Dear Josie,

Yesterday, you turned 23 months old.

You are rapidly leaving babyhood and entering toddlerhood, although the transition isn’t complete yet.

You are ferociously independent, wanting to put on your own diapers, wash your own hands, carry your own cup/plate/lunch bag/toys/book. Your routines must be followed to the last mote of dust. You want to do absolutely everything you see your brother doing, especially if the thing is naughty or loud or involves an injury.

Except when you want to “me-me up!” (Your request to be picked up and carried.) Or when you want us to carry something for you. (“You do it!”)

At school, our drop-off routine goes like this. And by “like this,” I mean EXACTLY like this:

I carry you up the stairs to the main door to the toddler class area. Then I put you down on the landing and open the door. You walk through, holding your lunch bag. You walk to the classroom door while I sign you in for the day.

You enter the classroom and I say, “Josie, let’s put your lunch away.” Then I open the refrigerator door. If your teacher or one of your classmates opens the door, you have a total fit, start to cry, and sob, “Mommy do it! Mommy do it!” When the door has been opened to your satisfaction, you stand in front of the shelves and put your lunch near one of the bottom 2 shelves. I lean in and help make space so that you can push your lunch in the rest of the way. Then we step away and you close the refrigerator.

Next, you take a step or two towards the fun area of your classroom, where the books and dollhouse are. I say, “Josie, can I have my hug and my kiss and my push?” You turn around and grin at me, then we have a hug (which I narrate), each of us gives the other a kiss on the cheek (also narrated), and I stand up. “Now can you push me out the door, Josie?” You give me a gentle push in the direction of the door and hurry off towards the books.

When other parents are dropping children off at the same time, you get very upset. For the last 2 weeks, Olivia has taken part in the routine by announcing, as we put your lunch away, that she saw us at swimming lessons, and asking whose swimming class you are in. (Yes, every day for the last 2 weeks.)

Your hair is becoming so beautiful — I think you may have Nellie Oleson curls. Your teeth are finally growing in so that you look capable of chewing. Your canine teeth still haven’t erupted, but I think you have all the rest that might be expected. You are tall and solid, with many 2T dresses fitting you more like shirts.

And you are charmingly articulate, announcing things like, “Mommy, I spilled something!” or “I don’t like that!” When I respond, “Did you spill your milk, Josie?” you say very seriously, “Yes, Mommy.” You accurately understand most of the world around you, although you do have a few adorable malapropisms, like asking for mayonnaise when you want a bandaid, and misidentifying large trucks as choo-choo trains.

Your obsession with the Star Wars universe continues unabated. In particular, you love the movie, “The Empire Strikes Back.” You and Noah both break out in Darth Vader’s theme or the main movie music almost every day, and your habit of spotting Luke Skywalker around town has not let up.

You also love to read, draw, sing, and count. I’m not sure you understand counting, and for some reason, you always skip the number 3, but you frequently burst out, “one, two, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten!” You particularly enjoy having your toes counted. Besides toes, I think belly buttons are your favorite body part. You like to tickle your own and others, show yours off, and request to see other people’s belly buttons.

Our move has been hard on you. Last night, you asked to go back to “Mommy’s house,” and you don’t have much love for our new bedtime routine — the one that no longer gives you an hour of mommy time after Noah goes to bed. Now, the two of you share a room and a bedtime routine.

I love you, beautiful girl. And I look forward to your birthday next month.

We move tomorrow! We move tomorrow!

We are so ready to be homeowners again. This apartment, while the right short term choice, doesn’t work well for our family. And it has some plumbing and electrical quirks that we will not miss at all, not in the slightest, teeniest bit.

Nor will we miss duplex living. Our original neighbors were very, very quiet. In fact, we heard them more when they were out of town, because the relative who dogsat for them was not as good at keeping the dog from barking, and he liked the tv louder than they did. Their replacements are also very nice, and pretty quiet, but we hear them and their dog anyway.

I do not promise to have no complaints about the new house, and I promise to continue venting about the challenges of getting the jungle under control. But I could not possibly be more excited to get into a home of our own again. No one tramping around above us! No one we have to call to get them to call the plumber! Paint colors of our own choosing! No more rug underneath the table where we eat!

(And indeed, that rug will be thrown in the trash. I never liked it, and now it has 1.5 years of Noah’s and Josie’s un-vacuum-upable food particles ground into it. But the chairs and table have presumably done no damage to the delicate hardwood floor below.)

Josie’s last scream of waking up in this house. (She spends tonight at Grandma & Grandpa’s.) Must go.

I was not going to go to BlogHer this year.

Not because I lack love for BlogHer — I love it, I’ve had a blast every time I’ve gone, I’ve made or improved friendships, learned new things, tried new things, and generally wished that it would go on about 3 more days.

No, this year, I wasn’t going to go because it wasn’t really in the budget, and it also falls the weekend before Jill’s birthday.

Then the wonderful BlogHers asked me to speak at BlogHer Business 10. And that does change things. My co-panelists and I had a great discussion today, and I am confident that the presentation will be lively, informative, and fun.

Now that I’m going, I’m getting SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO excited. More friends, more learning, more new blogs, more fun in NYC, more time to spend with awesome blogospheric friends.

In a wonderful moment of the universe aligning, that weekend will also be my infant niece Hailey’s Simchat Bat. BlogHers and public speaking AND family celebrations! And being without my own small children waking me up at 5 am. I couldn’t be more excited.

(I just wish I weren’t also trying to pack, move, and unpack between now and then. Then being in 2 weeks.)

I have a theory about Josie’s future boyfriends.

First, I have a theory that there will be future boyfriends. But more interestingly, I have a theory that they will be tall, shaggy, and fair-haired. Probably also strong, possibly in a gymnast/yoga kind of way.

Josie can spot “Luke Skywalker” anywhere he happens to appear. This makes her gleefully happy.

(Picture, if you can, the scenes where Yoda is teaching Luke to be a Jedi. Especially the scene where Luke is “up down! up down!” using The Force to hold Yoda, R2D2, and a bunch of rocks balanced up in the air. Mark Hamill’s arms look particularly fetching in that scene, plus he maintains a handstand for quite a while. This is Josie’s favorite part of the movie.)

“Luke’s” first appearance outside of our television screen was in a waiter’s uniform at the Lakefront Brewery, where she was also awed by her first exposure to a bubble machine. (And not just any bubble machine, but one that began life blowing bubbles on the Lawrence Welk Show.)

Yesterday, he showed up at the neighborhood barbecue. And since he was just hanging out, not working, he was able to enjoy and be flattered by the attention. Also, apparently Josie was not the first very young girl to find this particular Luke Skywalker, aka Jason, a worthy playmate.

He even walked back to his house and returned with an enormous purple rubber ball. Which he rolled back and forth with Josie for at least 15 minutes, to her giddy delight. (Although while he was gone, she got to worriedly ask her favorite questions, “Where Luke go? Luke be right back?”)

Noah, of course, cynically announces that Josie has not seen the Real Luke Skywalker. This also seems likely to be a portent of the treatment of future crushes and boyfriends. This does not seem to bother Josie in the least — which I hope you will all join me in hoping also bodes well for the future.

Speaking of the future, I think Luke’s Biggest Fan just woke up.

I may have mentioned that our new house came with a jungle. Two, if you count the front and back yards separately.

Yesterday, while waiting for the electrician to come and update the house to 3-prong outlets and rescue us from scary webs of extension cords strung across the basement, I started work on the front yard.

I’d cleared roughly 5 square feet — and probably close to 25 cubic feet of thistles and miscellaneous members of the dandelion family when Something Happened.

I’m still not sure exactly what it was.

I just know that suddenly, where there had been 2 or 3 bees buzzing with some vague interest in what I was doing, there were 2 or 3 dozen bees, annoyed with what I was doing.

Dropping the weeds in hand did not satisfy them.

Shaking my hair kept them out of my face, but did not make them go away.

Within about 10 seconds, I’d conceded the territory and run away to the grassy part of the yard.

The bee defense teem followed, although the bulk of the bee force stayed on guard where I’d been encroaching.

The bee defense team continued buzzing, trying to get in to my face and upper body to make sure I’d learned my lesson, but fortunately, I had more room to shake my hair like a troll doll, so they couldn’t get in for a sting.

Eventually they considered me suitably vanquished and returned to the home defense.

I decided that perhaps I’d done enough yard work for the morning. For the first time in a week, I didn’t even pick raspberries from the backyard jungle.

Josie had a good time for about 3/4 of the Star Wars in Concert show on Saturday, although the program ran a little long for the almost-2 attention span. Even with lasers and rapidly-edited movie montages.

She especially liked seeing “Cu-ba.”

Noah also liked it, but he and This Mommy stayed for the whole show, so I have no pictures of him admiring the costumes and other Star Wars paraphernalia.

Because we are frugal mommies these days, Josie and Noah both got “souvenirs” purchased surreptitiously in advance, from our local comic geek store. Unboxed action figures are $5. Both kids got a storm trooper, which Josie found soothing on the gums (she sprouted 9 new teeth last week, and I can feel #10 trying hard). Noah also got Darth Vader and Josie also got a Yoda.

By contrast, the mini-light sabers (pen sized) sold at the show were $15 each. And the came on a neck lanyard suitable for Noah’s current most annoying habit, whipping things around in circles. He isn’t trying to hit people, usually, but I’ve been hit 3x by whipped clothing or other whippable objects. At least action figures are not clearly disposed towards whipping.

See those dark circles? The ones under my eyes? They are likely to get worse before they get better, given everything still on the list to sort out between now and when I leave for BlogHer and BlogHer Business FOUR WEEKS from yesterday. That’s in 27 days, for those of you counting.

Professional Items:

• Finish article with Dr. Sandra Braman, on the privacy issues that came up, both explicitly and implicitly, in the first decade of the Internet’s formal architectural development. (By analyzing the RFCs, for those of you to whom that means anything.)
• Prepare for my panel at BlogHer Business.

Personal Items:

• Hire movers
• Pack everything we’ve been using during the last 1.5 years
• Supervise the painting of almost the whole interior of the new house (started)
• Supervise installation of the new roof (should start next week; the shingles we picked were out of stock)
• Hire electrician to upgrade the 2 prong outlets all over the house and some other things
• Keep trying to get the yard under control and not a scary place where neighbors might lose dogs or small children; also maintain aggressive raspberry eating schedule (underway; harvest appears to be peaking this week)
• Pick up new-to-us kitchen table (today)
• Find and arrange for installation of window treatments for all windows
• Arrange for installation of dishwasher
• Look into insulation for 2nd floor & water pipes
• Acquire new, larger, dresser
• Acquire 2nd TV for basement
• Actually move
• Unpack enough so that everyone is functional before I leave
• Make sure rental unit is clean and empty

Um. I think I should get off the computer.