Snownami – Day 2

Well, when the last flake had fallen we had about 18 inches of snow.  That is the the 6th largest snowfall this area has ever gotten and apparently this will be the first white Christmas in DC in 20 years.  We will be celebrating our white Christmas in RI but are enjoying looking out at our wintry wonderland for now.  Here are a few pictures from today. 

Julia feeling snow for the first time.  She really didn’t know what to make of it, other than she hates being cold!

Me – round 1 of shoveling.

Andrew and Julia bundled up for our walk around the neighborhood.

Andrew’s snow angel!

Snownami -- Update

The earlier pictures were taken at around 9:30 am, this set was taken around 5pm.  I think we must have about 18-20 inches of snow.  You can barely see our small picnic table anymore.

Also I have been asked to elaborated on the title for these posts.  While watching the news this morning they asked for people to name this storm.  There were several good ones but my favorite was Snownami.

Snownami

It looks like we are well on our way to having a record snowfall in December.  Previous record was 11.5 inches, I think we are pretty close to 12 from the looks of things.  Here are a couple of pictures I took from out our back door.  Alyssa hasn't been brave enough to go out with a ruler yet but she told me she would later.

Hopefully we will be able to dig ourselves out in a week or two.

Some cuteness

Here are a couple of new videos we’ve taken of Julia in the last week.  The first is her walking!  This was taken a couple of days ago and she is already upping the ante – today she was trying to RUN (I’m not kidding)!  She doesn’t quite have the balance for that yet so she keeps taking falls but apparently she has places she needs to be!

 

This one is of her eating her lunch.  I just thought she looked like a cute little bird eating worms!

We have a toddler!

In the last three days we have seen huge changes in Julia’s walking.  She has been walking short distances between Andrew and I and from a toy or piece of furniture to one of us for a few weeks but I can now say that she is truly a toddler.  She really started on Thursday when she “chased” me around the meeting room at the library.  Then her confidence just sky-rocketed and we now find ourselves chasing her around!  We are in Charlottesville for the weekend visiting Andrew’s mom  and she been having a great time exploring every nook and cranny of the house.  I will (hopefully) post a video later when I’m back on my own computer. 

Oh one more thing to report – as I was writing this post Andrew and Julia were playing around and she said “dada” for the first time!!!  Andrew is thrilled! Go Julia!

10 Months Old

Julia is 10 months old today.  She celebrated by stacking two blocks on top of each other!  She’s been trying to do it for awhile but finally accomplished it today.  She also has been walking longer distances alone – yesterday she started walking all the way across the living room.  She has even made a couple of trips with a stop in the middle to knock over a block tower! 

Other recent feats include clapping her hands, saying “uh-oh”, crawling (yes, crawling – but she doesn’t like it and only does it if she really has to!), finding the tupperware cupboard (lots of fun!!), and feeding herself lunch (spaghetti is a new favorite food).

This is her today as she was moving blocks back and forth between their wooden box and her shopping cart.

Family!!

This past weekend was extra special because we had several visitors from Rhode Island!  My dad, stepmom, 2 sisters, and niece came to visit.  We had a great time hanging out, playing games, and seeing a couple of sites. 

Our first snowfall of the year happened Saturday as they were arriving and Alex wasted no time in getting outside and hitting her mom with the first snowball of the year! 

She also took a few runs down our hill – looks like pretty good sledding… for Virginia!

We saw the annual holiday boat parade on the Potomac Saturday night.  It was very cold though so we watched from the comfort of one of our favorite Thai restaurants.

After getting home we celebrated me and Merrill’s birthday.  It was great to have a celebration together as we’ve been in different places for the last several years.  Sunday we made a trip to Mount Vernon and had a nice dinner at home.  In between there were several rousing games of Trivial Pursuit, Scrabble, and Yahtzee.  True family fun! 

Happy Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful holiday yesterday.  The three of us spent the day cooking and playing and then we had a great dinner with friends in DC.  I am incredibly thankful to have good friends, a wonderful husband, and a happy, healthy, beautiful daughter.  Life is good!

First Teeth

Julia didn’t have to wait for Christmas for her two front teeth.  They came early, just in time for her nine month birthday last Monday!

Fun with Blueberries

Tonight we decided to feed our daughter blueberry oatmeal.  However, over the course of the meal she decided that oatmeal face painting would be more fun.

However when she realized the paparazzi were closing in she quickly took cover.

 

From there she was quickly whisked away to a secure location where this could be handled privately with soap and bubbles. 

Julia’s Next Step

Julia continues to amaze us.  Earlier this week she took her first unassisted steps.  She started by taking a few short steps to get from her play table to her toys and then quickly progressed to walking a short distance between Alyssa and I.  We have yet to capture this on film, mostly because she’s usually going between the two of us.

Then today she made another walking breakthrough.  She started exploring the house on her own.  She used the walls, toys and tables to navigate around the house.  Then in a new stunning achievement she started pushing her shopping cart around the house. 

Alyssa and I were truly amazed and a little scared by this wonderful achievement.

Happy Halloween

It was a cloudy, rainy day in VA…. perfect weather for a duck!

Happy Halloween! Quack Quack!

A Beautiful Fall Day

Today was a perfect fall day in Virginia, warm, beautiful leaves, and lots of sunshine.  We took advantage of this break from our downpours to go pick out pumpkins and watch the Del Ray Halloween parade for the first time. 

 

To top off a wonderful day, we discovered that Julia has gotten her first tooth!  It was a fun and exciting day all around!

Jumpin’ Julia

Julia was having a great time in her jumperoo yesterday… and we were having a great time watching her!

 

Look how much I’ve grown!!!

2 weeks old:

8 months old:

Closer to Walking

So right after I wrote my earlier post we had a breakthrough on the walking front!  Julia has spent the evening walking holding onto only one hand!  Any of you who have been subject to Julia’s walking practice for the past eight weeks or so can appreciate my and Andrew’s excitement at the prospect of maybe being able to stand up straight sometime soon!  In the video below she’s pretty wobbly but she got steadier and steadier as she went along.

8 Months Old

Julia turned 8 months old today!  Everyone told us that the time would fly and they were right.  We no longer have a little baby we have an almost toddler who has definite opinions!  She loves solid food, particularly peaches, peas, string cheese and… pickles.  Crazy girl – she won’t eat bananas but she’ll eat pickles!  She also loves to “walk” holding onto our fingers and pretty much goes non-stop all day long.  She will stand on her own for a few seconds and occasionally will cruise a few steps here or there, holding onto furniture.  She doesn’t seem interested in crawling at all – she prefers to walk – but maybe she’ll surprise us one day.  She has started saying “mamamama” and we’re trying to work on “dadadada” but I think “quack quack” might come first.  She loves her ducks!  She also loves to be outside and is content to sit on the lawn, pull up the grass, and watch the neighborhood go by… or maybe try to chase the older kids (I’m getting my exercise)!

Just in the last few days she has started what we think is pointing at things; although it looks more like a power fist pump than anything else as she still keeps her fist balled up!  It’s very cute.

We are amazed every day that we have our beautiful Julia and are looking forward to being amazed for the months and years to come! 

Visit From Grandpa Rick and Grandma Lesley

We had a wonderful visit from Rick and Lesley this past weekend.  On Friday night, we introduced them to our favorite spicy pizza which they both really enjoyed.  Saturday we went apple and blackberry picking which was a blast.  That night we played Scrabble and Yatzee which was a total blast.  I think we need to find a local group to do game night with.   Then Sunday we fixed the hole that was accidently created in our bedroom ceiling.  While we were walking around the attic, scoping out a future ceiling fan project, Rick tripped over a pipe, missed the plank we were walking on and put his foot through the ceiling.  Once we realized that he was OK, it was actually kind of funny.  One of those events that you only see on TV.  I would post pictures but somehow Alyssa and I misplaced our camera for the weekend.  Hopefully Lesley preserves the pictures we took on their camera.  And it was interesting to learn how to drywall.  :)

Overall it was a great weekend that went by way too fast.  And we can’t wait for them to come visit again.

Bye, Dad!

Andrew is going to be out of town for work for most of the next five weeks or so.  I’m not looking forward to it and apparently neither is Julia.  Looks like he might have a tag-along!

A Rare Treat

Julia is not exactly a “cuddly” child.  She is constantly on the go and wants to be exploring, moving, or checking things out at all times.  She is not one to sit on our laps or to lay next to us in bed.  A very positive side to this for us is that she is getting very content with putting herself to sleep.  She usually lets us rock her for a few minutes while she drinks her bottle, then she pushes it away and turns her head toward her crib.  It becomes quite obvious that she would rather be in there playing with her stuffed animals than cuddling in the rocking chair with me.  So in she goes and she plays for a few minutes and then falls asleep.  Today I got a rare treat from her.  She woke up after napping for a little while and I went up to soothe her.  She was a little restless so I rocked her and she actually let me rock her for almost an hour while she slept!  Every other time I try to do this she ends up waking up within a few minutes and immediately wanting to play but today she slept peacefully in my arms.  It was definitely a highlight of my week!

Here Julia is in a much more normal pose – looking out her favorite window!

Our First Family Vacation

Everyone tells you that travel really changes after you have kids but it doesn’t really hit home until you leave home for a week with a minivan packed to the gills.  That is right Alyssa, Julia and I packed up the family van and at 3am we got in the car and headed for RI.  It was pretty amazing that we managed to get there with only 1 quick stop.  Julia did great, she and I played in the back seat while Alyssa drove the entire way!

We started off the vacation with a bang having a great lobster dinner.  Then the next day we headed over to our “beach” house (it was actually on a pond).  It was amazing, we had a great view and the house was very comfortable.  Of course, the first night we decided we just had to throw a party for all the family.  We had a huge crowd probably about 25 people.  We cooked them all hamburgers and hot dogs, and they brought sides.  It was a ton of fun and a great way to start the vacation.

Helki stayed with us for the first few days and my mother ended her New England vacation with us as well.  It was great having Alyssa’s and my family hanging out together for the week.  It really made me wish that our families lived closer together.  The rest of the vacation was a blitz of wonderful visits from Alyssa’s family.  Including several sits for Julia that allowed Alyssa and I to go out and have some wonderful dinners.

One of the highlights of the trip was our visit to the mystic aquarium.  And even though one of the employees made a warning about hanging arms and legs over the sea lions I am sure they weren’t talking to me holding Julia near the railing.  Although just to be on the safe side I moved her back some.  Anyway, it was amazing to watch Julia looking at all the fish.  It is going to continue to be such a treat to bring her to the zoo and the aquarium as she gets older.  On a different topic I really don’t see how anyone could steal a penguin, particularly a 6 year old (if you haven’t heard the story ask one of us to fill you in!).

There are a dozen other things I could talk about and maybe I will post a part 2.  In any case, we will definitely add some pictures later.  All in all it was a great first family vacation.  I wish we were still on it!

6 Months

We can’t believe it but Julia turned 6 months old this past Sunday!  While it seems like the time has flown by she has also been very busy in the past few weeks and has accomplished a few feats that make her seem older than 6 months.  She is sitting up unassisted very well but she is also pulling herself up when we hold our hands out, not just to sitting but to standing… and then taking steps!  In fact that is probably her favorite thing to do right now (well, eating might be her favorite but standing and walking is a close second!).  Here she is combining both of those activities!

On the topic of eating, Julia loves solid food and has had quite a variety of fruits and vegetables.  She especially likes peas and peaches (not together, although she’d probably like that too) and oatmeal.  She also decided that she was advanced enough to drink from a cup like Mom and Dad’s and has been practicing that as well.  She does pretty well – it’s a lot messier than the sippy cup but she has fun.

But by far the best step that Julia has taken in the last few weeks is starting to laugh.  It is the best sound in the world and I can’t get enough of it.

Julia’s Sixth Sense

Ever since Julia was born she has had the most amazing 6th sense.  However it appears this was a temporary ability and has started to weaken as she turns 6 months old.

What is this amazing ability?  Well it first manifested itself when Julia slept in the co-sleeper next to us.  She would be sound asleep while Alyssa and I got ready for bed and read our books.  But the minute I would turn my light off and lay my head down she would wake up.  She would repeat this performance 3 or 4 times before finally drifting off to sleep.  One night I “fooled” her by laying down then lifting my head and looking at her.  I saw her open her eyes look at me then quickly lay her head down.   So you might think that she was just “playing a game”.  But shortly after this we moved her into her nursery and she still managed this amazing trick for months.

The other way it manifested was at dinnertime.  Julia, who has always gone to bed early, would be fast asleep in her crib while Alyssa and I prepared dinner.  We wouldn’t hear a peep from her that entire time.  We would sit down and I would go to put the first bite of food in my mouth and she would wakeup.  The amazing part was that food preparation period would vary every night.  Sometimes it would be 10 minutes other times it would be more than an hour, her timing was always precise with my first bite of food.  Thankfully as she approaches 6 months this ability seems to be waning and I have had some hot meals.

Visitors!!

Our Fourth of July weekend was extra special this year because my sister, Merrill, and niece, Alex, came to spend the holiday with us.  It was great to see them and Julia loved spending time with her cousin and her aunt.  The girls were very cute.  They were mostly wonderful together but there were times when each seemed very unsure of what to make of another kid getting attention from their parent! 

We spent the actual holiday hanging out and relaxing.  We made chocolate covered pretzels which Alex used to gain favor with the many kids in the neighborhood at the big party that night.  Smart girl – she has learned the power of food early!  The party was a lot of fun and Julia lasted through the whole thing with just a short nap on Mom to get her second wind.  She even loved the fireworks!

 

On Sunday, Merrill was nice enough to watch both kids while Andrew and I had a dinner out together.  It was a very nice treat for us!

We were very sad to see them go on Monday but we’ll see them again soon as we’re going to be up in Rhode Island in a few weeks to spend some time at the beach.

Milestone – Solid Food

Julia has had a major week; she has become a pro at sitting up and has started solid food.  So far she has tried avocado, sweet potato, and banana and all have been big hits.  She got the hang of eating from the spoon right away and has not tried all that hard yet to commandeer the spoon herself… meaning that for now most of the food ends up in her mouth – I’m sure that will change soon!

Milestone – Sitting Up

We had a big milestone this afternoon – sitting up.  She’s been practicing for a few weeks, being supported by the Boppy pillow and holding onto Mom and Dad’s hands but today she sat for a few minutes all by herself!  She’s still wobbly, particularly when reaching for a toy but it’s pretty clear that she will master this quickly. :)

 

First Father’s Day as a Dad

Just one short week ago I experienced my first father’s day as a Dad.  It was a wonderful day.  It started off with Alyssa cooking me a wonderful breakfast of Huevos Rancheros.  This is my favorite breakfast and I am always disappointed when I order it because it was never as good as the first one I had.  But the dish Alyssa made was even better.

As you can see Julia tried to help me eat it but just couldn’t quite figure out how to use the fork.

Alyssa also gave me a wonderful gift of 5 framed pictures of the three of us.  We plan to hang it right in that spot behind me.  It was a truly wonderful gift and while I didn’t quite cry I may have had a tear or two in my eye.  :)

After breakfast, Julia, Alyssa and I headed to the National Aquarium and US Botanical Gardens in Washington DC.  It was a beautiful day and the three of us had a wonderful time walking around.  Julia tried to escape into the plants at the Gardens but thankfully her legs aren’t long enough to get too far away.

Finally, on the way home we had to end the day with a mint chocolate chip milkshake from Baskin Robbins.  It was a wonderful first Father’s Day and I look forward to many more.

A New Ride

So as June 17th rapidly approached and the lease on my Lexus came to an end I needed to find a new car.  I was pretty sure I wanted a larger car and the Subaru Forester was the front runner.  But the more I looked at it the less I like it.  So I had to go back to the drawing board.  I started with who was having a good sale and it turns out Nissan was.  So one day after work I headed over there to drive the Altima.  Oh and also the Quest just to see what it drove like.  So Paul, the sales guy, and I headed out on a test drive of the Altima.  It was alright but nothing that blew me away.   We then drove the Quest, it was better than I expected and had a lot more room.  We even drove it to the house to show it to Alyssa.  As I pondered my decision Paul showed me a brand new dark red Altima that had just arrived.  It had every feature I could want it in a car.  So that made my decision much tougher.  After much debate though and a night where I took home the van to sleep on it.  I took another step in my journey as a parent and bought the Quest.  It was a great choice, the first weekend after I bought it Alyssa, Julia, and I packed it up and headed to Charlottesville.  I was amazing how much I could get packed into it and how comfortable it was to drive.

So now I truly feel like a parent driving around in a minivan.

And I know Julia and Alyssa will love it when we drive up to RI over the summer.

Freedom!!!

As many of you know Julia has been swaddled when she sleeps basically since Day 1.  She had a very strong startle reflex that caused her to flail her arms and basically slap herself awake whenever she tried to sleep.  So we swaddled.  At first we swaddled tightly with a regular muslin blanket and I have to say that Andrew was much better at this than I was.  I would cringe as he cinched the blankets around her but inevitably she would stop crying and calmly (relatively speaking) go to sleep.  Then as Julia became more active and stronger we had to up the ante in order to keep her swaddled.  Who knew what a market exists for different swaddle blankets promising to keep your little one wrapped tight?!?

We began using a SwaddleMe blanket which uses velcro to keep the flaps secure and tight.  Then, as Julia learned to wiggle her hands out of that, we used the SwaddleMe and a regular muslin swaddle blanket on top of it.  We drew the line at using a blanket that is basically a straight jacket for babies; especially since the one time we did use it, we picked up Julia to discover that her attempts to escape had ended in her arms at very strange angles that would have caused permanent damage if babies weren’t made of elastic. 

Well, our swaddling essentially ended last Friday night when Julia expertly escaped every attempt we made to keep her wrapped.  We would wrap her and within 30 seconds there would be a hand peeking out the top of the blanket, her little fingers making a beeline for her mouth and her eyes looking at us with an expression that clearly said, “I win.”  We tried again on Saturday and Sunday to get her swaddled believing that there was no way she would be able to sleep soundly without it.  Especially as we had both done a lot of reading of others’ horrifying experiences of trying to unswaddle their babies and ending up with many, many sleepless nights until success was achieved. 

But on Monday we decided to bite the bullet and attempt “free sleep” that night.  We reasoned that we were just putting off the inevitable and at least, if we had a week of not sleeping, we are going to Charlottesville to visit Andrew’s parents this weekend and could at least get a few hours of napping in while Julia visits with her grandparents.  So we began.  Monday morning the nap was a complete failure.  I tried for 2 hours to get her to sleep and it resulted in a total of five minutes of nap time.  Monday afternoon I had more success, it took a half hour to get her to sleep but she slept with all her limbs free for 45 minutes (a long nap for her!).  Then came Monday night; the initial getting to sleep process took about an hour and a half and then…. silence.  She slept.  We heard her wake up a couple of times and were on eggshells waiting for the crying to start.  Instead we heard slurping – she found those fingers!  She nursed at midnight, had a brief period of wakefulness at 2am when she was flailing around and couldn’t get her fingers into her mouth and needed to be soothed and then slept again until 5:30.  Last night was similar, two nursing session and a little bit of settling required but that’s not different, and in the case of many nights, better than her previous sleeping. 

So we are cautiously calling this a success!  And all the grandparents should be delighted that all of Julia’s fingers and toes will be on open display for all sleeping periods going forward!

Our active child

Julia has had a busy week.  The biggest news is that she rolled from her tummy to her back for the first time this weekend!  It was very exciting for all of us.  She hasn’t been practicing that too much though because she is too excited about standing up. She has been doing this for the last week or so.  Before that when you took her hands when she was laying down she would pull herself to sitting but about a week ago she discovered that if she straightened her legs she could stand instead.  Like this:

So now that is all she wants to do!  Including at bath time.  This along with her fascination with looking at herself in the mirror has made things a little more complicated for her Dad (the official bather).  But they both seem to have a lot of fun during this part of their nightly routine.

On Friday, since she was enjoying standing so much (and because my arms got a little tired), I decided to put together her exersaucer for her to play in.  That was a big hit!

It is really amazing how Julia has developed in the past couple of weeks.  She was already very interested in the world around her but now she is starting to interact with it and it’s incredibly fun to watch!