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.