Another Cosy Dump - Random Wednesday Stuff

Yesterday was Austin's birthday. He bought the best steaks in their meat counter and Tasha did an amazing job of cooking them, along with her special garlic rice - which is awesome. STUFFED.

Today is Tasha's birthday. She requested take out chinese so we picked up beef lo mein, plain lo mein (Tasha's pick) chicken and rice soup, crab rangoons, teriyaki chicken skewers, pot stickers (for me!) mongolian beef (for me) and chicken fried rice (for mama). We ate to the point of STUFFED again. Oh my belly!

Working backwards... I watched Cosette for a few hours this morning so Tasha could sleep in. I love LOVE LOVE every minute with my sweet Cosy. She's inquisitive and curious. She loves playing and she includes us in her play. She's developing an advanced vocabulary for her age because we do use play time to teach language. I am also giving her the word in Italian (if I know it) and English and teach her how to sign the word (if I know the sign). Her communication skills are awesome for a little ten month old girl. She was drinking juice yesterday and I thought she was finished so I pulled the juice box away from her. She made the sign for "eat" and then "more"so I gave her another sip of juice. Paying attention and responding to their primitive communication attempts makes a huge difference in their ability to grasp language as she grows. Their confidence to attempt to communicate grows in leaps and bounds when they know you are reacting to the words they use.

Yesterday the word was "open" and today it was "up"... as in "pick me up". We played today until she crashed in my lap and I spent the next thirty minutes sniffing her head. I love her so much!

I treasure these times with Cosy and wish I could spend as much time with Ollie... although we do *kinda* spend time with him... Cosy loves to watch videos of Ollie and will watch them over and over and over saying, "Ohhhh....bobo...." "bobo" is her word for baby. She also wants to look at her brand new baby cousin (first cousin, once removed) and uses a different tone for him, as if she realizes he's brand new and delicate. Ollie is BamBam. Not delicate.

Anyways... the main reason I wanted to blog tonight was to share something that I look forward to each year and really enjoy and I think some of you might enjoy it as well. Rick Steves (you know, the guy from Seattle that does these great tours, is all over public broadcasting and likes to smoke pot) he holds a tour scrapbook contest every year for participants in the tours that occurred the previous year. He posts all the entries online so for someone like me with wanderlust and a deep love of anthropology - basically I just want to know how other people do stuff, so for me, this contest is great, GREAT fun. I go through every scrapbook. They're just basically websites created specifically for their tour. Here's the link   if you might like to check them out. It's a rabbit hole for me... I go down and don't want to climb back out! For those of us who like to travel or wish we could travel... it's fun. So... enjoy! 

I've had lots of Nana/Cosy bonding time this week and am taking tomorrow to rest and let the aches and pains and inflammation settle down. Right now... I hurt so much! But I got to have some great one on one time with Cosette. She has napped in my lap twice this week. I've changed two diapers (my first two diapers on her... her mom is always here!)

Now I've got to work things out so I can go down and spend time with Ollie. We have so many doctor appointments this month... I'm having the steroid shot in my shoulder - which... if it goes like my hip shot - will make things worse. My parents are going to NYC so I'll be dog-sitting / Austin's transportation to/from work / etc while they're gone. Honestly, for not doing much of nothing, I do a lot.

My nighttime meds are kicking in so I'm gonna end here before I start dragging skeletons out of the closet. Thanks for stopping by! Love and hugs, y'all!