Happy Birthday!!!

Well, we made it through the first year. And we didn't kill one another. And Julia survived. It was quite a lot of fun actually, although there are some things I would rather forget. But the things that I would like to remember? Her curly hair...which most definetly does not come from my side of the family. How hard she struggled to push upright on her arms and learn to crawl. The look of pride on her face whenever she does something she thinks is really neat. The way that she claps her hands when she is upset in an effort to cheer herself up. The way she smells after a bath. How amazingly fast she has grown; nine inches doesn't seem like a lot of growth until I realize that she no longer fits in my lap while nursing. Those first little smiles and grimaces she gave while asleep. The year has been filled with a lot of good memories.


We spent Julia's birthday mostly at home, continuing to battle the rotavirus. She finally conquered it on Sunday. But since she wasn't that sick, I took her to the conservatory in Volunteer Park here in Seattle. We had fun walking around, looking at the orchids, cacti, ferns, hydrangeas, etc. She throughly charmed the Japanese tourists and they took our picture. We did let her open some of her presents that evening, which she throughly enjoyed.

But I wanna eat the paper, Dad!

Oooh! Aaah! Pretty!

Hmmmm..wonder what's in this one?

Hey! I'm ready for the rain!

On Sunday, Chip, Chris, Clare, and Ed drove up from Olympia and we spent the day with them. We took them to Julia's favourite restaurant, Tutta Bella, and enjoyed several of their pizzas. Julia ate a whole slice by herself. (Since recovering from the virus she seems to have finally discovered her hollow leg. Some nights we cannot get the food in her hands fast enough.) Then we headed on to the zoo and saw lots of animals: gorillas, monkeys, birds, snakes, giraffes, and African dogs (Julia liked these the best). We came home to open more presents and eat cake. Well, everyone else ate cake...Julia just pretended that she was going to. Instead she wanted more Cheerios.

Waiting for the guests to arrive

Look! It's a wild, camera-wielding Mom!

More presents!

A book all about peek-a-boo!

It's a Peep! No, it's a pillow! No! It's a Peep pillow!

Mmmm...cake....

We saw the doc yesterday and Julia got a clean bill of health. She is almost 19lbs now, 30 inches long, and has a head that is 18 and 1/4 inches round. Julia can point, shake her head no, show you her nose, show you your nose, play peek-a-boo, patty-cake, make the motions for "Wheels on the Bus", find her shoes, doll, and pig, stand for several seconds by herself, take small steps forward before falling, and drink out of a cup (with and without a straw). Not bad for a one year old! We have our PEPS Birthday party on Sunday and hopefully will remember to take more pictures there.

Some Pictures To Satisfy the Masses

I've been too busy to think lately...we had a weeklong business trip to Baltimore (scientific meeting) and work has been keeping both of us busy since we got back. Julia's latest tricks: standing alone for up to 30s at a time, falling forward while standing alone (hasn't quite figured out that the feet need to move too), pointing at almost everything, and just being loads of fun. Here are some more recent pictures to satisfy all of the relatives (read grandparents) who have been needing a Julia fix. I have lots of good posts rambling around in my head, I just need to find the time to write them down.




These were all taken at the Bellevue Botanical Gardens (Papa, I have some pictures of some nice witch hazel and lenten roses to show you in April). The frog was named Grumperina.



Two dolls for an early first birthday celebration! This was with Dan's family in Baltimore during the meeting.

Once we got back from Baltimore, she headed straight for the toys. Then she started to chase the cat.

Upside Down

Julia thought she would give musical comedy a try. Thanks to Aunt JoAnne for sending the octopus and brightening our day. In other news, we stopped feeding her at night. This may explain the uncontrolled head bobbing. It also may explain why her waking has moved back to 4:30am instead of 2:00am. More as events warrant....

Julia's Movie Debut

So here is the little one, helping with the laundry. Thanks to Mike and Amy for letting us in on how to post the video. =)

The Old Lady Who Whispers "Hush"

My life recently has been marked by lots of crying and sleepless nights. It seems as though Julia has decided to hit a whole bunch of developmental milestones at once. Things like crawling (video to come soon!), pulling up, cruising, sitting back down, feeding herself (with fingers, hands, and spoon). All of which are absolutely amazing to watch in progress and most of the time very funny too. But when added to the numerous colds she has suffered through since Christmas, it has made for a lot of sleepless nights. It has gotten so bad that I've gone back to reading sleep books!

At first it was kind of funny that she would be standing up in the crib, crying out for us at 11:30pm. But then it kept happening. And it would happen not only at 11:30pm, but then again at 1:30am, 4:00am, 6:00am, et cetera. The worst nights are those when the first wake up happens just as I am getting into a deep sleep. Then I know the whole night is shot.

Now some of you may ask, "Why are you getting to bed so late yourself?" Well, there is the after dinner cleanup to do, the bottles and pump parts to wash, the milk to store, the lunch prep for the next day, Julia's food prep for the next day, toys to put away, et cetera. And that darn cat always needs water (We've attributed this to the fact that Sierra's water dish acts like a tractor beam that pulls Julia into the kitchen whenever she is placed on the floor. She is helpless to stop crawling towards it. She must put her hands in the water, no other dish of water seems to have the same power over her). So there is a lot of work to be done before we can go to bed to wait for the morning.

So, since I have been reading the sleep books again, I've been running through all of the sleep solutions again. Don't want to start co-sleeping because then none of us get any sleep. Don't want to rock her to sleep because it is almost impossible to put her down once she falls asleep (I think she pretends to be asleep in this situation). Oh and she likes to pull my hair instead of drifting off peacefully while we rock. Tried crying, but she just gets more and more upset, to the point where she is crying even though I haven't even left the room. Did I mention her separation anxiety issues? Prolonged crying at night sets off the anxiety for the entire next day. Plus the crying forces me to try and think of Julia doing cute things to convince myself to keep going back in and trying to soothe her. So I did something that I used to try when she was a wee little one and I wanted her to nap in the crib. I pulled a chair into her room and I sit there. Whispering "hush". Sometimes I need to pat her back (she prefers to sleep on her stomach now...must get this from her father). Other times I need to gently ask her to lay back down. Still other times I need to help her lay back down. But the plus is that in the three nights we have been doing it, there is less crying at bedtime. And while she is still waking up at night, it does not take two hours to coax her back to sleep. I just get back in the chair and start whispering "hush" again. If only there was enough light to knit by I would be all set.

The next place we live will have a nice comfy chair in the kid's bedroom just for this purpose. With a blanket for me in the middle of the night. And enough light to knit by. Because in the book, the old lady gets to knit while she whispers.

There will be pictures later in the week when I remember to add "recharge camera batteries" to the list of evening chores.

These are a few of my favorite things....

1. Julia's little grin that keeps everyone laughing....

Every time she flashes this smile, people just start to laugh and it eggs her on. She started it soon after we left for Baltimore and has been keeping it up since. It is even funnier now that she has two top teeth pushing their way through and you can see them. This was taken on Christmas morning with my 100 year old great-grandfather. He was quite taken with Julia.

2. Julia's little pink tongue....

Nowadays the tongue still makes frequent appearances. But now she has taken to playing with it with her hand. This is especially funny in the car when she is dressed in her bunting and can only touch her tongue with her mitten. Why she thinks this is so exciting I will never figure out, but it does keep her entertained.

3. Her love of paper.....
Seriously, the paper at Christmas alone would have kept her occupied for months. All she wanted was paper: tissue paper, wrapping paper, foil paper, paper from the chocolate covered apricots, the credit card bills in January. She just loves paper. This weekend we caught her in the living room with a catalog in her hands. She had maneuvered across the room on her belly, then sat back up at the coffee table to grab said catalog. She was in heaven until Dan took it away from her.

4. Her love of music...

This was one of the few ways that Gramma and Grandpa got to spend time with Julia. They would just take her to the piano so that she could bang away at it. It occupied her so that she forgot that Mom was around the corner taking her picture.

We had a really nice vacation (3 weeks!) for Christmas. We got to see lots of family members, open lots of nice gifts, and eat way too many spritz cookies. Gramma and Grandpa babysat for a night so that Dan and I could have a dinner out (our first since Julia was born!) and Nannie took Julia one morning while Dan and I ran errands. Seeing how enchanted (even my brothers Tom and Andrew) was with Julia was worth all of the sleep lost during and after the trip.

Julia's latest tricks include lots of rolling over, more backward scooting and some forward creeping (belly-flop style). The funniest thing now is her night waking is because she rolls from her side (her now preferred sleeping position) onto her belly. I've come in several times to find her crawling around the crib. Backwards of course. But she has also recently figured out how to sit back up from her belly, how to cruise to the end of the coffee table to find the remote control, and how to stand up using the nearest parent. She had a nine month check and weighed in at 17lbs 10 0z, which drops her down to the 25th percentile. The doc seemed a little worried and told me to start giving her yogurt, cheese, butter, anything to fatten the little girl up. She still doesn't show a tremendous amount of interest in solids on any kind of consistent basis. But with all of her moving around I don't think that she is starving. My dad said that she just needs a good German cook....I guess we should have let her eat some of those spritz cookies. Anyway, we hope everyone had a nice holiday (whichever one you decided to celebrate) and got to spend it with family.

Life Just Keeps Getting Better

Or at least that is what I tell myself to get through the early morning awakenings that have been going on for a week or so now. I chalk it up to the fact that Julia feels like there is just too much going on in the world for her to miss out on a minute of it. But her mama knows better; if you let the girl come to bed with you or hold her in your arms on the couch, she will sleep for another two hours. It is really cute to see, especially when she starts dreaming and smiling in her sleep. That is something that I haven't seen since she was really little.

We did our unofficial weighing last week and she is up to 17.6 lbs. I don't know how long she is, but some of her jeans are finally starting to look like they are the right length. I guess that is what happens when you make your 7 month old wear 9 month old clothes. Some of her newest tricks include turning the pages of the book you are reading to her, pausing in her enjoyment of the book to look up at me, rocking back and forth on her hands and knees, and moving quickly from sitting onto her hands and knees. She still will only go in reverse, but seems quite content with that. Actually she seems pretty happy just to rock back and forth. Meanwhile the other little bambinos in her group are crawling and cruising all around. We recently started three meals a day (although mama has to make her some protein foods) and on Monday she will start sleeping on a mat at school. We will see how much that upsets the nighttime sleeping.

We had a wonderful vacation in Oregon with Dan's family from Olympia. Julia was fascinated with her cousins, Clare and Ed. She also enjoyed watching dogs and birds at the beach and managed to stay awake for the entire return leg of our hike out to Cape Lookout. She was not too impressed with the traffic on the way home though and we took her around downtown Chehalis to calm her down. But she did well on her first road trip, despite her nasty cold and a suspect case of pink eye (I think it was part of the cold, but daycare disagreed). We're into our own Christmas rush now, with only two weeks to go before we leave for Baltimore and other points east. Which means two more weeks to get the shopping done, presents shipped, and all the experiments done at work. With the snowstorm here earlier in the week, it has put me a little bit behind at work. But it was nice to have a day off to spend with Julia. I think she enjoyed it too.

Thanksgiving Weekend in Oceanside, OR

Admiring the view with Dad on Thanksgiving.

View from the living room window.

Relaxing with Mom before heading out for a morning hike.

Keeping warm on the beach near Cape Kiwanda.

Looking south from Cape Kiwanda.

Seastack near Cape Kiwanda.

Cape Meares, Oceanside and Netarts Bay from the Cape Lookout Trail.

Munching on a pear at the end of the Cape Lookout Trail.

View south toward Cape Kiwanda from Cape Lookout.

Enjoying the ride.

Utter Bliss and Ambitiousness

Things have been a little crazy here lately. Julia's first teeth have started coming in and they don't seem to bother her too much. Unless the current refusing to fall asleep for forty minutes is because of her teeth. It doesn't seem to be because rubbing her gums or giving her a cold washcloth or teether doesn't seem to help. Maybe she has decided that she just doesn't want to sleep anymore? Or maybe she has been getting too many co-sleeping ideas from one of her bedtime stories? The little book is cute, but all of the little baby animals get to sleep snuggled up next to their mothers. Except for the little human baby. Of course that baby just closes her eyes and falls fast asleep.

But there have been so many nice things to offset the trying times. We see so little of Julia awake these days that I am almost glad for the 5am feedings. Everything is quiet (except for the cat), Julia just snuggles into my arms, nurses eagerly, then falls asleep with a smile on her face. It is so nice. And it is nice being wanted by her too, especially when I come home from running errands on the weekend and see how excited she gets to see me. She is trying mightly to figure out foward crawling, but isn't ready to take the risk of moving her arms forward. She has almost achieved the downward dog position though. I think that girl has yoga in her future!

Another nice thing has been my Sunday afternoons. We decided that at some point on Sunday I will take Julia with me to run errands. Then when we get back, I can go for a walk, find a coffee shop, and knit for a couple of hours while Dan and Julia play. So nice to have a break! And this way we both get a break for a little while on the weekend.

And finally, someone asked us the other day how we handle dinners when we get home from work. I said that we made up a menu for the week (most weeks) and pretty much made dinner every night and ate with Julia. This person remarked that it was rather ambitious of us and that comment gave me pause. It never occurred to me to do any differently. I think I could count on one hand the number of times my family ate out growing up (if I'm wrong, please correct me Mom). It always seemed that my parents made dinner for us and we all ate together. So I don't see why I should do it any differently. But maybe I am crazy for thinking this way?

Halloween Antics

Looking pretty for the camera before school...

Before we left for the Queen Anne Halloween Walk

Later that night, all hopped up on candy! =)

I love you, now never leave me.....

Yes, we have been dealing with a little bit of separation anxiety here in the Klein household. Not on my part, but on Julia's. There are some moments where she absolutely needs to be on my hip or in my arms. Just seeing me or being next to me while Dan holds her is not enough. I thought that when we visited family back in Baltimore her anxiety was bad, but this is much worse. She usually takes a bath with Dan every night, but now, if she even hears my voice or catches a glimpse of me from the bathroom, the bath must end immediately. It is nice to feel so needed, and as my mom said, "It will not last forever and there will be a day when she doesn't want to be held by you anymore". So I am cherishing it now, even though it is slightly annoying at times. The worst part is how bad I feel for Dan, especially when she tries to lunge out of his arms to get to me.
Add this to the fact that he has had to give up watching MNF because of its move to ESPN and because Julia's bedtime coincides with the game and I think that he is feeling pretty bad lately.

But in other news, Julia turned seven months old today!!! We took her to the doctor last week for her lower gi issues (which have resolved after giving her a probiotic thank you very much), and she weighed 16lbs, 1oz. So she hasn't doubled her birth weight, but she is still gaining. She has been scooting backwards on her belly like a pro for weeks now and recently seems to be getting tired of going backwards all the time. So tonight for the first time, she pushed up even further and tentatively tried out being on her knees. It was so funny to watch! We will have to get the childproofing finished or else she is going to be into everything!

Her other big achievement is the babbling. As we were leaving school the other day, she just started to say "bla, bla, bla, ba, ma". Like she has been doing it all along. And like I completely understood her. Sometimes she moves her mouth, but no sound comes out. But the best times are on the car ride home. Dan and I will be talking science in the front seat and from the back we hear, "Blah, blah, blah, blah..." Then when we look back, Julia has fallen dead asleep. I don't guess that she will be a scientist.

We don't have too many pictures as life has kept us busy and the camera batteries always seem to be dead lately. But here are a few gems....

This hat is just a wee bit too small, but I'll smile anyway!

Finally, they are feeding me again!

Mmmm....carrots.

A Little Fall Spirit

We took Julia to a farm this weekend, the South 47. And while we didn't do the corn maze, we still found enough there to keep us entertained for a few hours. We wandered through the pumpkin patch and marveled at all the other kids there. It is hard to imagine that sooner rather than later, our little Julia will be one of the toddlers running around, looking for a silly-looking pumpkin. We took her to see the ducks and some pygmy goats. She was absolutely fascinated by the ducks and rendered speechless. I think she was amazed that there exists another animal in the world besides Sierra the cat. We stood her up next to the wooden yardstick to see how tall she was. The answer: not very. We also showed her all of the exotic pumpkins and found a small pumpkin for her very own jack-o-lantern.

The rest of the weekend we spent trying to get Julia to sleep and comforting her when she wouldn't sleep. She had a fever Saturday night that then led to some lower g.i. issues. It is hard to see her sick and not feeling good, but it is also so nice to have her snuggle in my arms too. On Sunday night, before she woke up four times, I held her in my arms after nursing her in the darkness of the living room. And as she lay there I thought back to one of the first mornings I had with her when my mom was in town. That particular night had been really rough and it ended with Julia only wanting to sleep in my arms on the couch. As I held the 6 month old Julia in my arms I marveled at how quickly she has grown up from that little newborn. And I have to admit, that on some level, I miss feeding her in the middle of the night. It is so nice to have her all snuggled in my arms and sleeping quietly.

Tonight I finished seaming her purple sweater that I had started after she was born. I need to find some buttons for it though. When I was a kid I loved to look through my mother's buttons in her sewing basket. I think that a local bank had given away small containers of buttons as a promotion once and my mom had four of them. I would open each box and pour through the buttons; finding ones that matched, grouping them by their designs. When I left for graduate school I took one of the button boxes with me and I started my own button stash. I put in the leftover buttons from projects, like the silver star buttons from a curtain I made in New Haven. There are also the extra buttons that come with your pants or shirts. And then there are the buttons that I buy when they are on sale. I found the cutest little bunny buttons that are crying out to be put onto an Easter sweater. And I have some little pink plumeria flower buttons that either need a sweater or some delicate shoes to grace. But I couldn't find any buttons for the purple sweater. Maybe at the knitting store near work, where they have three boxes of buttons to pour through, all arranged by color.

Anyway, here are some picture, which is what I know everyone is coming for anyway.

Oh! What a glorious Pumpkin!

I'm tall enough for the ride!

Are you sure those are pumpkins?

Hanging out with Mom and Dad on the couch....

Some Six Month Stats

Julia had her six month checkup awhile ago now, but here is what the doc said: She is 15lbs 10oz and 26.5inches long. I think she weighs more now and the doc had to measure her three times to get the 26.5 number. It seems like she might turn out to be long and slender like her dad though. She took her shots like a champ and weathered them much better this time than last. The doc said not to worry about her rolling over, but then the day after her official six month birthday she rolled over twice. We have only seen her do it once more since then, but last night I caught her in the crib trying to roll over from her back to her stomach. Or at least practicing it. Made for an interesting 45 minutes.

Life has generally been pretty good. Julia has warmed up to solid foods, using her fingers to help her suck down more food. We think she might be allergic to either bananas or green beans. Her poor little bottom is so sore and red and her poops have been very odd for the last 24 hours. I hope it isn't the green beans, because she seemed to like eating those more than the banana. The banana she kept spitting out and pushing away. She has been such a joy the last few weeks though.

We're trying to decide if we need to move to a bigger place. The abode, while easy to keep clean, has been feeling cramped at times. Plus the wet season is coming back and it seems as if the mold is promising to be worse this year than others. We haven't found anything yet that would allow a small cat, but we will keep looking. Anyway, enjoy the pictures!!!

Sittin' in the high chair! Where's the food?

She toppled from sitting to this position...and didn't seem to mind!

Sitting up like a big girl!

Our PEPS group at the BBQ two weeks ago

PEPS BBQ

We had a BBQ yesterday with our PEPS group to celebrate the end of summer. It was a lot of fun, especially to see how all of the babies have changed since we started back in June. Julia had a good time I think; she even spent some time on the floor with the other babies. She didn't hold her head up much and spent most of the time rocking forward and backward on her belly. Some of the other babies, in addition to rolling over, at starting to get up on their knees and try crawling forward. Our girl can grab cheerios though, and is saying boo more and more. She has also really improved at sitting up and can be left alone now in the boppy to play for a little while.

We started solids too. She seems to really like sweet potatoes and hasn't really warmed up to carrots yet. Cereal is best liked in the evening...she really is uninterested in food in the morning. Julia does love to grab the spoon out of your hand though and put it into her mouth. She also likes to smear the food on her face, her feet, her pants, the highchair tray, and tonight, her eyes. Luckily she still loves to take a bath so we can get her clean each evening. I have some pictures of her eating, but they haven't been downloaded yet.

I really love these pictures that our PEPS leader took. Julia just looks so beautiful. But then again, I am a little biased. People are starting to say that she looks more and more like Dan and I have to agree. Something about her eyes reminds me of him.