Julia is ONE

My dear, dear, sweet baby girl:

You are one year old today! You have changed and grown SO much in the last twelve months; it’s amazing. This time last year, your father and I were afraid to unswaddle you in the hospital because we didn’t want you to be cold. Now, we hang you upside down (you LOVE upsidedown-baby), swing you around, run around the backyard with you on our shoulders (well, that’s mostly Daddy – and when he stops, you wiggle to let him know you want him to keep moving), and watch in awe as you tear around our house on your own two feet!

I am so incredibly lucky and blessed to be your mother. When you play, you like me to be sitting on the floor next to you - preferably doing nothing else – and you periodically come over to me to sit in my lap and get a hug and a snuggle before running off to the next thing. Which I love – it gives me a chance to close my eyes and stop for a minute and think about how lucky we all are. Your dad works hard so I can stay home with you and get to watch how much you grow every day. Yesterday you started pointing out a doggie on a page of a book we were reading. Today, you pointed out three different doggies on three different pages AND a snake!

You’re walking and running all over the place. No crawling for you – it’s so much faster to just get up and walk! You can say, “Da!” when you’re looking for your dad. Sometimes you even say it when you’re looking for me or the doggie. When you see someone you like, you’ll often make the cutest little cooing nonsense noises. You call everything with wheels a “brmm brmm” and you know a lion goes “raaar!” and a doggie goes “oof oof!” You have twelve teeth – those front eight and your first four molars are cutting through right now (and still bothering you!). You’ll try almost any food at least once, although your favorites right now are french fries and salt & vinegar potato chips (fortunately, you also love things like fruits – especially pears right now, hot dogs, ham, and cheesy eggs). If you’re hungry or thirsty, you’ll go over to the cupboard where we keep your cups or the food, find what you want, and bring it to me to open or fill with water.

You seem to like to read with me; we read before your two naps and bedtime. You don’t really like me to read all the words and go through the book slowly; you prefer to turn the pages yourself and point to things right now. I also try to brush your teeth when we read, and you do not like that part one bit. I pretend to brush my teeth to show you how it’s done, and so then you decide that you would like to take the toothbrush and brush my teeth too. But never yours! You like to imitate things I do, like carry a purse or blow my nose (which is the most adorable thing ever), and then you also do some things that baffle me, like wearing headbands and crowns and hats – you love that! You also love to dance. Any time any music comes on, whether it’s a toy, a clock chiming, or a truck beeping as it backs up, you get a big grin and you start to bob and sway.

You have learned so much this past year, and done so much. Of course you have your days – you seem to get out of sorts when you’re going through a growth spurt – but you are cheerful, incredibly inquisitive, determined, a little bossy, smiley, and generally a joy to be around. You break into a big grin whenever you see me, Scrappy, your dad, or another relative (and sometimes a random stranger) and that smile just melts my heart. Your hugs when I get you up in the morning or from a nap are pretty much the best part of my day. And you’re so calm by bedtime; we walk around your room, and you rest your head on my shoulder, and you talk to me a little and I talk to you a little, and I can’t imagine my night any other way.

I can’t wait to see what you do this next year. I love you more than words can say, forever.

And I got a little picture-post-happy going through all these photos I have of you this past year:

Oct 2010

Oct 2010

Oct 2010

Oct 2010

Jan 2011 (after I got my new camera for Christmas!)

Jan 2011

Feb 2011

March 2011

March 2011

April 2011

May 2011

May 2011

June 2011

July 2011 (Right about now I have fewer and fewer photos of you - probably because I was chasing you around more and more!)

Aug 2011

Aug 2011

Sept 2011

Oct 2011 (How you look to me most of the time...)

Oct 2011

Julia's Birthday Party

We had Julia's birthday party this past Sunday. I drove myself about insane trying to plan for it. We don't have people over very often so I had some issues figuring out an appropriate level of preparedness for guests. (Like, are they going to be upset that the candles on the wall are red when the rest of the decorations are pink?! Must go find matching pink candles! What about that dent in the wall in the hallway - should we spackle and paint that before anyone gets here?! And what if a kid wants ketchup with his chicken nuggets? We have ketchup but other peoples' condiments freak me out so maybe it freaks out other people too and maybe I need to go buy individual ketchup packets in case someone wants one! Ahhh! And that's how you end up with a shopping list of pink candles, spackle, and ketchup packets.)

Anyways. I put up some decorations (not gonna lie - the ones that haven't fallen down on their own are still up), made chili and some child-appropriate food, and sent Robert running all over town for cupcakes. Everyone seemed to at least not hate the party, and no one mentioned the dent in the wall or the candles or anything else I was obsessing over, so I'm calling it a success!

Here are the few photos that were taken of the event, for all those who couldn't make it:

My favorite part of the decorations - our front door.

The party room.

The party girl.

Doesn't this just melt your heart? Daddy singing Happy Birthday to J.

"No no no don't touch the candle!"

Skeptical.

Trying it out a little.

There we go!

Just a few randoms...

Random facts about Julia right now:

• She loves pressing buttons. She loves putting our garage door up and down, and pressing elevator buttons. It makes me smile for now but I know we're in for like, ten more years of "Mommy let me press it let me press it!"
• We read together three times a day - before her two naps and before bedtime. She doesn't let me actually read, but she turns the pages very authoritatively and lifts flaps and sticks her fingers through the holes that the Very Hungry Caterpillar made in his three plums and four strawberries. She sits in my lap so calmly while we do this. It's such a lovely routine.
• She's still teething. That stray bottom incisor is in, and both her top two molars have come through a little, although not all the way (they're bigger than I thought they'd be!). I'm ready to sleep a whole night through.
• We're also weaning. This makes me sad but I seem to be losing my milk supply and she seems to be losing interest. We're still going strong on the first morning feeding but that's it. We're upping her whole milk and dropping a little bit of formula. It's going smoothly so far, after a few freak-outs on my end because I don't know what I'm doing or how to go about this process. 
• She got her very first pair of "real" shoes! They're adorable. Her favorite part was the Nordstrom balloon she got with them.
• She's putting things into things. I know that sounds lame, but it's so cool to see her trying to put things together instead of just destroydestroydestroy. Her attention span isn't great though, so mostly she just picks things up and puts them down elsewhere in our house. We have so. much. stuff. on the floor everywhere all the time now.
• She loves making noises. She likes the lion - "Raarrr," things that move or steer - "Brmm brmm," and doggies - "Oof oof!" She also yells, "DA!" when she's in a room with me, and looks over to the doorway, presumably hoping that R will come over. She yells "DA!" at the dog too though, so maybe it's all the same to her. 

And some random photos to go with the random facts:

Reading on her chair. This chair is a total hit with her!

Hangin' out in the backyard.

"Please Scrappy I would like to play with that too."

Caught this one at just the right moment! "No don't eat the stick!"

Mrs. Potato-Head eyes. She's totally got that concept.

Anything cuter than a baby in pajamas and Uggs?

A preview of photos to come... We did a photoshoot this weekend, and this is the one pic I was able to snap before this sticky mess crawled out of the picture.

And for me, today. A hot cup of tea and a thunderstorm.

Book Reviews!

So, when I'm not taking care of a baby or trying to remodel our house (more updates on that coming!), I spend my ten minutes of free time a day reading.

(I used to veg out in front of the tv, but I've run out of Grey's Anatomy reruns and Dance Moms just freaks me out too much... Plus I read an article talking about how your children should see YOU read to get the idea that it's a fun leisure activity. Since J is starting to imitate me right and left now, I thought maybe it had a point...)

So I figured I'd do a monthly-or-so round-up of the books I've read and which ones I'd recommend. They're all over the place, so maybe something will appeal to someone out there!


Toddler 411
  by Drs. Denise Fields and Ari Brown

Lots of people seem to love this. I think it's alright. It has a great reference for medicines, vaccines, illnesses, and the more medical-themed stuff. As far as parenting advice, don't take it as gospel. For example, I do NOT plan to switch Julia from formula in a bottle to whole milk in a cup, cold turkey, on her first birthday. But, they do a nice job of discussing different discipline styles, milestones, sleep advice theories, and the like, with some references for further reading. A quick read and a nice reference, just take it with a grain of salt.

The Eichmann Trial
  by Deborah Lipstadt

Loved this. It discusses the trial of Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi official who was found in Argentina several decades after the Nuremberg Trials. The recently-established nation of Israel kidnapped him and put him on trial. The jurisdictional issues were fascinating, although the book seemed to lose steam as it went on. The last third of the book was spent discussing another journalist's coverage and impression of the trial, and for the life of me I couldn't figure out what Lipstadt was trying to accomplish by that. So, read the first two thirds and when you start to wonder, "Why are we talking about this other chick?" go ahead and put it down. (I'm probably just not tuned into Jewish media issues - if you are, then finish it out!)

The Handmaid's Tale
  by Margaret Atwood

A classic. Read this for book club and really liked it. I had read it in high school and a lot of it went over my head. The re-read was great though, since I was already familiar with the plot, so I could spend my attention with the details and the writing itself. I really disliked the afterward, but it was again, a fast read, and makes me want to pick up another one of her books.

Somebody's Daughter
  by Julian Sher

This book hit hard. It's about domestic sex trafficking, particularly of minors. It has an incredibly powerful message and is written very well. It centers around three different stories of three girls who have been prostituted, and uses those three stories to discuss the difficulties in catching and prosecuting pimps, the abhorrent prevalence of underage prostitution, and the almost hopeless plight of the girls who fall victims to the system. I had always thought, "Oh sure that happens in LA and NY and Chicago, but not here, in the Midwest, or anywhere where I've ever been." And one of the main girls discussed in the book was from North Dallas. Her pimp was living in Richardson, which is one town away from where I grew up and a very similar community. It's disgusting and terrifying and heart-breaking. And this book is definitely worth a read.

Beloved
  by Toni Morrison

Geez, I've been all sorts of depressing lately huh? This one is about a woman who escapes slavery only to kill her infant daughter - to prevent her from living a life of slavery - when she believes she's about to be recaptured. Her infant daughter haunts the family and comes back in the form of a lost teenager to haunt the family in more human form. It was depressing. It also made me wish we had more first-hand accounts of slavery. The descriptions of how slaves dealt emotionally with the constant dehumanizing conditions didn't really seem to ring true to me. As Holocaust books written by those who never actually lived it seem hollow compared to books written by survivors, this also had a hollow feel. Anyways. I wouldn't not recommend it, but I'm not going to be sending anyone out to the bookstore to read this one anytime soon.

~~~

Okay well I guess I just read a slew of dark, heavy books recently. I usually try to put some lighter ones in there but I guess I need to work on that a little more! The next installment of Book Reviews will be happier, I promise!

Pumpkin patch Sunday!

So, today, we (and about 8000 other people) took advantage of our crazy-unseasonal weather and went out to a pumpkin patch! Totally not anything R and I would have done before Julia, but now that we have a baby, it seemed like a wholesome, family good time. We got pumpkins for the whole family, and even though we didn't have enough time there since we were working around J's nap schedule, I'm still glad we made it out. (I feel like I'm jinxing myself by saying this, but I cannot WAIT until she drops her morning nap. It's practically impossible to do anything that's further than ten minutes away from our house because she's almost constantly napping or about ready to nap.)

And, our other good news - J cut two teeth today! She's been teething like mad, and I think she has five total coming in right now (and four of those are molars), complete with runny nose and diaper rash. But that late front incisor and a top molar broke through today - hooray! Still have a ways to go, but it's progress!

"What is this place, Father?"

"Totally not sold yet."

"OMG pumpkins?!"

"I must investigate further."

"I'm off!"

"A pumpkin wagon?!"

"A pumpkin IN my pumpkin wagon?"

"Pumpkins schmumkins, the tractor is the best!"

"Brmm brmm"

"See Dad? This is how it's done."

"Brmm brmm!"

"BRMM BRMM BRMMMMM!"

"Wait. I was on a tractor and now I'm on the pumpkin wagon with a bunch of pumpkins and a gourd?"

"Mommy, Daddy, Baby, Scrappy."

"Scrappy's my buddy, even in symbolic form."

"But why is Baby's pumpkin so small?!"

"Alright guys, I'm done."

"And not impressed by the rest of the festivities. I may even still be going, 'Brmm brmm.'"

"That's right. Ready to go. In style. Gucci girl. That's me."

Also, for those who are interested, I think this is the cutest video of Julia yet. Ignore my way overly enthusiastic egging on in the beginning, please. :P