Sarah and Jeff and Abe and Josie

The holiday season started off well, with a big, West Virginia Thanksgiving. It was Mom’s first chance to meet Josephine, her third grandbaby. So, with Kevin, Melissa, and Benjamin here, too, she had a week of relatively uninterrupted access to all three.

Abe loved having Benjamin around, too. He spends a lot of time walking around the house spelling out “A-B-E” and “B-E-N.”

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, it was more business as usual around here.

The Christmas end of the season didn’t start nearly as auspiciously, though. Shortly after arriving in NYC to visit Uncle Chris, Abe came down with pneumonia. With his antibiotics onboard, he started feeling better, but it didn’t last long. Eight days later, on Christmas Eve, we took him to the ER in pain, itchy, and barely able to walk, classic symptoms of an allergy to his antibiotics. We had to cut our visit to Salem short, so Abe could recover a bit before moving on. Thanks Kevin, Melissa, and Benjamin. As family vacations go, I guess they can only get better.

Abe was still able to enjoy Christmas morning, of course. Several more weeks of antihistamines and steroids have also helped matters.

Now, with the holidays past, and things a lot calmer, we have a little more time to spend together.

It is hard to believe more than a month has passed since Josie arrived.  Abe & Josie are keeping us busy around the clock, literally.

The weekend before Halloween we were visited by winter for a night.  Abe got out to enjoy the first snowfall of the year.

Abe wanted to be a blue mouse (favorite color + favorite animal) for Halloween, and Josie was a jack o’lantern.  Halloween festivities included carving a jack o’lantern (Abe’s first), multiple Halloween parties (Josie’s first), and candy corn (another Abe first).

Many people have commented how much Josie looks like Abe.  We mostly think that Josie looks like Josie, with many of Abe’s expressions.  Then we looked back at pictures of baby Abe.

Abe is unabashedly smitten with Josie.  He loves to hug and kiss his little sister.  When she is sleeping, he will still blow her kisses and rub her back.  The love is unstoppable.

Abe is at that independent, and occasionally trying, age where he wants to do everything himself.  He wants to, and does, brush his teeth, take off his vest, put on his hat, wipe his nose, sweep the floor, clean up spills etc.  Many of his short sentences start and end, and pretty much consist of “I!”  When I was vacuuming the other day he was a bit upset when I wouldn’t let him vacuum, but delighted when he found out that while I wouldn’t let him use it, he could still have a little fun.

 

Four days before the big day we decided to do one of those things that we knew would quickly become infinitely harder, eating out.  Pretty Penny, of course, and the Hillsboro playground gave us another opportunity to spend some time with just Abe.

One day before the big day Huntersville Traditions Day gave Abe another shot at the pony ride.  Last year he didn’t quite get on the horse, but this year he saddled up like a true caballero.

Then she appeared.

Josephine Zuzu Hankens was born at 4:40am on Sunday, October 2nd at Pocahontas Memorial Hospital, ten minutes after Sarah arrived by ambulance.  She was the first delivery at PMH in eight years, but working with the staff there, you’d never know it.  They did an incredible job.  Another ambulance ride to Lewisburg and mommy and baby were where they were supposed to have been for delivery.

Jeralyn and Bill, champions of the marathon drive from Connecticut to West Virginia, hopped in the car at about 4:00am, as soon as they knew Sarah was in labor, and were in Lewisburg by late afternoon.  After a short stop to meet Josie, they were back in the car to spell Abe’s baby sitter.  Having them at the house made Josie’s first week much easier than it probably should have been.  The same goes for Kathy and Anne, who tag-teamed Abe while we were busy elsewhere.

We’re slowly getting reaccustomed to having a baby around, and to all of the the things that come with it.

With Sarah on leave now, we have plenty of time to just hang out and get used to having another member in the family.

We still need to keep Abe occupied, of course, and we’re doing our best.

We have a few weeks to get used to being a bigger family, and I suppose it’s Abe who has the most adjusting to do, but so far so good.

Josie has been taking it all in stride, sleeping when she needs to, eating when she needs to, and charming us all the while.  We didn’t know who was coming last Sunday morning, but we’re happy it was her.