Poor Blankie.....

Julia LOVES her Blankie. Actually she has two identical Blankies so one can always be clean/in the wash. The entire back of her Blankie is satin. But since Julia was wee little she has had a fascination with sucking/chewing in the little satin washing instruction tags they sew on everything. That would be the first thing she would look for when she picked up a toy! So even though the entire back of her Blankie is satin, Julia LOVES sucking/chewing on the little satin tag. The tags on the Blankie's were starting to look very sad, and I knew it was only a matter of time before they would be gone forever. Well, this weekend it happened. She finally sucked/chewed on the tag on one of the Blankie's until it completely came off and disintegrated!

Here is where the tag USED to be....




The other Blankie is not looking much better. It's tag is about to go too....



Now my dilemma is what to do. Do I just sew up the hole left from the tag, especially since the whole back of the Blankie is satin? OR do it get a little square of satin about the size of the old tag and sew it to where the tag used to be? Hummmmm.....

(Trust me, the Blankie's are identical, they just look different because I photographed them in two different types of light.)

Bug bites

These are some of the bug bites I was talking about in my last post. They look SOOOOOO much better in this picture. She went swimming today and I think that really helped dry them out and heal them some. At least the blisters look like they are shrinking and going away. Luckily, they do not seem to bother Julia. Hopefully they look much better by Saturday!

Been busy

There have been so many things I have wanted to post about, but I just have not had time to sit down at the computer to post them. Julia keeps me busy!!

She rarely naps anymore and even if I put her in her crib for "down time", she will just climb right out of it! Grrrrr..... By the time I get Julia down for the night and do a little house cleaning, I am exhausted and ready to go to bed.

Things are good, just busy! Julia is a little tornado in the house! I will clean up a room only to come in 10 minutes later and discover Julia has destroyed it again! AND bending is becoming REALLY difficult, so it is hard for me to clean up all the toys and stuff off the floor.

I finally went through some of Julia's old baby clothes. I have no problem with Jude wearing pink (neither does Jerrod), but unfortunately, Julia was born in the winter and Jude will be born in the summer. So everything is the wrong season. But I did find some stuff that will work. I want to pick up a few more outfits and sleepers, but the rest can wait until after he is born.

Julia's room is slowly coming along. We are in the process that takes the longest, drywall mudding. You have to wait 2 (or more) days in between each coat. Then with all of my dr. appointments, it is hard to get it done. It might not be done before Jude gets here, but that is not a big deal.

On Friday evening Julia's upper arm got attacked by some bug. We think they are spider bites, but she was only outside for about 5 minutes, so it happened fast. She has probably 15-20 bites all in a small area. They are slowly getting better, but some still look a bit blistery. Hopefully they look much better by Saturday when she is a flowergirl in a wedding! She is also sporting a nice bruise on her cheek from running into a wall on Saturday! Life of a toddler, I guess.

Julia's recent quote that has me rolling on the floor with laughter:
Julia looking at the BM she just had in her potty chair - "That is a big turd!"

I laughed so hard!! She has said it everytime she has had a BM since! She said it in front of Jerrod's mom the other day and the look on Debbie's face was priceless!! I think we was expecting Julia to be a little more lady-like!!

Out of the mouth of Julia

Julia says the funniest things lately. Half the time you would think she was 12, NOT 2!

The other day she fell into a chest as she was trying to get something out of it. I asked if she was okay. From inside the chest I hear "I'm alright!"

Today we had lunch with Jerrod's parent's at Tumbleweed. The is the conversation Julia had with our waiter....
Waiter to us - "How are you folks doing today?"
Julia to waiter - "I'm doing fine."
Waiter to Julia - "What would you like to drink; milk, Sprite, etc.."
Julia - "I want milk"
When ordering....
Waiter - "What can I get for you all?"
Julia to the waiter - "I want the quesadilla"
At one point I ask Julia if she had to go potty since it had been awhile since she last went.
Julia to all of us as she climbs out of the booth - "I be right back. I go to the restroom."
Then she took off towards the restrooms leaving us scrambling to get out of the booth to follow...

Julia has recently really gotten into Thomas the Tank Engine. I am fine with this since it is a nice break from Elmo! In the Thomas DVD's there are several trains in the stories. Each train has a name. But for some reason Julia does not realize this and just calls them "blue Thomas", "red Thomas", "green Thomas", etc....

And probably the most recent thing she says that has me cracking up is that she calls an elevator, an "alligator". Why it is an alligator, I don't know. She used to call an elevator, an elevator, so I am not sure why she has switched to calling it an alligator. But it is too cute...

She will also carry on complete conversations with me. She will tell me all about what happened on a show she just watched, or something she did that day. It is with such detail and clarity, that it scares me.

A good thing, right?

The other night, I heard Julia wake up at around 2:15am. I tried to ignore it and figured she would quickly go back to sleep. Next thing I know, she is opening the door to our bedroom!! She then tells us she has to pee on the potty. Jerrod puts her on it and sure enough, she goes! Then in the morning she woke up dry and went potty again on the toilet while I was in the shower!

I think if she is going to be waking up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, she needs to learn she can do it herself then too, just like she does during the day!

Right now she will go use her potty chair, dump the pee in the toilet AND rinse out her potty bowl, ALL without our help or insistence. Half the time I did not know she even went to the bathroom until I hear her flushing the toilet.

She is also getting much better about pooping in the potty. Still has the occasional poop accident, but that is okay.

I have been taking her out in underwear for awhile now and she has been GREAT about telling me when she needs to go. She has also been great about using the "big" potties in public restrooms.

At least I will not have 2 in diapers!

Baby position update

I had a quick, 3 minute ultrasound today to confirm the position of baby Jude. He was HEAD DOWN!!! YEAH!!!

I went swimming again on Saturday (I think swimming last Weds is what turned him breech in the first place). And then I followed my midwife's suggestion of playing music between my legs! So since Saturday night, I have been playing music in my crotch for Jude! My midwife said it had worked for her over a dozen times in her years of being a midwife. Something about how the baby likes music and will "swim" towards the sound of it. I guess I worked again!! I know it really made him move. I am pretty sure he was back to head-down by Monday evening. Now I just hope his stays that way!!!

I go back to my midwife tomorrow for my 36 week appointment. I cannot believe I am getting so close!!!

Where did my little girl go?

Julia is growing up soooo fast!!!

I have been noticing a LOT lately that she is looking less and less like a toddler and more like a big girl!

Some of the looks she gives me and some of the things she says makes me think she is closer to 5 than 2!!! Her vocabulary and sentence structure continue to amaze me.

I think a lot of the looks are from her growing in height and slimming down. She is really losing all that baby/toddler chubbiness.

A bunch of random, cute pictures

I took these photos over the last 2 weeks or so.... They have no real point other than I thought they were cute...

Julia loves putting on every necklace, bracelet and ring that she owns!!!

Licking the brownie batter off of her face after helping me make brownies one day...

This tiara was our art project of the day....

Julia LOVES her cousin Gavin. She just cannot get enough of him. She kisses, hugs, and generally loves up on him. Luckily, he is good natured and takes it all in stride....

The three musketeer cousins up to no good. (they all about the same age)

Sitting on Great-Grandma's lap.

This is the mask she had to wear last winter when she needed breathing treatments. It is supposed to look like a fish. She hated it then, but now she thinks it is fun to play with. She pretends she is sick and needs it...

Darn, darn, darn........

My midwife appointment did not go well. She pretty much confirmed what I have been fearing for the last couple of days.... Jude has flipped in a breech position. I am pretty sure he did in just in the last couple of days. If he does not flip back, it means I will have to have a c-section. The midwife told me a few tricks to try to get him to flip back. There are OB's in this practice that will attempt an inversion. There is only one that will attempt an vaginal breech birth and the chances of her being on call when I go into labor are really slim. I am really hoping we can get him to flip back. They scheduled me of an ultrasound for next week to confirm the position, but the midwife and I are convinced he is breech according to what she and I feel and where I am feeling the majority of the kicks. We will come up with a game plan from there....

I think the thing that depresses me the most is that if I need a c-section, I will probably have to go under general anesthesia for it. When I tired for an epidural with Julia, it took 2 dr.'s and over 14 tries to get it in, and then it did not even work. They told me then that if I needed a c-section I was going to have to go under general anesthesia for it. I don't want to be put out and miss out on the first hours of my son's life! AND with general, Jerrod will not be allowed in the room to witness the birth either!! Not to mention the longer recovery time with a c-section!

I am just really hoping and praying at this point that we can get him to flip back. Especially, since I think he just flipped breech!

This has really depressed me. I know all that is really important is a healthy baby and mom, but this still sucks!! I LOVED how Julia was plopped right on my chest as soon as she was born and I was the first person she saw and heard!

Oh, my midwife also said that if he stays breech, they will do the c-section at 39 weeks if I want to. Ack! I was expecting him to be late, NOT early.

First baseball game....

Last night we had the opportunity to go to a Dayton Dragon's game. They are a minor league baseball team in the area. I think the last time Jerrod and I went to a Dragon's game was 3 years ago when I was pregnant with Julia.

We got the extra tickets through my parent's so they were also there. The tickets were "lawn" seats. The stadium has regular seats and a bunch of grassy area they call the lawn and sell tickets cheap for those areas. I think it was great that we had lawn seats, this way Julia was able to run around all night.

Julia and her daddy enjoying the game.


A shot of the scoreboard in the background to prove where we were at.


Julia loved just walking up and down the lawn area. (And yes, she was carrying both her Blanket and Baby)


Meeting Heater, the mascot. (Grandpa is holding her)


Sitting with Grandma...


Playing with her cousin, Nathan.


YUM..... Dippin' Dots...... (Jerrod and I both always got ice cream in these helmet hats when we went to baseball games as kids, so we felt Julia needed to experience it to. Although, this stadium sold Dippin' Dots instead of ice cream.)



Julia had a GREAT time at the game. She was tired and wore out by the time it was over. Unfortunately, that did not mean she slept in this morning!!

Quick baby update..

Actually, I have my 35 week appt tomorrow, so I will probably know more then, but I wanted to post this latest belly picture. Although, it was taken on Sunday, so it is actually my 34 week picture.


I think he is starting to run out of room. Jerrod and I joke about how Jude and I are fighting for space. Occasionally, when I try to bend over to pick something up, I can't! Literally, I can't! Jude sticks his feet or something up in my ribs and midsection so it makes it impossible for me to bend!!

This pregnancy has been harder on me physically than Julia's was, but maybe chasing after a toddler has something to do with that! I still cannot complain. And I still love being pregnant! My major issues are PAINFUL pubic bone separation, restless leg symptoms, occasional heartburn and insomnia (which is related to the RLS). Luckily, the pubic bone pain comes and goes. But when it is painful, it is PAINFUL!! Every step involves a sharp, shooting pain. I am starting to find certain things aggravate it more, so I am trying to avoid those things.

Still have not gone through any of Julia's old baby stuff. It looks like it will be after July 4th before I even begin to start to get to that stuff. But that is okay, I don't think this baby is coming early and the longer we can keep some of the baby stuff out of the house (and away from Julia) the better. I just know she will be trying to climb in the swing and claim everything as her own.

"I wake up!"

Yesterday morning, I heard Julia wake up over the baby monitor. So I got up and went to the bathroom to take care of matters before going to go get her.

As I was putting on my housecoat after coming out of the bathroom, I hear someone coming up the stairs. About 2 seconds later, our bedroom door opens up, Julia's head pops in, and she tells me "I wake up!"!!

She has been able to crawl out of her crib for several weeks now, but this is the first time she has greeted me in my bedroom in the morning!

Daddy painting her toes

All the purple nail polish finally came off of Julia's toes. So she informed her Daddy that he had to paint them again. Of course, he willingly agreed....

Battle of wills

I will be the first to admit that I am stubborn and bull-headed. Julia has seemed to have inherited this trait from me. She can be very stubborn when she wants to be. This occasionally leads to a Battle of Wills between us.

Take today as an example:
I was on the phone and Julia dumped out a deck of cards and spreads them over the computer room floor. After I got off my phone call I tell Julia she had to pick up the cards. She replied, "No, mommy do it". OH NO, I don't think so little girl!!! So we go back and forth with me telling her to pick them up and she telling me to do it. By this point I am getting pretty stern with her and she is crying. She is even trying to walk away, only to have me hold her and making her stay, telling her to clean them up. At this point, I am just about ready to give in and just pick them up myself because it would be so much simpler, but I know that would be sending the wrong message. So I continue with the battle of wills with a 2 year old! I finally tell her she is going to have to sit in time out because she is being a "bad girl". To which upsets Julia more and she tells me she is "a good girl". So I explain that good girls listen to their mommy's and pick up the cards. This seems to work and Julia starts picking up the cards. After she got about half of them picked up I told her what a good girl she was being and helped her pick up the rest. I even had her give me a high five when she was done and told her what a good, big girl she was to pick up the cards. Once I told her she was being a good girl for picking them up, she actually seemed to be enjoying picking them up!

Potty training was/is another battle of wills. She knows how to do it and knows when she has to got, but as soon as I put a diaper on her to leave the house, she no longer thinks she has to use the potty. I finally got brave and just started taking her out of the house with underwear. Surprisingly, she has been really good about it. She has had a few accidents, especially when she gets busy, put for the most part she has been great. She is only wearing diapers at night now. It is just getting through to her that she has to do it a certain way, NOT her way!!

I think this girl is going to drive me to drinking with her stubbornness!!

Yellow Juice

Last weekend Jerrod took Julia through the McDonald's drive-thru for breakfast. He got her an orange juice to drink with her hashbrown. Julia really liked the orange juice. A few days later I had a morning dr.'s appointment and we did not have time for breakfast before we left the house. Since McDonald's we on the way, we stopped there on the way to the appointment. Julia requested "yellow juice" as we pulled up to the drive-thru. So I got her an orange juice with her hashbrown.

Then this weekend, Julia and I were driving up to my parent's house. We passed the same McDonald's where Julia had gotten breakfast twice last week. As soon as we drove past she started crying "yellow juice, yellow juice". She was actually crying because we did not stop for "yellow juice".

On Sunday morning I did find some orange juice in the fridge that was about to expire and gave her some. She was in heaven, she just loves "yellow juice" apparently.

I know she has had orange juice before, so I am not certain why she has a sudden intense liking for it. I don't keep orange juice in the house a lot of times, I guess that will change. It is now on my grocery list to buy this week!

Helping with construction

Still working on re-doing Julia's new room. Now that Jerry is retired, he can come during the week to work on it if he chooses. Since it was time for the electrical work, he wanted to do that on a day it was cloudy since he had to do a bunch of work in the attic (we were putting in spot lights).

Julia makes sure to supervise her Bappa in everything he does in her new room.

Making sure the line is just right!

Bappa even let her snap the "blue line" on this piece of drywall. She was in heaven!

She was at his side almost constantly the entire time he is working!

If he is on a ladder, she has to be on a ladder too...

Double checking to make sure his attic work passes her inspection!

Luckily, Jerry is very patient with her and never gets frustrated with her always being RIGHT there! I know things have to take twice as long trying to work around her, but she just wants to help so badly. AND this is her room after all, she should get to help build it. Actually, Jerry says all of Julia's help is all to familar because he built their current house when Jerrod was Julia's age and Jerrod was just as a big help then as Julia is being now...

New swing and more swimming

Julia outgrew the toddler swing at Jerrod's parent's house. So they bought her a new one. Julia loves it! It does have a back strap on it and a buckle in the front to prevent her from falling out, but it is pretty much a regular swing.

It took Julia a few times to get comfortable with it, but now she loves how high she can go on it!

Bappa pushing her in her new swing!



The "beefed up" water wings are a HUGE hit! It took Julia a time or two for her to figure them out and get comfortable swimming in them, but now she is just a little fish in them! She will swim all over the pool with them on. We no longer have to stay close by, she will actually swim all around and actually swim back to us when she needs something. I have to wonder if she might be swimming without them by the end of the summer. Is it even possible for a 2.5 year old to swim unassisted? I guess we will find out!



And a bonus picture. Julia found her old bouncy seat under her crib at Mimi and Bappa's house. She hated it when she was a baby, but now she loves playing with it!! Silly girl!

The garden tractor

More proof of Julia getting over her fear of things. She rode on Bappa's garden tractor!!! Now she loves riding on it, she is constantly asking for "ride on tractor".

Waiting for Bappa to get on and start it up!




Bappa even lets Julia drive it!

Scared, who's scared?

What a difference there is in Julia. She is becoming more and more bold. She is no longer this scaredy girl who clings to her mama.

She used to be soooooo scared of the cows at my parent's house. Just hearing them "mooing" would cause her to start crying. We would not even attempt to bring her up the to gate. But I have been noticing that every time we go to my parent's house she gets a little braver. But I was completely shocked by what happened yesterday!!

She walked right up to the gate to the pen the cows were in and just stood there. Then she climbed the gate and wanted IN the pen with the cows!!!!! WHAT!!!!! Where did this bravery come from?

Here she is at the gate watching her Uncle Bill out with the cows.


She talked her Uncle Bill into carrying her around the pen to see all the cows and calves.



This is a 5 foot fence and she did not even hesitate when climbing up it!


She also went in the hog barn yesterday looking for the baby kittens. She walked up and down the aisle with big pigs on either side of her without even a second thought!

What a big girl she is becoming. I barely got a glance from Julia all day. She was too busy playing with her cousins and around the farm. So much for clinging to me.....