Thursday, May 29, 2008

My new maid

I must say, my new maid is pretty darn cute!!




She get such a thrill out of us letting her "sweep" the floors. Maybe in a few years, she can take over some of the housecleaning chores!! LOL

Deodorant attachment

For some weird reason Julia loves to carry around Jerrod's deodorant. I figured it must be because it smells like her daddy.

Every time I bring her into our bedroom when I get ready, she immediately runs into the bathroom, grabs Jerrod's deodorant off the counter and carries it around the whole time. She will also take the cap off and on several times. I don't get what the attachment is all about. Seems a little weird to me, but it could be worse, so I try not to complain.

The only problem is that occasionally Julia will not put it back on the counter where it belongs, but in a drawer or even the trash can. So Jerrod cannot find it when he needs to use it!!

Daddy giving medicine

I think Jerrod is convinced that he is going to overdose Julia with medicine!

Jerrod has very rarely had give Julia any sort of medicine. So when he had to watch her for a few hours last night and needed to give her some Motrin for the teething pain, he was clueless.

Of course he called me and I tried to walk him through it. It does not help matters that we just switched from Infant's Motrin to Children's Motrin and he had never given her the new stuff before. So I walk him through where the medicine dropper is, where the medicine is, how full to full the dropper, etc.. He did not believe me on how full to fill the dropper, either that, or he thought the dropper was wrong.

So he ended up finding the little medicine cup that came with the Motrin and filling it up to the correct line and then using the dropper to suck up the medicine from there. Whatever! As long as he got it in her.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Hats

Julia LOVES hats!!

I have forced Julia to wear a hat from the minute she was born. She NEVER left the house without a hat on her head. She fought me on them for a LONG time, always trying to get them off. But I think she has finally grown to accept them and actually come to love them.

Now she plays with her hats all the time. Daycare told me the other day that they have some play hats there and that Julia will take them one by one, and put them on and look at herself in the mirror. They think it is funny that she has an obssession with hats.

When she is ready to go anywhere, she will find her hat and put it on. She even wears then around the house while she is playing. She will actually get mad if you forget to get her hat when we get ready to go somewhere.

Here are a few of her hats:





17 Months old

I just realized that Julia is 17 months old today! Where has my little baby gone?!?

Where's your nose?

Julia knows where hers is!!

Occasionally I will play the "where is..." game with Julia while I am changing her. I ask her where her nose is, ears are, mouth is, etc... I then touch each one so she knows to associate the term with the body part. I was not sure how much Julia was actually paying attention to, but it was a fun game none the less.

Then this morning I asked her "Where's your nose?" and she immediately pointed right to her nose!!! Apparently she was paying attention after all! I asked for her ears, eyes and mouth, but alas, she has not figured those out yet. All in due time I guess. Then right before I picked her up off the changing table, I asked again "Where is your nose?". Both of her hands immediately grabbed her nose.

She is getting so grown up and smart!

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Love of coffee....

Several months ago we realized that Julia liked coffee. I think she picked up a coffee cup that had a few drops of coffee left in it and that is how it all began. We started letting her have little sips of our coffee after it had cooled off to lukewarm. She quickly learned that the beeping coffee maker meant that the coffee was ready. She would no longer wait until our coffee cooled off and would beg, climb, whine, cry, whatever it took to get coffee.

We finally decided that while it is not the best drink of choice, a little coffee is not going to hurt Julia any. My biggest concern was the caffeine. But we finally gave in... Now when we have coffee at home on the weekends, Julia gets some coffee of her very own in her sippy cup. I fill the sippy cup 1/4 of the way with coffee, add some cream and sugar (the only way she likes it, just like mommy), and add about another 1/4 of cold water. This way it is watered down and she does not get as much caffeine, and the cold water cools it off to where she does not have to wait for it. She gets the biggest smile on her face when you finally hand her the sippy cup of coffee. She is so happy and I think she secretly thinks that she is a big person now.

Then this morning I saw what Julia was going to become in about 3-4 years. I had stopped on my way to work (after dropping Julia off at daycare) for gas and coffee. I was getting my coffee when a mother and a little boy, probably about 5, came in. The mother got a cup of coffee and the little boy also got a cup and wanted his mother to fill it up. The mother said to the boy "Not today. Remember, you can only get coffee on the days you don't go to school."!!!!! I am going to assume that the boy was probably in kindergarten (which is part-time here), or maybe late pre-school. I had to hold back the laughter since I can TOTALLY see Julia doing that in 3-4 years!! I had to call up Jerrod to tell him what I just saw. He laughed and agreed, that will be Julia in a few years!!

Teething hell....

Julia normally does fairly well with teething. She whines about them, but usually as long I keep her dosed up on Mortin, she is great! Well, not this time. Maybe it is because the molars hurt more coming through. But I really think it is because the Motrin is not strong enough. I am still giving her the Infant's Mortin, even though it only goes up to 22 pounds and Julia is almost 25 pounds. I just don't think it is strong enough to take away the pain. I used the last of it up this morning, so will buy the Children's Mortin when I go to the store for more today. Hopefully that will give her more relief.

She is just so whiney with these. She tries to stuff her whole hand in her mouth. I feel so bad for her. She wants held, but doesn't want held at the same time. She will be playing fine and then just start crying in pain. She is getting up in the middle of the night because of the pain. Nothing seems to make it all better.

Then yesterday I saw she playing with her right ear. I REALLY hope the teething has not caused another ear infection.

The one good thing about all the molars coming in at once is that all of this getting done in one shot and we will not have to go through this individually for each tooth. It should be done and over with a lot faster this way.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Ahhhh, the pillow!

At about a year old we noticed that Julia really liked to lay on pillows. We finally decided it was time for her to have her very own pillow in her crib shortly after that. Debbie was kind enough to make one just for Julia!

Julia LOVES it. Most nights she tried to sleep with as much of her body on it as possible. I have been trying to get a picture of this for some time now, but have only had marginal success.

One night last week I saw her all curled up on her pillow and ran to get the camera. By the time I got back, she had changed positions and was sleeping like this (see all the slobber stains on it?):



Another night last week, I found her like this:



I would say, that her pillow and her Blankie are her two best friends at bedtime!

Daycare must be FUN!

I am going to take this as a sign that Julia loves her daycare.

Most mornings she still clings to me and cries when I drop her off at daycare. It just breaks my heart. The care-givers are pretty good about distracting her, but it still tears at my heart. In the past, when I go to pick her up, she usually comes running with open arms. But in the past several weeks, when I get there to pick her up, she no longer comes running. She will actually run in the OTHER direction!! She starts to show off and tries to play with everything one last time. I actually have to run after her and go get her. She will then blow everyone kisses and wave "bye" to everyone on her way out.

I am going to take that as a sign that she really likes the daycare, despite the fact that she cries when dropped off.

EWWWWWWW!

Julia is a little neat nick. She likes to scrub the floor with a wet wipe, like to wash herself with a wet wipe, will wash us with a wet wipe, pretend to be washing her hair all the time, etc..

Sunday morning Jerrod and I were sitting on the couch drinking coffee and trying to wake up. Julia goes into the bathroom and brings me her shampoo container. I pretend to squeeze some on her hand and she pretend to wash her hair. I pretend to squeeze some on my hand and pretend to wash my hair. Great fun and giggles ensue. Julia grabs the shampoo bottle and toddles back off to the bathroom. I think nothing of it. But then hear the lid to the toilet banging! Ack! I run into the bathroom and what do I find?!?!?

Get this......

Julia is dipping her Blankie into the toilet and washing her face with it!!! ACK!! EWWWWWW! YUCK!!! I guess she was tired of pretending to get a bath and wanted a real one, so she took matters in her own hands.

I know to her water is water. It does not matter where it comes from. But eww! I will be SOOO glad when her fascination with the toilet is over!

P.S. We try to keep the bathroom door closed, but we don't have an exhaust fan in there so we need to leave the door open after our showers to air out the bathroom and get rid of all the humidity in there. So the bathroom door was still open from the night before. I think I am going to talk to my father-in-law and see what it would take to get an exhaust fan put in.

Going PUBLIC!

Okay, so I am now going public.....

Ever since I got pregnant with Julia, I have been keeping a private online journal (actually a little before that). It has been wonderful to capture all those day-to-day things that happen that you soon forget. It has been better than ANY baby book could ever be. I post the good, the bad, and the ugly in my journal. I want to be able to capture it all. I loved the online format since I could take 5 minutes while at work, right before bed, while feeding Julia, or whenever and write a quick entry.

At Julia's first birthday, I went back and read all the old entries and that is when I truly appreciated that I had created the journal. There were so many things I had already forgotten and it showed just how far we had come.

I would occasionally read Jerrod some of the entries. Last week after reading him one of my entries, Jerrod suggested that I make it public, so he could read it at anytime and would not have to wait for me to log into it. We also both agreed that our families would love to be able to read these entries too.

Unfortunately, my current journal does not have the option of making it have public access. So I decided to create a blog here! Hope you enjoy the crazy that is our life!

P.S. I apologize to Debbie (my mother-in-law), in advance for all the spelling/grammar mistakes I make. :P