Rolling Over

Julia has finally rolled over! When Grandma Luster went into Julia's room this morning, Julia was sleeping on her tummy. Since the day she was born, Julia has been put to sleep on her back. Last night she managed to squirm around enough and ended up on her belly. Even though we have proof that she can roll over from back to front, now we need to wait to see her actually do it.

Evelyn's Quotes

As we drove over train tracks (but didn't see a train): "I'm a Chatterbox Trainspotter. I love to talk about trains."

Does the following quote need an explanation? "Tornadoes and hurricanes are supposed to knock over mailboxes, not your car, Mommy." Let's suffice it to say that Troy has taken out a mailbox with a moving truck, and I evened the score today by backing up over a mailbox with my SUV.

New Games

Julia has some new games and skills - she just started all of these today. It was quite a flurry of mental and motor skill activity for the little Sunshine!

She started playing a game we call "Thank You." Julia acts like she wants to give something to you. So, you hold out your hand, she puts a toy in your hand, and you say, "Thank you!" Julia replies with a two-syllable baby sound that we swear is "thank you" (both of our girls are geniuses, in case you didn't already know), and then she holds out her hand to get the toy back. This can go back and forth several times before she tires of it.

Julia is now interested in putting small blocks and shapes into containers. She especially likes to put her peek-a-blocks into their basket, dump the basket, and start all over again. Julia also likes to take a couple of shapes out of her shape-sorter box/container, put them back, and then try her best to get the lid back on.

All of this in addition to the usual book-reading, of course. I'm happy to say that it looks like we have another book worm in the house!

Grandma Linda

Grandma Linda came to visit and help out since I had ankle surgery on February 17th. We really kept her hopping: She took Evelyn to soccer, preschool, Penny Theater, dance and story time. She also took over house chores like cooking, baking, cleaning the house, diaper duty and putting Julia down for her naps. The joke around the house was, if we saw Grandma Linda reading a book or doing Sodoku, we needed to think of something for her to do!

It was wonderful having Grandma Linda stay with us and help us out for the past nine days!

Baby J Is 10 Months Old

I know I didn't write a post for Julia's 9-month birthday, but there haven't been too many changes in the past month.

Things that are the same - Julia is still completely immobile. She has yet to roll over (either way), but she doesn't hate tummy time as much as she used to. She loves to sit and play with toys scattered on the floor around her. Julia eats three meals a day of solid food (cereal and fruit/vegetable), plus she nurses or takes a bottle four times a day. She takes two naps a day totaling about three hours each day, and she continues to sleep through the night (about 11 or 12 hours each night). One other thing that has stayed the same is that Julia is a predictable and content baby. If you meet her needs by following her schedule, life is grand!

Things that are different - Julia got her first tooth (bottom right) on February 3rd. The other middle bottom tooth broke through two days later. She was a bit fussy a few days before the teeth cut through, but not too bad. Julia can make more sound combinations such as mama and baba. And, just recently, Julia has begun to mimic her first baby sign: "all done." Since Julia is a bottomless pit when it comes to eating, we have been doing this baby sign for a couple of months to let her know that her cereal truly is gone.

Bear Bread

Evelyn spotted a recipe for Bear Bread in her February Highlights High Five magazine a few weeks ago. She thought this would be the perfect thing to make when Grandma Linda visited . . . and that's just what they did this afternoon.

There really isn't a recipe, per se, for bear bread. First, you thaw out a loaf of frozen bread dough. Then you separate the dough into different-sized balls to make the bears' bodies, arms, legs, heads, noses and ears. After letting the dough rise for about an hour, Evelyn and Grandma pushed some chocolate chips into the dough for eyes and belly buttons. Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes and voila! Bear bread! It was definitely a winner for Evelyn - easy and fun to make, plus it was very tasty with tonight's chili.

Next Stop: Washington, D.C.

The sight-seeing isn't over, yet! I still have two days before my ankle surgery, and I'm making the most of every moment before surrendering to crutches.

After lunch at home, we (Evelyn, Grandma Linda and myself) took the Metro into Washington. We stuck to our plan: get off at the Smithsonian stop, check out the Washington Monument (only the outside this time), visit the World War II Memorial, then go to the (Smithsonian) National Museum of Natural History.

It was brisk and windy today, so it's a good thing we didn't stay outside longer than we did. Evelyn chose her favorite site (Washington Monument), and my mom chose something she hadn't seen before (World War II Memorial). We all agreed that the "dinosaur museum" (as Evelyn calls it) would be fun to visit. Even though Evelyn has only been to that museum once before, she led us around the dinosaur exhibits like a docent.