, it was Arianna. We chose Arianna somewhere in my 5th month and called her this for a little over 3 months. I again started checking the Cabbage Patches I ran across for the name Arianna and this time I actually found one! It was one of just two on the shelf of a place that generally isn't known for their toys (Gordmans). I thought it was fate!

So I took little "Arianna" home and put her in the closet for safe keeping. A few weeks before my due date, I started having doubts about the name. It all the sudden sounded too modern compared with Ellie's very traditional full name (Elizabeth). I also thought about how I would miss not having a way to shorten Arianna to a cute name like we did from Elizabeth to Ellie. I know those things seem pretty trivial, but the name really just all of the sudden didn't feel "right". So, then started the mad search for a new name. It became a complete obsession for me. I ended up buying three more baby name books (to add to my already had two from when pregnant with Ellie) and spent countless sleepless nights pouring over names and meanings in the books or on different baby name websites. I compiled list after list of favorites and drove Eric crazy asking him to look at them. I just couldn't decide on "it". Josephine never made it on any of these lists until TWO DAYS before my scheduled c/s. I had come across it several times but never thought of it as one of my favorites. I think the biggest reason was that I have a cousin who has a son named Josef (yes actually spelled that way) and so it kind of turned me off to the name. But on that next to last day for us to decide on a name (or let the baby go nameless for a while), I was once again looking at lists of baby names while Ellie was eating lunch. I found a list someone had posted on Baby Names World of baby names that have cute nicknames and I started reading them out loud to myself to see how they sounded. It included names like Victoria/Tori, Katherine/Katie, Olivia/Liv etc. When I got to the name Josephine/Josie all of the sudden, out of nowhere, Ellie shouts "Josie! I LOVE Josie!" This was coming from a girl who had learned to completely ignore my question of "Do you think your sister should be named [insert name here]?" because I would ask her a gazillion times a day during those last few weeks. The only name she would ever say she liked was Arianna. So that fact the she (VERY emphatically) pronounced her love for the name Josie, when I wasn't even asking her, really made me think twice about the name. I realized it was perfect! Josephine was a very traditional/old fashion kind of name (like Elizabeth) that had a cute nickname of Josie (like Ellie). The meaning is "God will add/increase" which was very fitting to our growing family. And Ellie just sounded so darn cute saying it!!! :) And as for the only reason I thought I didn't care for it, well, I only see that particular cousin once every couple of years or so anyways and also I would be spelling it the traditional way.

So I had a name I all of the sudden loved but Eric still wasn't so sure about it. He had a few names that he liked, too, that I wasn't 100% for either. So on delivery day, we went in with me clutching a list of about 10 names that we hoped contained the name that just seemed perfect for the new little face we were about to meet. Well, not even a minute after our little girl was born, Eric was already calling her Josephine. I hadn't even got to see her yet but I knew it was the right name. We didn't "officially" decide until in the recovery room and there we also already started calling her Josie. It was a perfect match for her! So we brought home our little Josie and our lives became a whirlwind like you would expect with a two year old and a newborn in the house.

Fast forward four months later:

Ellie and I are in her closet looking for her piggy bank because a friend of ours gave her some pennies to put in it. It is on the top shelf and as I grab it, a box falls over into the spot it was in. I realize that it is the Arianna Cabbage Patch Doll, placed there many months earlier, and suddenly I feel guilty that I haven't even tried to find a Josie one yet. After counting out Ellie's pennies, and went to put the piggy bank back, I decided that I might as well just open the doll for Ellie to play with since it didn't have any significant meaning to us anymore. So I grabbed the box down and started to explain to Ellie that the reason I bought it was because she was named Arianna and we thought we might name her sister that and that we did the same for her and so on and so forth...and Ellie said "Let me see!". She loves to spell so I went to show her the name Arianna and when I saw it, I couldn't believe my eyes!!! Seriously, I nearly fainted. There was little Arianna, still in her box...












And here is her birth certificate...




How's THAT for fate??!!

More Pictures (from Summer party)

I looked back through here and realized that I never mentioned Ellie's Summer birthday party. I'm not sure why, although I'm sure it had something to do with being huge and pregnant (as you can see in one of the pics)!
Since Ellie's birthday is so close to Christmas and we have to fit in FIVE different Christmases (to accommodate all sides of the family) it just doesn't work out to have a big party with all her friends and family for her actual birthday. So we decided last Summer to throw her a huge 1/2 birthday party. It was a lot of fun and almost everyone was able to make it. She LOVED having everyone here just for her!
Then, on her actual birthday, it's kind of nice to just have something small like what we did yesterday.
Anyways, I wanted to post some pictures so I/we will have them to look back on...

Ellie's Summer Birthday

Dora and Diego Party!

fiesta

huge Dora

cake time

presents

some of the guests...
Ellie's Great Grandma (in the blue chair) is 99 years old!

new playhouse

Birthday Fun (in pictures)

Making Cake

mixing, icing, sprinkles

finished!


Princess Test Time

go through the tunnel, complete the princess puzzle

time to sleep..., "what's poking me?", "a pea!"

you passed!



Cake and Presents
proud Princess

new game


princess Josie

Happy Birthday Ellie!

Happy Birthday Little Princess! Today you will wake up to a room full of pink and purple balloons, make a "Princess Pea" cake (from your favorite show "Super Why") with Mommy, put on your new lavender princess dress and have a wonderful day. Then, when Daddy gets off work, you'll have a "Princess Test" (like Princess Pea does in an episode) that will will include going through a princess tunnel, doing a princess puzzle and finding a little pea under a whole stack of pillows. And when you pass (which of course you will), you'll receive a beautiful new princess crown. Today is your day to become a "real" princess and you have been SO excited about this! Of course, you have ALWAYS been my little princess...







Happy 3rd Birthday Ellie!

Merry Christmas!

First Snow...

and Ellie has an ear infection. :( She has been looking so forward to playing in the snow this year!
I know that Christmas is definitely on her mind right now because when I told her there was a surprise outside she ran to window and instead of exclaiming "Oooh snow..." she said "Look, a Christmas tree!" (about our little spruce tree in the back yard). I had to ask her "And what do you see ON the tree?" before she said "Snow!!!". She then ran and grabbed her snow boots (notice them on in the picture) and said "Now we can go sledding! Yay!".
Darn that ear infection!

Three Months and Almost Three Years

Wow! Josie is now 3 months old! It’s been crazy around here and only just recently do I finally feel like I have this “two children” thing figured out. The logistics of just leaving the house has been tough to figure out, along with how to get around once we get somewhere (Combi side-by-side stroller), how to entertain Ellie while feeding Josie (an embarrassing amount of new toys), how to do their baths (together), bedtime (my wonderful husband helps), which safe but SEPARATE places to leave them both while I shower (a completely childproofed loft), what to do with Josie when I must do other things (bouncy seat or sling), and several other things that seem simple enough but is now so much harder with two! Now that I’m “Super Mom” (ha-ha), I say bring on number 3! I’m so kidding…

Now on to my incredible 3 month old. I must say, the first 2 months with her were really hard. She was very fussy, very gassy and did not sleep or eat well. She always had to be in the sling or held by one of us or she just cried and cried. I tried cutting out different things from my diet, supplementing with different formulas, gas drops, gripe water, colic CDs, you name it. It wasn’t until her two month appointment that the doctor recommended trying medicine for infant reflux. I thought that if a baby had reflux then they vomited all the time (and Josie only did occasionally) but I was wrong. A baby can have reflux with no other symptoms besides being very fussy. The medicine was a God send! She is now on Prevacid and has become a whole new baby! I really dislike that she has to take an adult medicine (especially one that contains aspartame) but the results of it make it impossible to not continue. She immediately became less fussy and over the last month has become the most smiley, happy baby ever. She has even started sleeping some 8 hour stretches at night! Now I just feel terrible knowing, that for the first two months of her life, she was in pretty much constant pain.

Fun things that she can do now are:
Smile- 6 weeks
Laugh- 10 weeks
Reach for toys (and Daddy’s goatee!)- 10 weeks
Roll over- 11 weeks
Sleep through the night!- 11 weeks

Her favorite places to be (besides someone’s arms) are in the sling, the bouncy seat, under her play gym, and some short periods in the Bumbo seat. She does not, however, like the swing or her carseat at all. She loves being talked to and especially loves any attention her Big Sis gives her.

Speaking of the Big Sis, she has really taken to the role. She now tells me whenever Josie is crying (like I can’t hear it as well as she does!), and then proceeds to tell me very matter-of-factly what she wants ("She wants a pacifier Mom"). She also likes to hold her and sing her lullabies that she has made up. It’s so wonderful to watch their relationship blossoming!

Ellie will be 3 next month. She just recently became potty trained and is now my potty super star! She has been in underwear for two weeks now and has only had 3 accidents total (all in the first 2 days). I thought I had waited too long to start, but now I’m glad I did…it has went so much easier than I thought it would. Now we still have to get her moved to her big girl bed (she loves her crib!) and get rid of that nighttime pacifier. One thing at time…

She also started preschool in October and goes Tuesdays and Thursdays for 2 ½ hours each day. She LOVES school and acts so independent when we go. She tells me “You can’t go Mommy.”. When I ask how she is going to get there she says “Okay, you drive the car…but you can’t go in!”. Of course I have to walk her in. You think she is embarrassed of her Mom already??

She is also so darn smart!

*Warning: I’m about to overly gush for a few here so don't say I didn't warn you...I just want to be able to look back and remember what all Ellie could do before age 3!

She now knows all her colors, shapes (even the hard ones like trapezoid, parallelogram, octagon etc), recognizes all upper and lower case letters and even know their sounds, recognizes numbers 1-10 and can count to 50. She is really interested in learning to read and write. She can read very easy words like cat by sounding them out and recognizes a few sight words. We are working on blended sounds now and she just loves it! The only thing she can write by herself is her name but we write all kinds of stuff together. We are also working on cutting (finally got her her own scissors made just for left handers), patterns, matching, concepts such as similar and different, opposites etc. We have this really great book called "Get Ready for Pre-K" that I highly recommend. It’s bright and colorful and Ellie loves it! I only work with her when she asks and only as long as she is having fun. She has also mastered all her 24 piece puzzles and now does the 40 piece and even one 60 piece. She has become quite proficient at using a mouse and loves playing on the computer. And, she is learning piano! I bought these decals that stick on the keys and hand wrote out the letters to simple songs such as “Row Your Boat” and “Twinkle, Twinkle” and she just follows along the letters to play. It is so cool!
Her favorite toys to play with are Legos, those big cardboard bricks, her little bicycle and this stop sign on a pole, crayons, playdoh, anything and everything that makes music (she has lots of instruments- even an accordion!), My Little Ponies, Matchbox cars, Little People, her toolkit and her dollhouse.
She is so imaginative and I love listening in on her elaborate conversations that her and her dolls have or that she has when making imaginary phone calls. She still loves everything Dora and her new favorite show is “Super Why!” on PBS HD. She also loves to dance and sing and just plain be silly.

Whew! Guess I had a lot to say about Ellie! Most importantly, though, she is sweet and kind and so loving. And she is growing up WAY too fast!!!

Sorry for such a long post. I know it's mostly my friends who read this so I'm sure you don't mind! :) This is mainly just for me, anyways (and someday Ellie and Josie), to look back at and remember how it was when they were so young. I only wish I had time to write more!

I’ll leave you with a couple of pics...