Juliete's favorite toy

Juliette still loves her baths and her favorite is this hippo that squirts water. Here she is trying to catch the water.

Let me play!

Check me out!

You can't put Juliette down now without her popping herself up either on the couch, her saucer, us, or her favorite our blue table top.

nine months old!

I can't believe she's nine months old today! It has flown by and is not slowing down at all. This month has seen some big changes in our pumpkin. She is totally mobile and crawling everywhere. She is "discovering" everything forcing me to vacuum more than I ever thought I would. She is not happy unless she is standing up or climbing. She knows her two favorite books and where to touch the pages and pull open the tabs which amazes me every single time she does it. Naps are not as stressful, though still in transition as to where they happen. However, lately she has been waking every night around 3, last night was at 12:30, and Josh has to go in and rub her back or tell her to go back to sleep. If I go in, she thinks she can outlast me and she's right, I usually pick her up. It was a very odd experience the other day when I was clipping out coupons- I saw the expiration date was May 30 and it hit me that she would be a year old when it expired!

Give me strength

This morning I tried to get Juliette to play with a soft lovey doll instead of me while she nursed....she kept throwing it off me and touching me..I'll try again tomorrow. The morning nap was a complete failure. She fell asleep when she normally does, into the crib she went, and screamed for an hour. This afternoon has been more successful. After falling asleep while eating, back to the crib we went. She cried for 30 minutes and is now dozing without me in the room. I have a headache the size of the Grand Canyon because she was up at 4:30 and didn't go back to sleep. She had really bad gas for some reason and couldn't get comfortable...sooooo mommy has been up since then too. I don't want Josh to accuse me of being emotionally unstable when he gets home, but I really would like to just cry for an hour tonight.

Weekend and a new week

Juliette had a very busy weekend with a visit from Uncle Don and Aunt Nancy and then friends coming over tonight. Tomorrow I begin training Juliette to nap during the day. I read in my Parent magazine that if they don't learn to take regular naps, it does something to the seritonin (spelling?) level in their brain so they don't sleep as long at night. This makes sense since when she doesn't nap, Juliette will be up before 5. When she does get her long naps in, she sleeps until at least 6, sometimes 7. The magazine gave a schedule for the training in groups of three days. Tomorrow I'll try to get her to cuddle with a blankie while she nurses instead of me so she can use that as her lovie when she goes in her crib. I'm hoping that next week I'll be able to say she is taking two one hour naps during the day...fingers crossed.

Juleitte and her buddy

Ben loves to give hugs! Both Ben and his brother are so gentle with her, it's cute to see. Tommy was at preschool this morning so we only saw Ben today before getting her pictures done.

today's pictures

Security

We had to set up our version of Baby Gitmo Prison Station because she is constantly moving. So here's prisoner 24601 in her new holding cell.

Happy Valentine's Day!!

A big love shout out to everyone out there! Nana, Grandpa, Grande Zio Don, Aunt Nancy, Aunt Mari, and everyone else!! Juliette has had her own holiday treats the past few days...she had her first taste of cake thanks to Aunt Kelley (Daddy nearly had a stroke) and she had an ice pop today!

Baby in Motion!!

We bought this walker about 4 months ago and the poor kid's feet just swung in the breeze. I was on the phone with her nana and put her in it and BOOM she can touch! Not only can she touch, but she figured out how to move it! True to her style, she is first moving backwards. Oh well..she'll get the hang of it soon and I won't be able to close my eyes for a second.

No More!

I can't take it anymore. Tomorrow I'm calling her pediatrician and seeing what formula I can give the Juliette to wean her. This morning she took a chunk out of me and made me bleed for a good bit of time. I wanted to be able to say I did it for a year, but it's just not comfortable for me to do it now that her top teeth have come in and all she wants to do is bite and pull things apart. She uses a cup really well now so I can put it in there instead of a bottle. I will probably keep nursing her in the morning because she's so hungry that she doesn't think about biting. I'll have to pump more during the day when I can to keep my milk production up and to mix it with the formula. I did it for almost nine months so hurray for me considering that I almost gave up right when she was born because it was hard to get her stuck on. Oh well...I'm trying not to feel guilty about it, but it's only for three months until she can have milk. Who knows, tomorrow she may do fine with feeding....today has just been a bad day. I gave her a real teething biscuit today and she totally went nuts with it.

More of the white stuff

Ok now this is bordering on the line of ridiculous people. We just got hit with a huge storm on Friday and Saturday. Now we are going to get more tomorrow!! I'm thinking back to the conversation I had with my mom when she told me she bought the baby a snowsuit. I told her we never get more than a few inches a year and never more than 5 inches at a time. Now I'm thankful for her snowsuit because we got to take her out in it! She still doesn't like it very much.

Return of the tongue!

Since her top teeth came in last week, Juliette has been discovering them with her tongue. She loves to stick it out at us now. Here she is in mid-tongue sticking out position :).

Josh

Thanks to the 10 inches of snow we got on SATURDAY Josh has been home from school the last two days. We are now getting another dose of the white stuff mixed with freezing rain and Spotsy is expected to be closed tomorrow too! That means Daddy gets to go with us to Kindermusik tomorrow. If school for some reason is open, I'll have to skip music and go on Thursday. I can't make it out of the driveway myself because of the ice at the end of it. Anywho, it's been nice having him home, but Juliette gets so excited that she doesn't want to nap. She still gets tired at the same times and falls asleep for about 10 minutes, but that's about it. Today was the first real nap she's had since Friday and she took it from about 3:30 until 5:30.

Here's a pic of what makes her so happy- hanging on to one of us and walking. She thinks it's a big deal!