Happy Holidays, everyone!

Well, it has certainly been a magical holiday season so far with the addition of Miz Josie. We had a lovely Hanukkah, lighting candles each night at home and first celebrating with the Rothmans at Hilary's and then running home to host our own first Chanukah party with Jen, Jeremy and Bella and Rob, Lezlee and River! It was a wonderful time.

Wednesday the 12th I got to celebrate birthday #35 in the City with Hilary, Anne and Lew and the girls and then home with Josie and Jeff, who gave me a lovely Helen Ficalora necklace. On Friday night Lew and Jeff watched Josie so that I could attend Alvin Ailey with Hil, Jax and Anne, and on Saturday Hil, Todd and the girls took care of Jo so that Jeff and I could have our annual birthday celebration in the city - walking around midtown to see the windows and the tree at Rockefeller Center, and then heading uptown for a romantic dinner at Coppola's.

Josie continues to amaze us with new tricks - she can now pick up a toy and, of course, bring it right to her mouth. When I go in to fetch her from her crib in the morning, she is SOOO happy to see me that her grin turns into a Ernie-esque "hkee hkee hkee" laugh. Lots of chirps and coos and yells - she is eager to talk to us! Hopefully there will be more of the former than the latter when we drive to Michigan for Xmas this weekend! Happy Holidays and much love to everyone!

BREAKING NEWS..."She's certainly a chunky monkey," sez Zatz

Friday Josie had her 2-month checkup. She clocked in at 13 lbs and 24 inches! She's 90th percentile in weight (yikes!), 75th in height, and has a big old Davidson haid, with head circumference in the 75th as well. Dr. Zatz said she's definitely, as we call her, on the portly side, but since she's getting 95% of her food from, well, me, it's "great." Not so great were her three shots, which were equally traumatic for us both, I think, and left her cranky and exhausted for the whole day.

2 months old, and First Hanukkah!

Well, it's been a busy couple of weeks for Miz Josiepants. Most excitingly, she has been sleeping for 4-6 hours at a clip! Usually she goes to bed around 9, wakes up to eat around 4, and sleeps till 8 or 9. She's also starting to dig a regular nap schedule of around 10-11 am and around 2-3 pm (usually while Jen and I are mallwalking). Of course as I type this, we are both bleary eyed as she took an hour to go down last night, woke up at 7:30, and refused to take her nap even though she keeps falling asleep in my arms. Interestingly, as she sits in her "fishie chair" she has grabbed a receiving blanket we leave in it for drool and burps, and is kind of cuddling it. Maybe we have a self-soothing object on the horizon (pleeeease).

Jeff was in Europe all last week, which was a little lonely, especially for Josie. But every time he called, I would put him on speaker and Josie would stick out her tongue at the sound of his voice! Daddy's Girl all the way... obviously a pretty strong connection!

We've had a couple of pretty snowfalls already, though both have melted. Just in time for the Chanukah season, which we celebrated at West End with Rabbi Yael (with 6-month old Rina), Cantor Mordy and a bunch of members young and old, all of whom were delighted to finally meet Josie. I think I've already received my favorite Hanukkah gift, Martha Stewart's New Classics Cookbook. Great, when will I have time to cook?

Tomorrow Josie has her first shots, so I'll be back with her new weight and of course, how traumatic that was for me!

So Thankful

Jeff took the week off, which was so terrific! I visited my Lenox Hill roommate and her baby Jackson in Valhalla, we knocked out the holiday shopping, saw the excellent "American Gangster" and...

We were so happy to celebrate Josie's first Thanksgiving! When we went around the dinner table and said what we were thankful for it was a pretty easy one. We are so lucky and blessed to have this crazy-haired munchkin in our lives.

We celebrated with the Rothmans and it was a fantastic day and meal. Anne made her usual delicious feast, with best bakers in a supporting role, Jaxi and Manny and Jake Rothman providing beautiful pies. Israel's loss was our gain as the lovely Wendy Katz joined us for the day as well. Josie spent the lion's share of the day sleeping but the rest of it charming us all.

Emily came on Saturday and we watched the traditional "Happy Days" Thanksgiving special along with "Home for the Holidays." We made an awesome shrimp and orzo "risotto."
http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/orzo-risotto-with-buttery-shrimp

These days Josie is all smiles, especially when we play "Josie and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" and dance her around the kitchen. On several occasions she has slept for 6 hours at a clip at night! Woo hoo! She is already growing so fast.

Boy, she looks like eleven pounds of fun, huh?

Josie had her six-week appointment on Thursday. So did her little friend (11 days younger) Bella - and they have the same pediatrician. I was in the office in the morning, talking lots of smack, because I was confident that Josie was at least 9 lbs. The nurses seemed interested in a little friendly wager, so I stripped Jo down, plopped her on the scale and... eleven pounds! How true the Portly Pepperpot moniker has become!

More importantly, Dr. Zatz pronounced her healthy and fabulous (and thus the job we are doing taking care of her!). It's funny, when you're a new parent you do go into these appointments like a state fair candidate with your prizewinning pumpkin or like a student presenting a project. You want a good grade! Lucky for me, Josie got straight A's. (though 75th percentile sounds like a C!)

By the way, Bella weighed in at a very respectable 9 lbs, 4 oz. She's taller than Josie - she's all Kate Moss Baby(shambles).

If you don't read Page Six, you probably didn't get that joke.

ANYHOO, in other news, we've had lots of visitors, rooted in vain for the Wolverines against the Ohio State Frickeyes, and even got out to dinner for a Saturday night date! We went to the new sushi restaurant in Nyack, which was fabulous. We almost forgot about Portly Pep in her carseat sitting at the edge of the table!

Finally, Jeff and I were interviewed and photographed for a cool story about women and spirituality in the December issue of Real Simple. Check it out!

One Month Old!

Josie-Pose turned one month old on Monday! It has flown so fast, I can't believe it! She has definitely changed - in addition to putting on some pudge, she now mimics us, which Jeff discovered quite by accident on Friday, when he stuck his tongue out at her, and she poked hers right back! She really enjoys sticking it out at every occasion now, which you'll see in the latest photo gallery.

This month's darling cover photo is thanks to Lew Rothman, who stopped by with lovely wife Anne on Sunday to keep Jeff and Josie company so that I could (thank you!!) run some errands. I'm getting out for walks and activities almost every day with my friend Jen and her new baby Isabella - which really helps a lot. We are dreading the cold weather but decided we'll become mall-walkers. We'll just have to walk REALLY fast past the Cinnabon and Coldstone stores!

Josie's making her first trip (since birth of course) to the big city tomorrow! We'll go see my doctor for my month-out appointment and visit my office. The Monchichi Takes Manhattan!

Stumpless in South Nyack!

OK, so we live in Upper Nyack, but that didn't roll off the tongue the way I wanted. Yes, finally you're free from seeing the freaky umbilical remnant in all of Josie's midriff-baring shots. It was quite an anticlimactic end for the stump - after waiting for weeks for it to fall off, on Saturday morning I changed her diaper and said "hey, her stump is gone!!" It must have come off during a middle-of-the-night change. Oh well. So the cat didn't run off with it, no one ate it, it just disappeared as quietly as it came, quite unceremoniously in a pile of doo.

Josie is starting to be more wakeful during the day, which is nice, but doesn't seem to be affecting her desire to party at 3 a.m. Ah well, such is the life of the new parents. So if you see me wearing two different shoes, or run into Jeff with pants on his head, just cut us some slack.

Lots of visitors all week, including my friend Wendy, Jeff's brother Roger and his family and his sister Hilary and her family (lots of delicious and loving cousins), and our friends the Novies and Hansons (and their son Spencer, pictured above - Josie's middle namesake's last name was Spencer... is it desitin? I mean, destiny?)....none of which did much to reverse the direction of Josie's eyelids. Oh well. New pics posted of all these fun events!

SHE'S A REAL GIRL

Josie is about 2 and 1/2 weeks old and changing before our eyes! She's a real baby! She makes and hold eye contact for minutes at a time, gives us lots of goofy grins, and even ROLLED OVER on Sunday. She got a really sweet tie-dyed bear as a gift that, you'll see, she stared at and touched with her hand for about 15 minutes. No, it does not take much to fascinate an infant.

Lots of visitors, including our Nyack friend Lezlee (Josie has been LOVING Lezlee's "Loveabyes" CD - check it out at www.lezlee.com) and her son River, Hannah and Papa Rothman, and G. G. Rothman. New pics at right!

My parents left to return to Michigan yesterday, so Josie and I are on our own these days! Today we're going to stroll into town and then up the hill to visit Josie's future best friend Isabella, our friend Jen and Jeremy's baby who was born last week.

BABY PHAT

Josie had her 1 week checkup (11 days old, but a week since her first checkup) and she did great! The doctor said it's normal for newborns to gain 5 - 6 oz. that first week, and our Posie gained... thirteen! Whoooo! I asked if I were nursing her too much and apparently that's not possible. So we'll let her keep suckin' it down. We won't let her have any teen-day body image issues.

In other news, poor Jane took a spill yesterday on one of our crappy Nyack sidewalks. It was terrible. Today we took her to a very cute orthopod here and she broke both her ankle and wrist... and her wrist is going to need surgery when she gets back to MI next week. Please keep her in your thoughts!

More from me and the portly pepperpot soon!

10 days old!

So... we survived the first week, though having both Jeff and my mom here was a godsend. We took turns changing, laundering, holding, feeding, burping, pumping - oh, but only I can do that - and all the other ings one never even thought about before having a child.

Josie's first doctor's appointment went great (see photo) - she has almost maintained her birth weight, weighing in at 7 lbs even. She made a terrific impression by screaming through the entire exam. She has a set of lungs on her, which makes Gram Jane awful proud.

Jeff went back to work today, which was sad... it was nice having a whole week with just our little family. But Mom and I had fun, entertaining company, supervising the sewer guy (don't ask) and even taking a stroll down the river walk, though it took us half an hour to figure out how to get the carseat into the travel stroller frame.


Even though she's only 10 days old, Josie is showing her unique personality - lots of funny faces, squawks, and fast eating - like her father. Per request, lots of pics posted in the galleries to the right - Back soon!

THE BABY HAS LANDED. Meet Josie Diana Rothman!

She's here.

So as long as I'm sitting on a plastic donut with my first real cup of coffee in almost a year, I might as well tell you the whole story! As I posted last week, we had decided to induce on Thursday night. Jeff and I had a last supper at Citrus, our favorite restaurant in our old neighborhood on the Upper West Side, and went to Lenox Hill to check in around 9pm. We got settled, and they just gave me a cream to soften my cervix and said we would start the pitocin in the morning.

We watched TV and fell asleep around midnight. Around 3am, I awoke, confused, to a big gush - my water had actually broken on its own! Aahhhh... BGR and I were finally on the same page. I toughed out the contractions with a little light narcotics until about 8 a.m., when my doctor, the nurses, and Jeff, convinced me that at 6 cm, I was not being "wussy" by starting the epidural. Sweet relief. Whoever invented the epidural should go straight to the head of the sainthood list. Not that, as a nice Jewish girl, I should particularly care about that. But I digress. The rest of the day was actually a nice day off. We read the paper, hung out with our families, watched Sex and the City DVDs, and ate popsicles.

By about 4pm, I was to 10 cm. Time to push! Jeff was an amazing coach. After about an hour, we had Josie Diana in our arms. 7 lbs, 1 oz, and 20.75 inches. It wasn't easy, but it wasn't so bad! I would definitely do it again. Unfortunately, I had spiked a fever during the delivery, so as a precautionary measure they put us both on antibiotics and the pediatrician said Josie had to stay in the NICU until Monday (even though I was being discharged Sunday). She couldn't stay in my room, but we visited her for almost every feeding and she was the star of the NICU - both because of her hair and her fast learning at nursing - and of course because of her beauty and personality. One of the dads in the unit asked if I had had her hair "styled" while at the hospital. Of course, it WAS the Upper East Side, but I assured him I had not.

Unbelievably, around noon yesterday I got an even better present than the gorgeous earrings Jeff gave me for carrying and bearing his seed - the news that hospital policy had changed and asymptomatic newborns in our situation could be discharged after 48 hours instead of 72! So she got to come home with us yesterday - thank god, because I had already been crying all day at the thought of leaving her.

So we're home, and on Day 2. I am feeling pretty good, a little beaten up and pretty tired, but we're happy to be home and falling completely in love with our daughter.

Thanks everyone for your thoughts, good wishes, calls and wonderful e-mails. We look forward to introducing JDR around soon!

Overdue!

So BGR's due date came and went... I saw my OB this morning and we decided to coax her out on Friday if she doesn't grace us before then! She shipped me over to the hospital for a quick sono, which showed BGR is 7 lbs 13 oz!!! Holy Moley! She was very active, bouncing all over and sucking her fingers. I think she wants to meet us as much as we want to meet her! So we're on for Thursday night/Friday morning. Stay tuned!!!

T-7!

Had my 39-week checkup this morning. I'll post a photo later, but suffice to say I am pretty dang large and muy uncomfortable. I can't really even exercise anymore, so I'm just trying to get in some walking and moving around!

Sadly, I am still not really progressing, so my OB and I decided to schedule an induction just in case BGR doesn't show up on time, on her own (it's really about getting the room, and she doesn't want me to be a week overdue with no room at the inn). So we're on for either the 4th or 5th depending on the hospital's availability. It's good to know there's an end in sight!

Jeff and I are finding this limbo very weird - everything's set up, just ready and waiting. It's like looking at a memory that hasn't happened yet.

See you next week, whatever has happened!!!

THAR SHE BLOWS

Not yet... but don't I look ready to blow? Almost to week 38 (Monday!) and feeling... like I'm 9.5 mos. pregnant. Saw OB on Tuesday and she says I'm clammed up tight, not going anywhere for awhile. So I'm doing lots of walking, activity to try to get BGR to think about moving along. All my test results were good and normal, though, and we got to discuss fun stuff like my birth plan, when to call, when to come in, etc. Yesterday and Today are Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Yesterday in temple the rabbi asked us to think of just one thing in the past year for which we are truly thankful - boy was that an easy one. Shana Tovah to those who celebrate, and everyone else - a great weekend!

Jeff's bday, and one month to go!

Another pretty good dr's appointment last week - I have some small aches and pains, my 4th UTI, an irritated and irritating fibroid, but generally things look good. I have one more appointment next week before I start seeing my OB weekly. I did have another fall, but worse than the embarrassment of falling was the humiliation of the grunting and groaning of the woman who tried to help me - and my heft- up!

We had a terrific long weekend - in addition to working tirelessly on our almost-finished basement and the baby's room, we celebrated Jeff's 35th birthday with a Yankee game and then dinner at an inn near Bear Mountain (pictured). I was nervous about being big and bumped around at the game but I was totally comfortable. In fact, I did much better than the Bx bombers, who got fairly thumped by the Tampa Bay Tampax, or whatever their name is. Jeff was the happy recipient of a new cappucino machine, which he will need in the next few months!

We have our last childbirth class this week - pushing and breathing. Woo-hoo! Until next time, I remain yours hugely, BJD

Not baby-related, except that I hope she will have my sense of humor

I really just wanted to tell everyone about the new Flight of the Conchords fan site. Although, we are still looking for J names... how about Jemaine Rothman? Food for thought. Food for thought.

http://www.whatthefolk.net/

They’re turning kids into slaves just to make cheaper sneakers.
But what’s the real cost?
‘Cause the sneakers don’t seem that much cheaper.
Why are we still paying so much for sneakers
When you got them made by little slave kids
What are your overheads?

Flight of the Conchords, "Think About It"

AND the handicapping begins...

So we saw "the movie" at our Wed. nite birthing class. While I'm someone who enjoys zit-popping, blister squeezing, and the occasional surgery channel viewing, I don't think I want to watch the fun in the readily available mirror. No wonder I've let all the "Birth story" episodes fall off our TiVo cache. I guess I really don't want to see much more of that, on TV or below my own waist! Oh well. Call me a wuss. Jeff of course has decided he DOES want to see the whole thing now. There will be no filming.

Had an OB appt with one of my doctor's partners on Friday. Went very well, weight, BP etc. are all good (says HE, but I can no longer bend over from a chair and pick something up off the floor!). Nor can I really see anything below my belly except my toes. He says BGR is going to be bigger than I was (7.5 lbs) so, given momma needed a C-section with me, it's just a possibility I should prepare for. Jeff is in LA so no belly photos this week, sorry!!!

And, the most FUN news of the week. Jeff conveniently dropped 5 lbs in the past week, so I now weigh more than he does. ARGH!

32-week sono, and everything looks great!

Jeff and I trekked into Lenox Hill for our 32-week sonogram this morning. Despite the uncommunicative nature of our tech (Jeff: What's that you're measuring? Tech: Mmph rmph ventricle mph brain) we learned that everything looks great. BGR weighs an estimated 4.5 lbs! So much for my OB's worry that I was carrying small! BGR was squirming and kicking all the way to the hospital, but decided to chill during the u/s - she was just sucking her thumb (wild!) and looking very mellow.

We spent the weekend making the most of our remaining "us time" - went on a date, saw the Bourne Ultimatum (BGR did NOT like the loud chase scenes) and grilled, shopped, went on a long walk in Piermont, and spent yesterday starting to assemble swings and things and organizing her room! Jeff took an update photo of me before the BBQ at our friends' Lezlee and Rob's that ended the weekend - I'll post it later!

Baby on Bored

Yes, I know. I've tried this blogging thing before. And choosing to try again as I'm about to embark on the busiest, most sleepless, thankless time of my life is probably about as smart as hiring Lindsay Lohan as our driver. But here we go. I'm mostly setting this up to post baby photos, etc. so that friends and family can "opt in" for updates voluntarily. If you feel like that "f and f" category includes you, then bookmark my blog!

So I'm almost 31 weeks, 9 to go. As though I'm back on a campaign, the "90 day" mark was a big one, and I guess 60 will be next. I'm large and in charge - I've gained about 22 lbs. I'm still making it to the gym 3x a week or so, but having a tough time sleeping with this big ol' belly. Pregnancy is a beautiful, joyous experience. Urp.