Recent Owies

Julia has had two recent big owies.

One day last week, Julia was running around in just her diaper, per normal. I was getting her cereal ready and she was in the kitchen with me. I started carrying it to the highchair and she started whining. I figures she was whining because I was carrying the food away. But she shortly followed me out of the kitchen and then I notice she is making bloody footprints. She somehow cut her heal and it was bleeding pretty good. We cleaned it up, put a band-aid on it and she was good as new. She did not even whine/cry too much. She did, however, walk on her tip-toes for the rest of the day. Still not sure how she cut her heal. I searched the kitchen floor for anything sharp. It could be possible that she was wrestling with Gavin and he got too worked up and got a claw into her. BUT I had just seen him on the table, and Julia was only out of my sight for about 2 seconds. Jerrod did break a bowl a day or two before, so maybe we missed a shard when sweeping it up. Who knows! Julia did think it was neat that she got a band-aid!

Then on Monday night I was trying to get Julia's pj's on. She was being her silly self and not cooperating. I turned one away, she turned the other way to reach for something. Her hand slipped and she fell right off the changing table onto her face/head. I just could not catch her in time. Since there is hardwood floors in her room and not carpet, I was a little worried about a concussion and thought about taking her to the hospital to be checked out. I just kept a close eye on her all night and watched for any vomiting or any other signs of issues. She was just fine, except for the slight black eye she now has. The next morning, Julia said that Elmo went boom on his eye too, just like her! (She has a little Elmo doll she carries around.) I think it did scare her pretty good though, because now she is extra careful and still when on the changing table.


Of course, I was wanting to get her 2 yr. pictures taken this week, but I think I will now hold off a week of two and let the black eye go away some.

Two year checkup

Julia had her 2 yr check-up yesterday morning.

The pedi was very pleased with Julia. Although Julia was not pleased to see her. Julia DEFINITELY does not like the dr.'s office. As soon as we headed to the exam room she started saying "I don't like it" and did not want to go in. With every measurement the nurse made and the exam the pedi did, Julia kept saying "I don't like it".

Julia weighed 30 pounds and was 35 inches. She is in the 80 to 90 percentile in everything. She is just a big girl. She gets that from my family! Jerrod is excited because Julia is almost big enough to actually face forward in her carseat now. Rear-facing is the safest postion for a kid, so I found a carseat designed to rear-face until about 33 pounds.

Luckily only one shot yesterday. I am still deciding if I want her to get a flu vaccination. They have the nasal mist kind at my pedi's so it would not be another shot. I think with going to daycare it might be a good idea. Still deciding though.

I also talked to the pedi about Julia's extreme fears and shyness. Granted she is doing MUCH better than she was, it still concerns me some. The pedi basically said to just keep exposing her to stuff to help her come out of her shell. She suggested signing Julia up for dance classes, this way she will have to be on stage in front of other people. Julia already goes to swimming classes, but maybe a dance class would help better. I have to wonder if a music class would work just as well. The pedi also suggested lots of playdates where she learns to share. I think she probably gets enough of this at daycare. Besides, we really don't have any friends with kids close to her age (or kids at all). Julia does have cousins to play with, but we don't see them all that often.

We will just keep working with her.

Fun birthday!

Julia had a fun 2nd birthday!

She refused to nap (just sat in her crib and read to herself), so I was worried that she was going to be grumpy. She almost fell asleep at the table eating supper!! But after the cake and ice cream she got a sugar rush and ran around like a fool again.


Here is the cake I made her. ELMO!!


Opening presents.





Her and grandma checking out the new Elmo DVD she got!


Playing with playdouh.


Ready for cake!


The ice cream is GREAT!! (She licked the frosting off and ate the ice cream, but left the rest of the cake.)

Happy Birthday Julia!!

*I have this post set to automatically set post at the exact time Julia was born.*

I cannot believe my baby is TWO!! I remember the hell of colic that the first year was. Now look at you! All grown up!

This past year has been so much fun. I love to just watch you and laugh. You do some of the silliest things. You are also so smart. I cannot believe some of the things you know, say and do. You are such a joy to be around. You can be a tornado that destroys the house in seconds, you can also frustrate me, but I love it all!! I am so lucky to be your mommy!!

Here is your very first picture. You were only minutes old. It is a poor quality picture because it was taken on a cellphone. This is how we announced your arrival.


Daddy was smitten from first sight too!


One day old.


Look at her now!!!

Christmas

We finally had the last of our Christmas parties today. And tomorrow we have Julia's birthday party!!!

This is going to be picture heavy, but it shows Julia's Christmas.

She we giving some loving to my Grandma, Julia's Great-Grandma. Something she RARELY does, so Grandma was loving it.


Sitting with Grandma and Grandpa (my parent's).


All the presents and all Julia wanted was to be read too!!


Sitting with her aunt Stacey (my sister). Julia was really in a loving mood!


Christmas morning.... "Is that an Elmo I see?"!!!


"It is!!! ELMO!!!!!!"


One of the many other toys she got. These are actually letters that stick on the bathtub when wet.


In her pretty Christmas dress with Great-Grandma (Jerrod's grandma), having her read the Icky Bug book!


Being silly.


Probably one of her favorite presents. A BOOK!!


She and Mike (Jerrod's uncle) sat in this window reading the book for a LONG time! Julia loves Mike!

Rocking to Guitar Hero

Jerrod likes to play Guitar Hero. He even got another Guitar Hero game for Christmas. We bought Julia her very own toy guitar. She puts it on and rocks out with daddy!!

Two years ago tonight....

....This was what I was doing!



It is a really bad picture, but Jerrod took it with his cell phone because I forbid him from taking pictures of me while in labor. Yep, I was in the middle of a contraction here!

I cannot believe my baby is going to be 2 tomorrow!!! Where did my little colicky baby go?

Santa, WHAT!!

Santa came to my Grandma's Christmas party today to hand out gifts to all the little kids. I did not think Julia would deal well with him, but Mrs. Claus did come to daycare this week, so I was hopeful.

When Santa first got there and sat down, I stood in the back of the room and was showing Julia him and talking about him to her. I thought she was doing okay with it until she said "I don't like it".

I did attempt to get her at least close to Santa when it came time for her present, this is the result!

If she came on time....

Two years ago today was my due date with Julia. If she would have come on time, today would have been her birthday. But my due date went by without even a slight twitch of a contraction. She eventually was forced out 8 days later!

No clothes!

Julia is so much like her Daddy. When Jerrod was little, they could never keep clothes on him. Even now, he strips down to his boxers as soon as he walks in the door from work (which I am sure will completely embarrass Julia someday and will upset Jerrod knowing I just told the entire web this). Julia is following right in his shoes....

For the last several weeks she will start taking her clothes off shortly after we get home in the evenings. (just like daddy does) Her shirt is first and her pants soon follow. MOST times we can get her to keep her diaper on.

After she strips down, she will pat her bare belly and say "I naked, Julia naked". She is so proud of the fact that she is naked!

A closet full of pretty clothes, but Julia would much rather just run around in a diaper, or completely naked! We have a little streaker running through our house many nights......

Traumatizing Christmas for Julia

We finally bought our Christmas tree on Saturday.

Of course, Julia has to be in the thick of things as Jerrod is trying to carry it in the house. I am trying to hold the door open for him while telling her to get back. Poor girl just was not far enough away, because as Jerrod was carrying the tree in, the netting he was carrying it by broke and the tree fell right on Julia!! Fortunately, Jerrod still had a hold of the trunk of the tree, so the full weight of the tree did not fall on her.

We finally get the tree off of her and find her covered in pine needles and scared. She kept pointing to her head and saying "Tree boomed my head!". She was scared, but otherwise unhurt. A quick hug from mommy made it all better.

5 minutes later she was pointing to her head saying "Again, daddy, again!"!!! She wanted Jerrod to drop it on her head again! She thought it was neat! Silly girl. I thought she might be traumatized by the whole thing and be scared of the tree. Guess not!

This might become my new favorite Christmas memory!

Carrying the kitties..

Julia loves the kitties. Recently she has decided that she needs to actually carry the kitties around!

Unfortunately for Julia, all but one of our cats are a bit overweight, so they are just too heavy for her. But not Pepe..... Poor Pepe, she was such a great cat to put up with this considering she does not like Julia.

Stressful drive home

I had a meeting in Columbus today. It was starting to ice and freezing rain by the time I left for home. It was a very stressful drive home. I saw 3 accidents happen right in front of me. Passed countless other accidents and cars slid off into the ditch. It was very slick!! My average speed on the way home was 20mph on interstate! Everyone was driving that slow since the roads were that bad. Luckily, I had Jerrod pick up Julia from daycare, there was no way I was going to get there in time. The drive normally takes me 1 hour and 15 minutes, today it took over 3 hours to get home!

I now have a headache from the stress of driving home in these conditions. I have another meeting in Columbus tomorrow, but if the roads are this bad in the morning, I think I will not be going.

Feeding the fishes and kittys

Julia now thinks it is her job to feed the fishes and kittys each night. We are not going to discourage this.

So each night, Julia will get the fish food from the bottom of the fish tank, walk over to me and say "Fishes, mommy, fishes". And we go feed the fishes. At first I was just holding her as I put the fish food in and she just watched the fish eat, but in the last couple of weeks, I have been actually letting her help me feed them. I have to constantly tell her "little bits, little bits" and watch her like a hawk or the fish will end up with way too much food and I will have to scoop it out before the fish die from eating too much.

Julia also love to help Jerrod feed the cats. She knows he feeds the cats around supper time. Jerrod will scoop some food into about 2 bowls and it is Julia's job to distribute it to the rest of the bowls. (we have 6-8 bowls out for the cats) She is so funny how she does it. She will take handfuls to each bowl, then pick a bowl and dump it into another so she can start all over again.

Our cats are wonderful about this. Julia is constantly sticking her hand right in front of their faces while they are trying to eat and grab the food right out of their bowl. We let her play for about 5 to 10 minutes before we call it done and let the cats eat in piece!

Those are two more chores that maybe one day soon, she will take over!!

Bomb scare at work!

The office I work in is in the County Courthouse.

This morning around 10am an announcement comes over the PA system saying we need to evacuate the building. Apparently a bomb threat was called in.

I was expecting it to be hours before getting back into my office. I was surprised when 20 minutes later we were given the "all clear". The bomb squad did not show up, there were no bomb-sniffing dogs. Just some maintenance personal and police the did a quick check though the building. When asked about it they said "we just looked for one". That does not instill confidence in me. A quick walk through is not going to do any good if someone decided to actually "hide" the bomb, geesh!!

It did add some excitement to the day though!

Night out with Daddy

Winter is our meeting "season" at my work. It feels like I have been driving all over the state in the last month. Because of this, Julia has been with family or Jerrod several nights when my meeting was a night.

One night last week I knew it would be close to 10pm before I would get home, so Daddy was in charge. This meant he had to pick her up from daycare, feed her supper and put her to bed. Nothing he has not done before.

At one point during my meeting I get a call from Jerrod. "Do you know how hard it is to take Julia out to a restaurant with just one parent?", he says. I chuckle, and say "Had a little trouble, huh?". He said it was really hard trying to get her cleaned up, the diaper bag packed up, her coat put on, leave a tip, pay the bill and chase Julia around the restaurant the whole time.

Luckily, they went to Skyline Chili (which Julia loves) and it happened to be kids night. Kids ate free with a paying adult. They also had games and toys on the tables for the kids to play with. So nobody really cared that Julia was running around like a fool.

I bet Jerrod thinks twice before taking Julia out to eat again though.....

Bunch of random pictures

Just a bunch of random pictures from the past few weeks.

Climbing up to play on Mommy's computer..


Julia loves walking around with her Blankie on her head and then playing Peek-a-Boo.



Julia loves stripping down to just her diaper on the days we just hang out around the house. Here she is pushing Elmo around in her shopping cart, while wearing TWO purses and her snow boots.




Playing with her purses (and you can see Elmo in the stroller).



Chilling out on the couch just like Daddy does!



Silly girl!!

Playing in the snow

It was snowing yesterday. We ended up with about an inch or two by this morning. We took Julia out in it yesterday morning because she woke up and said "It's snowing!"

Julia got her new snowsuit and snow boots a few weeks ago, so we tried them out! (even though there was very little snow on the ground yet) We stayed out for about 45 minutes and her face was all red.

The book aisle!

For most kids, it is the toy aisle you cannot get them out of. For Julia, it is the book aisle!!

I had to stop at the store after work to pick up some cat food. Julia came with me since we stopped on the way home. Julia no longer wants to ride in the cart, but wants to help push it. I am okay with this as long as she stays right next to me and does not go running off (which she did and resulting in much crying when punished).

At one point we walked past the book aisle. She took off running into it and refused to leave! She kept picking up book after book and looking at it and showing me. (the little kids books were right at her height) After about 15-20 minutes I finally had to carry her out of the book aisle kicking and screaming, because she did not want to leave.

My little book worm!

She can read!!

The other night Jerrod decided it was time we start working with Julia on learning to read. On of her favorite books is "Baby Boo". Jerrod was reading it to her the other night. He read it very slowly, pointing to and saying each word. Julia quickly recognized the word "baby" after a few pages. She would shout "baby" when Jerrod pointed to it. He thought she was actually recognizing the word, so he wrote it on a piece of paper and asked her what the word was. She immediately said "baby"!!! WOW!!

Then the next day I told him to use different paper and writing utensil to write "baby" and see if that made a difference. It didn't!! She again immediately said "BABY"!!

So then he worked with her a little more. She can now read four words: Baby, Dog, Cat and Julia!! (Can you tell Julia is an animal lover?)

I am AMAZED that at less then 2 years old, she can read words!!!!!!!

More ice cream

Julia really takes after the Ernst's when it comes to liking ice cream. I can remember my Grandpa Ernst eating a bowl of ice cream everyday. Growing up we always had ice cream in the freezer and ate it most night. I still LOVE ice cream, and eat it frequently. (It was a LONG 10 months when Julia was allergic to dairy and I could not eat ice cream!!)

Last night I was getting ready to make supper and I asked Julia what she wanted for supper. Her reply? "Ice Cream!!!"

She did get ice cream for desert!

Ice Cream, Ice Cream!!!

I think during the summer when Jerrod's parent's watched Julia on Fridays they would stop at the Dairy Queen on the way home from the bank and Julia and MiMi would share an ice cream sundae.

When driving home on Saturday, Jerrod wanted a Cherry Lime-aid from Sonic, which happens to be located right next to the Dairy Queen. Soon as we pulled out of Sonic, Julia starts saying "ice cream, ice cream". She much have remembered the sundaes from this summer! We tried to offer her some of the lime-aid, but she wanted nothing to do with it and was crying for "ice cream, ice cream!!". We told her we had ice cream at home, but she finally fell asleep and did not get ice cream.

Then on Saturday evening, we had a Thanksgiving dinner to go to. It was also Jerrod's birthday the day before. Since I was gone all day helping my family butcher, we did not get to celebrate it. I finally made him a cake on Saturday and we were going to have it when we finally got home from the dinner. One the way home Jerrod was telling Julia that she was going to get to eat some of daddy's birthday cake, and somehow the word "ice cream" slipped out. That is all it took to get her started again about wanting ice cream.

We finally get home and I get her a bowl of ice cream before I even get Jerrod's cake out. We sing Jerrod Happy Birthday and cut the cake. Julia refused the cake and just wanted more ice cream!! So she got a second bowl of ice cream! She did eventually eat a couple bites of cakes, but still wanted more ice cream! I finally drew the line on ice cream after two bowls of it. It was bedtime after all!

Busy holiday

We had a very busy holiday! Three dinners to go to, a family butchering, and a teething toddler!!

Meals went good. Julia is DEFINITELY more sociable this year than she was last year. Several of Jerrod's cousins asked when Julia started talking since Julia actually comfortable enough this year to talk!! They were amazed when we told them she has been talking to a year and a half and could say hundreds of words. I think she will always be somewhat shy, but so is her mom and dad.

Julia is also cutting 2 year molars. I don't know how many since she refuses to let me look. By I can tell by the chewing and crankiness. Luckily, she has been pretty good about it and if it is really bothering her, Motrin helps a lot!