and so the music begins

It’s been awhile. Sorry about that. I’ve been sick and busy and all kinds of things.

It’s snowed last night and right now Julia is pointing at the bag in Joe’s hand saying ‘fwench fwies! Chicken! Hungry! Eat it!” We’re teaching her letters and numbers right now. She can count to ten with coaching and then she throws 18, 19, 20 onto the end. Just for good measure, I guess. I don’t know where she learned her teens, we didn’t teach her. Maybe Sesame Street did.

She’s 1.75 years old and can count a little, answer the TV questions accurately (you know, when kid shows ask you questions and pause waiting for an answer?) She LOVES Little Einsteins, Imagination Movers, Handy Manny and can rattle off lists of the characters randomly. Sometimes I feel guilty that she knows so many TV shows, but she’s super smart and still runs me ragged, so I’m not worried about it stunting her development.

Julia REALLY wants to wear underwear, but she REALLY doesn’t want to learn to use the potty, so we have bullfits when mommy says she can’t wear underpants. She speaks in full sentences and is just starting to refer to herself as “I” instead of “baby.”

I taught her how to go shoe shopping this weekend. It was very cute. Alright, time for lunch. Here’s a photo I haven’t uploaded to Flickr:

eating snowmen

After the first snow of the season, Julia got bundled up and went outside. Here is the exclusive interview:

beeg gurwl

If you ask Julia whether or not she’s a baby or a big girl, she will always tell you she’s a “beeg gurwl.” At 18 months old, she’s pretty advanced in her speech, even the doc says so. Over the last few months, I’ve been really stressing over what she eats. At her 15 month appointment, she hardly gained one whole pound and the pediatrician said that if she didn’t gain more next time, they night have to run some tests to see why.

Luckily, she’s shot up two whole inches and gained a pound and a half. So all is good! Her first Trick or Treat has gone by. She dressed in her fairy costume and went around with her pumpkin. We started out well. She went up to our neighbor, Kim, and said “teek teet” (trick or treat) and looked at the candy as Kim gave her some. By the time we were almost done, she was walking up to people, taking candy herself, reaching up to me, and once I picker her up, she wrapped her legs around me, pointed and said, “Go! Go!”

I’m SO not even kidding. I’m not exaggerating. I’m completely serious.

She’s starting to show her baby dolls what things are. For example, she took the baby outside, shoved it’s face in the grass and said “gass!”

There’s another Julia in our neighborhood who is two months older than our Julia, but she hardly speaks at all. Her mom said she wished her Julia talked like mine, so I told Jules to go tell Julia to talk. So she took her toy pig and bunny, walked over to the other Julia, showed her the pig and said, “piggy!” She showed her the bunny and said, “bunny!” Then she patted the bicycle next to her and said, “bike!”

She’s the best kid ever made. She’s brilliant. Today in the Disney Store, she saw the new Beauty and the Beast tea tray and set. It’s on wheels. She grabbed the display and started pushing it all over the store periodically stopping to serve tea. Let’s just say, if you have no idea what to get her for a present, pretty much anything in the Disney Store will do. Handy Manny toys, princess toys, tinkerbell, Shang (Mulan’s prince), Mickey… Just know that we already got her the toy Handy Manny with tools.

Oh, and she found a kid-sized wingback chair in Target. Enjoy.

In other news, I just won 24 free classes at my pole dancing studio! I rock.

the best First ever.

Julia just said “I love you” to me for the first, second, third, AND FOURTH time while hugging tight to my arm and patting it.

and the words, they keep on coming

A few mornings ago, when I had almost finished my morning coffee, Julia asked for a “nanny” (banana). So I set my coffee cup down on the table where she was playing with her tea set to turn around and grab a banana, right? When I turned back around, Julia had taken my coffee cup, poured some into her tea cup (without making a mess!) and was sitting there drinking it, saying “coffee! coffee!”

This girl is amazing. She is so incredibly smart! She has a book of animals. There are 26 and she can tell you what 24 of them are. She knows all of her colors. She can tell you what a square, triangle, circle and line are and can draw a line and circle when asked.

She can tell you which book she wants you to read now, whether it’s Madeline, Listening Walk (Walk), Princess stories (Peencess), Stone Soup (Soup), The Big Red Barn (Barn), Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (Star), or her “Ay, Eee, C’s” book. Sometimes she doesn’t want you to read them, sometimes she would rather read them herself:

She can tell you want movie or show she wants to watch: Garfield, Bell (Tinkerbell), King/Hoggle/Sarah (The Labyrinth), Elmo, Manny (Handy Manny), Movers (Imagination Movers), Mickey, etc. etc. I won’t list them all because I’m sure you don’t want to read a long paragraph of movie titles.

We got her a potty and she’ll sometimes sit on it fully-clothed and say “pee pee! poo poo!”

I let her pick what color shirt she wants to wear in the morning. And she takes her baby doll and feeds it with a bottle. Or opens her little couch and puts the baby on it saying “seep, baby seep” or “poo poo, diaper.” Did I mention that her baby must have a diaper on at all times? yeah. And when Julia poos, she asks for a wipe to clean her doll’s diaper.

She’s starting to learn her letters and her numbers. She’s only just 18 months old! I didn’t know a 17 month old could do all this. The Other Julia’s mom and dad wish that their Julia could talk like her. We have a wiz kid.

Another of her favorite pass times is to sit in the chair in front of this computer and watch a slide show of herself at Hilton Head.