Nine Month Updates

Hi everyone! It's so hard to believe Julia is already 3/4 of a year old! It has gone by so fast, and it's fascinating to look back and see how much she has changed and developed. We have loved (almost!) every minute of it. :-) I think we've kept you updated with the big updates for this past month, but here's a recap:

1. Definitely the biggest updates for Julia this month are the changes in her mobility! It's hard to believe she only started crawling last week because she has gotten so much better (and faster!) at it already. She sure thinks it's quite a hoot that she can follow us around. She will start to fuss when we leave a room and then she will get a big smile, give a little cackle, and take off (with this hilarious panting laughter as she goes). She's also discovered how much fun it is to climb up on and crawl over Mommy and Daddy. She's getting much better at pulling herself up, too... the world is now just one big jungle gym waiting to be discovered!

2. Play habits: Well, up until a week ago, Julia's favorite way to play was to sit under/by her rainforest jungle gym and pull all the toys and books out of their plastic storage baskets. Some of her favorite toys/books are her Super Yummy and triangle (from Aunt Molly and Uncle Dan); a plastic ring that's supposed to attach to a toy but Julia prefers to carry it everywhere and gnaw on it occasionally; her plush puppy (that she adopted from Mommy); her puppy book; and her Valentine's Day card from Mommy and Daddy. However(!), now that she's MUCH more mobile, it is so much more fun to practice standing up/down, turn on the radio, pull blankets out of the basket, and get into puzzle boxes (now banished). She particularly loves to stand up/down at the chair at the computer when Jonathan or I are working there (like right now!).

3. Still no teeth.

4. Other new skills: Julia's learning to give (very wet) kisses. She especially loves to give them to her puppy and her baby and (sometimes) Mommy and Daddy. She's also learning to wave "hello" and "good-bye."

5. Yay spring: Our weather has been almost spring-like the last couple days, and yesterday, Julia took her first stroller ride outside since the fall and liked it immensely. She still LOVES the outdoors just as much as she did before. When she and I get the mail (now that it's warmer), she looks around and makes these cute little sighing noises the whole time. Hope the weather will stay nice soon, so we can continue to enjoy the outside.

6. Musical activities: Julia has had the opportunity to attend several of Daddy's recitals on the Italian Baroque organ at the Art Gallery and at a community recital. She seems to enjoy the music, but at the last art gallery recital, we had to go into an adjacent gallery because she cried because she couldn't get to Daddy! Julia and I also continue to attend Kindermusik, which she enjoys very much. She's still somewhat shy and undemonstrative at class, but she seems to like the class anyways. At home, she LOVES listening to her CD, and she always has to look at her Kindermusik flowers poster over her crib when she gets up from her nap or in the morning. It's also been fun for both of us to have songs and motions that we get to do together at home. One of the songs has even become part of her bedtime routine.

7. Sleeping habits: Speaking of bedtime, Julia's sleeping habits have improved dramatically. She'd been napping pretty well for a month or so in her crib in her room, but she was not sleeping well at night in our room (up 1-3 times a night and not going back to sleep well). On a particularly frustrating night, out of desperation and on a whim, I put her down to sleep in her crib, and she went right to sleep. Since then (about 2 weeks ago), she has slept through the night almost every night, and when she has woken up, she has either gotten herself back to sleep or has gone right back to sleep after I feed her. Thank goodness! Jonathan and I are really loving getting a good night's sleep again! We've also been able to develop some naptime/bedtime routines, which involve reading a story, saying prayers, and nursing (at bedtime). Her current favorite stories are "Goodnight Moon" and the following Eric Carle stories: "Brown Bear, Brown Bear," "Polar Bear, Polar Bear," and "The Very Hungry Caterpillar."

8. Julia continues to do very well with solids. She went through about a 1 1/2 week phase where she refused anything but applesauce and avocado, but she is definitely over that now! Despite the lack of teeth, she has done very well with chewing pieces of hamburger, ground chicken burgers, bread, green beans, avocado, and pear. She always enjoys either ground-up or cut-up samples of Jonathan and my food (including risotto and tuna casserole). At her nine-month check-up, we got to ok to feed her most things, including some dairy, so she has very eagerly inhaled some yogurt the past couple days.

9. Speaking of the dr's, her current height is 28 inches and her current weight is 17 lbs., 10 oz.

10. Julia made her first road trip since the Grand Tour. We took an overnight trip back to South Bend for the funeral of Gail Walton (wife of Craig Cramer [Jonathan's organ teacher at Notre Dame]). It was a very sad occasion to go back to SB, but it was good to see many of our ND friends and introduce Julia to Craig. Julia did pretty well, although she did get very tired of being in the car after 8 hours (but who can blame her). Her favorite part of the trip was definitely meeting and playing with the daughter of one of Jonathan's former classmates. Adelyn is just 2 weeks younger than Julia, and it was a lot of fun to watch them play together.

Well, those are all the updates I can think of, and it's time to go read a story and put Julia down for a nap.

We also hope you like the new picture format. The old way of importing photos into the blog was really slow and painful. Since this way is much easier and faster, we can upload more pictures, and it should be easier for people to leave comments.

We love you all and look forward to getting to see many of you in a just a couple months!