"Is grandma Joseph's grandma, too, or is she his great-grandma?" asked Ernest Vail the other day, and it set me thinking of how much of an "extra" generation our little newcomer seems to be. We lived our own childhood and forgot it; went along through high school and college days, clear into Plain and higher mathematics; then we married and jumped right back to Mother Goose. We lived childhood again with our three little ones who were so close together, up to grammar school days, and then just when Mother Goose and all it implies were fading from memory, along came Joseph Sidney, and we traverse the path again. It is almost like being a grandmother and a mother all at once. They say grandparents enjoy babies more than the parents do -- and that makes me seem all the more like a grandmother; for this baby is unadulterated joy.
Joseph Sidney (such a massive name for such a bit of sweetness!) is growing and thriving just as all well babies do. He gains four ounces a week -- not as much as the older boys did, but still all that could be expected during hot weather. He has been promoted to a four-hour schedule (6, 10, 2, 6, 10) and that gives his mother a little more freedom, while he grows just as fast. He has cereal at 10 in the morning, and occasionally a supplementary feeding of modified cow's milk at six in the evening. In another week he will begin to take strained vegetables. He likes being on the floor where he can toss and turn as he pleases. He laughs out loud and talks a musical but unintelligible language while he plays. He can reach out and grasp a rattle, and is especially fond of dangling a string of red and green crokinole rings which the boys strung on a stout string for him. Marie Ruth has bathed him three times and often prepared his cereal. She especially enjoys dressing him in his finest togs when he is going out in society. Jo is friendly with every one but seems a bit partial to his daddy, whom he bats in the face with soft little wandering fists to show his affection. --Hope