3 Months!

Julia is 3 months old!

Greetings from thousands of miles away from our typical posting site! :) We are having a great time here in New York visiting friends, family, and old familiar places, and have been kept VERY, VERY busy, hence the reason that this 3 month post is being posted a few days later than Julia's actual 3 month "birthday." No matter how busy we are though, I couldn't let a month pass without a quick post and some 3 month pictures!

Julia has grown a ton this month in so many ways. She has become extremely vocal and loves to have little chats with us, face to face - we let her lead, and play copy-cat to her, echoing her most interesting conversational words. She's also beginning to realize just how useful her hands can actually be - aside from being good to suck on (which she just continues to do more and more), they are really good for feeling and grabbing things! She has a handful of "touch and feel" books that she absolutely loves to feel as we read. She also has been loving the Matthew Van Fleet books that have touch and feel and manual motion in them. Her favorite right now is the "Tails" book, and the peacock on the first page with the shiny feathers. Speaking of shiny - Julia has been lured into the appeal of shiny things in general. At grandma's house, she loves looking at the door handles that are shiny brass - getting a huge smile on her face and a giggle when she remembers to look for them. She also has recently noticed my engagement and wedding rings and loves when the light hits them - she likes grabbing them, too! I think this girl is setting herself up for a life of diamonds being her best friend! :) She's on her way to officially being done with swaddling. It's been a somewhat rough couple of weeks sleeping (for us both) as she continued to get used to those fists flailing around during her sleep, but she seems to have a hang of it now, and suddenly fights any attempt I have to swaddle her. She won't stop fussing and attempting to break out of it, until I remove at least one arm. In the long run, it's making life easier. Since she has had her hands free to suck on while in her crib, she has been soothing herself to sleep, and soothing herself back to sleep, should she wake up in the middle of the night. I'm proud to see her accomplish this, but also just a teensy bit sad, because I'm realizing that she doesn't need that part of me any more to rock her to sleep. And, so it begins..... Miss Independent is in the making.

There are surely more milestones for me to mention from this month, but my time is slipping away and I need to run! In the two weeks I've been here so far, I'm already up to having taken about 1,000 pictures.... yeah, you read that right, 1,000. And, we still have another two weeks to go! So, stay tuned for a bunch of photos upon our return to Texas!

Dear Julia:

I love it when...

1) you watch Delaney walk past you like you already know how much she will mean to you when you're older.

2) you hold my finger, hand, arm, or shoulder. And, along with this the way you kind of just melt into my neck and shoulder with your arms draped over me. You're so precious!

3) you try and eat my nose if my face comes within a 1 inch zone of your mouth.

4) you fall asleep in my arms and let me take in how absolutely and perfectly beautiful you are.

5) we use the web cam to talk to friends and family and you truly get excited about connecting with everyone by the way you stare at the computer monitor, anxiously waiting for the other person to "pop" onto our screen. You are quite the flirt with everyone you talk to on there with your "coos," giggles, and flailing arms.

6) I carry you, and you do whatever it takes to turn your head around and see where we're heading. You're SO unbelievably curious about life and I hope that gift never expires!

7) you clench your hands into fists and softly hold them straight out into the air. They look so tiny and perfectly delicate.

8) Daddy and I find ourselves randomly singing the songs from your many singing toys.

9) you make sucking motions in your sleep.

10) you cry for me and it actually sounds like you're saying: "Mo'Om!" "Mo'Om!" "Mo'Om!" (Mom.)

I love you, little one!