Who is this toddler and what have you done with my baby?

What a month.

Julia’s vocabulary has totally skyrocketted. Get this. She loves to play rock band on the Wii. She either sits at the drums and plays or she steals the microphone, puts it to her mouth and sings “doo doo doo.” I’m hoping to get it on film tonight.

This month we took Julia to the beach for the first time. And she LOVES it. She wants to go back to the ocean so much. She saw turtles and rode in the elevator (ahvah) everyday.

Now that we’re back at home, she asks to go “shoom, mommy, car” so we can go to the “mall! horsey!” and ride the carousel. She has a favorite horse on the carousel. Now, when we go to the pay area in the mall, she’ll be in there for a couple of minutes, and then she makes a beeline for her stroller and spends the next 15 minutes climbing in and out of it. Then she wants to go on the horsey again.

She’s got all of her one-year molars now.

Oh, and this is BIG. I can finally let her climb all over the jungle gym at the playground and MOMMY DOESN’T FREAK OUT ANYMORE. Oh happy day.

Also, last night when I went to pole dancing class…. SHE DIDN’T CRY!

I would put more photos in, but they’re ALL from the beach. If you haven’t seen her first haircut, check this out:

Adorable right?

This is my favorite current thing, Julia’s version of the word “cold”:

Thank goodness for friends with cameras

Or I would only have about 10 photos of Julia this month! Go Jocelyn!

This morning I woke up to a nice cool, crisp first-day-of-school morning. It was fantastic except for this weird feeling that was nagging at me. Kind of like an old memory of being really sick for a long time when the summer was just turning. I couldn’t place it for about 10 minutes because I can’t remember every being THAT sick. Then it hit me. It was the feeling I had for the last few months of working at the Catholic Review. I would wake up sick to my stomach every morning before I quit. It was dreadful.

Now I’m concerned that this is the “nostalgic” memory that will hit me every fall instead of the excitement of back to school and band camp. Because I LOVE when summer turns to fall. I LOVE when I can sleep with the windows open again and hear crickets. I don’t want it to be spoiled.

Anywho. On to other things. Time to catch y’all up on more than just baby!

I’ve been doing a lot of freelance work at Studio Lewis Graphic Design. Lately I learned a lesson that it’s better to not work with certain clients. I’m still trying to convince myself that the thousands of dollars I would have earned wouldn’t be worth the pain of dealing with this particular client. Joe made a very good point in comparing it to the Catholic Review (which, interestingly enough, this particular client used to work there). It’s a really difficult thing to be a stay-at-home mom who doesn’t bring home any money (in fact, spends it on sorts of things, no matter how useful) and have that potential money taken away.

So much guilt.

Back to Julia.

She’s sitting here in my lap saying “on! on! on! Mama off! on! on!” I have no idea what she wants on.

Julia has been very active this month. She’s starting to repeat words she hears once. She can’t count, but she knows how many “two” is.

I can’t thank Jocelyn enough for taking photos and making them available for downloading, because if it wasn’t for her… really… I wouldn’t have many Julia pictures. here are some of her and Daddy:

And now we’re making preparations to go to the beach for a full week. The beach will be fun. I’m trying to think of all the things that will make an 11 hour car ride bearable with a 16 month old.

That’s about it for now. Julia is trying to pull me out of the chair and whining. Until after the beach!

Julia is a big girl now. Harumph.

Julia eats her breakfast all by herself now. She will NOT accept help from mommy (unless you count me making the food, serving it, and putting her in her chair). She’s growing up so FAST!

In addition to this, she’s also suddenly expanded her vocabulary to include: Elmo, Huxley (the bad guy in Elmo in Grouchland who also happened to play Indigo Montoya), arm, help (which sound a little too much like “up”), bah-ee-ooooh (balloon), blue, chalk, airplane, key, bubble, apple, bra (one of her favorites), no, that, and I’m sure there are more, but I can’t think of them. That comes to a grand total of about 30 words for a 15 month old! Go Julia!

She likes to pick out her own outfit in the morning. She doesn’t want to go for walks in her stroller, she wants to go for big girl walks next to mommy or daddy. She’s tall enough to see out the windows without standing or sitting on anything!

She’s becoming a pickier eater now that she’s learned the word “no.” She’s down to one nap a day.

She’s starting to climb on things and can tickle people on command.

I’m trying to expand her movie knowledge beyond Elmo. She likes the Fraggles. I want to get her into Disney movies, but it’s proving difficult. Most especially since Disney only releases a few movies at a time. Boo on them.

Ok, one of us has to get a shower so Julia can go out and play!

Oh, did I mention that she’s 15 months old now?

because I can

A better look at my new purple hair., originally uploaded by stephylewis.

Behold. My new violet tresses. I found some demi-permanent hair color and chose purple, of course. I LOVE it. It makes my eyes REALLY green. Unfortunately my hands and ears were also sacrificed to the purple gods.

for my patient lurkers…

Hidy Ho to the Internets! Yeah. Sorry I’ve been away so long. You see, Julia had developed a sixth sense. Whenever my butt touches the chair in front of the computer, I suddenly hear the pitter patter of little feet running over to me. Then she starts to cry. Apparently it’s a very traumatic sight, me sitting at the computer.

Julia is now 14 months old. Behold:

That’s right, Julia wants YOU.

Keep in mind that I started this post a couple of days ago and haven’t been able to get back to it until now.

Julia has a handful of garbled words in her vocabulary including:

• Meemee (mommy)
• Dadum (daddy)
• pop-pop (popcorn or anything that goes in the microwave)
• uh-oh
• purple
• thank you
• hi
• dye dye (bye bye)
• hat
• hot (accompanied with a mouth blow to differentiate from hat)
• up
• yesh
• trash

She knows and can tell you what the following say:

• dog
• cat
• owl
• pig
• The Count from Sesame street

She knows how to get to the potty and the playground and Connor’s house. And if you ask if she wants ice cream, Oh. My. God., she gets so excited.

She loves to wear hats and if she sees one, she says Hat over and over until you put it on her head. If there is a second had in the vicinity she insists that you wear it.

Lately, she’s been trying to put her own shoes on.

During the day, there are several times when she picks up her purse, cell phone and keys, puts the purse on her shoulder and says “bye bye” while waving and starts to go to the front door.

She is JUST. LIKE. ME.