After we got Julia all sugared up on Aunt Ursula's wonderful biscotti this afternoon, she took her first steps. In a rush of hyperactivity, as she stood at her Busy Zoo
she turned, threw both of her hands up into the air, let out a yell & took 2.5 steps towards the coffee table.
Unfortunately, we didn't have the video camera out at the time. However, we did spend the ensuing moments trying to get her to do it again. Although not nearly as dramatic as the first time around, here's what we were able to capture.
Our nanny, Karla, took this video of Julia monkeying around with her favorite monkey - Mikey 2 days before her first birthday. It's amazing that she made it to the big 1! The video is fuzzy because this was taken with the camera with the broken lens (broken by little miss monkey, herself, by dropping it on the tile floor at Nonna & Grampa's house).
Happy Happy Day! We had fantastic weather for a fun celebration for our no longer so little girl. Sniff! I can hardly call her a baby anymore. She's swiftly turning into a toddler. Fun was had by all, including little Charlie (11 mos.), Finn (8 mos.) and especially the birthday girl, Julia.
Pictures can be found here:
And here's some video for your viewing pleasure, as filmed by her super awesome Uncle Chris:
I thought I might have seen Julia wave goodbye to Alec this weekend - so he will get the official "first wave" - but I wasn't certain at the time because it was fairly subtle. But now I'm sure she's starting to wave bye-bye. As Karla was taking her out for an afternoon stroll, she told her to wave bye-bye & her little arm went up & down. We both got excited & told her to do it again & sure enough there was our little missy waving back at me. :)
Julia got an international postcard this week from Nonna & Grandpa in London. We're expecting to talk to Nonna & Grandpa later today & are very excited about that!
She's been super busy working on pulling herself up, so we got her a new toy to help her with that. You can see how excited she is - watch closely & at one point you can hear her make a breathless sound, which is what she does when she's most excited:
We're going to need to lower the crib mattress this week. I'm going to try to do that later today after she wakes from her early afternoon nap.
Finally, she had her 9 month checkup on Wednesday & passed, with flying colors - as we all knew she would. I was concerned that maybe I was feeding her too much solid food, but Doc said it's OK. She's an eating machine & I hope that her willingness to eat a large variety of foods sticks with her. She got a follow up vaccine shot for HepB & a blood test - which required a prick to her little finger. She took the shot & the prick in excellent fashion. However the blood collection was a bit tough as they had to squeeze her poor wee finger to get enough of a sample into the collection tube. It probably only went on for about a minute, but it seemed to take forever. :(
Here are her stats from her visit:
Weight: 20 lbs, 5 oz (75%ile) Length: 28.25 inches (75%ile) Head Circumference: 44 cm (50%ile) - they obviously don't measure cheek chubbiness or she'd break the scale!
Basically, what this tells us is that she's gotten a little longer & leaner over the last 3 months.
We tried out our new Beaba Baby Cook machine today. (Thank you, Nonna & Grampa) Julia's first foray into real food was a bowl of pureed carrots. She not only ate them but demanded more!
The last couple of weeks have been pretty tough. It started out with restless nights due to teething & went straight into Julia's first head cold. Luckily, the head cold, despite coming on fast and furious, left just as abruptly. Julia's still teething, but after being sick, it seems to have put things in perspective for her & the teething isn't bothering her nearly as much - for now....
After catching up on some much needed rest, I've finally gotten around to uploading a few more of Julia's latest pictures. They include last week's visit from Nonna and Grampa, cheering for the Jets with daddy during the play offs, wearing one of the outfits she got for Christmas & some pictures of her sleeping in the boppy pillow that I found to be especially cute. Enjoy!
So, if you're wondering why I've not written in a while... it's because Julia has been teething. She's been very fussy and not sleeping AT ALL. So, mommy's too tired to write! I think we're on the far side of it for now. Let's hope the lull lasts a while.