Miss Chatterbox

Happy (finally!) Spring! Here in Rochester, we finally have green grass, leafing trees, and beautiful flowering trees. :-)

Julia is SO happy that we have had warmer weather. She loves being outside as much as we'll let her. We try to take at least one walk every day, and she likes to go "look at water" (the pond on our apartment complex's property). She's learning go up the steps on the walkways by herself, and she likes to run (laughing) through the grass. She can tell, though, when we're coming home, and she will start crying when she sees our house (and if she's running, she will laugh and cry at the same time). Hopefully we will soon have a yard with a fence, and Julia can be outside to her heart's content. We're also enjoying seeing a greater variety of birds again at our bird feeder, and Julia likes to hear them sing (especially the chipping sparrow).

While the weather was still cold, Julia devised some indoors methods to burn up some of her (and our) energy. Those of you who have visited us know that you can go the entire length of our apartment (which is a decent distance) in a pretty straight shot (from Julia's room to Mommy and Daddy's room). So, Julia thinks it's a lot of fun to "run run run!!!" from one end of the apartment to the other. It's even more fun if Mommy and Daddy to do it, too, and it's the most fun if they skip or gallop (at her direction, of course). She's pretty good at attempting to gallop as well, but obviously has awhile before she figures out how to skip. Julia continues to love taking Baby for a walk around the house, and she's finally really mastered how to make her ride-on horse go. Julia also likes to be my "puppy." She will crawl around the house saying "here's puppy" and cuddle up to me and say "hug puppy, hug puppy!" Tea parties are still lots of fun, and she's getting much better at getting the majority of the tea into her mouth instead of down her front.

A very exciting change for Julia that just happened in the past couple days was transitioning out of her crib into a toddler bed. We were going to convert her crib, but it turned out it would have taken up to 16 weeks to get the rail. So, we opted to buy a toddler bed instead, and Julia picked out a pink one. :-) She slept in it Monday night for the first time. She likes that she can get in/out of it herself, that it's pink, that she now has a pillow, and that we found places for everything that was in her crib in her new bed. She's still somewhat apprehensive whenever it's time to actually sleep, but once she goes to sleep, she's fine, and we've had no midnight or mid-nap visits (yet! fingers crossed).

And finally, the biggest Julia development over the past month has been the continued expansion and sophistication of her vocabulary. I would say the majority of what she says is comprehensible, and she puts together multi-word phrases. She continues to amaze me in this regard, especially since at her 18-month appointment in December we were hard pressed to come up with 5 words that she used consistently. Here are some examples of phrases we hear frequently:

• "Careful, don't fall!"
• "Mmmm, yum, yum" (in a surprised tone of voice when she's trying something new that she's not sure she likes)
• "Thank you sweetie" :-)
• "Hi sweetie"
• "Do it! Julia do it!" (she's an independent little thing!)
• "Bye! See you!"
• "More too"
• "Where's Julia? Peek-ee-boo!"
• "What's next?" (in between tracks on her Kindermusik CDs)
• "Here she comes!" (when running to Mommy or Daddy)
• "Bless you!" (just started saying this when we sneeze)
• "Cough cough" (after she coughs... usually it's a fake cough)

Sometimes talking about certain topics will start a predictable Julia monologue:

• "And...[] too!" (e.g. "Family... and Marmee... and Pops too! etc. etc.)
• "Organ... Daddy... Julia" (Daddy plays the organ, and so does Julia)
• "Music class... friends... bells... sticks... bars... dance... scarves... run... hold hands... etc."
• "Trash truck...by [goes by]" (she's fascinated by the trash truck and she will talk about it several times everyday. The trash truck comes on Tuesdays and Fridays, which I've been telling her for awhile, but now she's starting to tell me the days of the week the trash truck comes too)
• Usually talking about the trash truck leads to talking about the vacuum. Julia is pretty scared of the vacuum, and she needs Mommy or Daddy to hold her when we vacuum or when the neighbors vacuum upstairs. She will say, "vacuum, Jesus (because Jesus keeps her safe from the vacuum), ergh-ergh (apparently that's the sound the vacuum makes!)"

It is so fun to hear everything that she has to say. She, her vocabulary, and her cute little voice are so adorable. We couldn't be more blessed. :-)

One month until her second birthday... woo hoo!