Monday, April 2

Julia clapped for the first time today! She has been enamored of clapping for a while and finally joined in. She doesn’t actually make any sound, but she’s gotten the action down.

Saturday, April 7

Julia celebrated her first Passover with a seder at the home of our friends Ruthann Bromley and Stan Nikkel. Fortunately, she was not required to ask the four questions, traditionally the task of the youngest seder participant. As talented as she is, she has not mastered reading just yet. I suggested she would be good as asking them if we changed all four to “dai dai dai!” and Stan countered that that would qualify her to join us in a chorus of  “Dayeinu.” Unfortunately, Julia had to go to bed before the festivities were over, and missed the opportunity to do any singing.

Julia’s gross motor skills continue to improve. She is much better at crawling than she was a month ago, doing a perfect and speedy cross-crawl (moving one arm and the opposite leg together). Yesterday Julia was holding my hand while I was sitting on the floor, and purposefully cruised past me. This was impressive because she was only holding on with one hand, but more so because she had the balance to keep moving forwards even though my hand was stationary.

Monday, April 9

Today Julia added “ba ba ba ba ba” to her babbling repertoire. I love hearing new consonants.

Friday, April 13

Julia’s first steps! OK, not the kind you think. Today she climbed steps for the first time, scaling the jungle gym in the park on our street. I rewarded her by taking her down the big slide.

Sunday, April 15

Julia is getting more confident on two feet. Today she was holding a slack phone cord and took one small step. We’re guessing she’ll walk before the end of May.

Monday, April 16

Julia is doing lots of one-handed cruising these days as her balance continues to improve. She can also go straight from standing to crawling, without having to sit down in between, moving into a crouch and putting her hands down in front of her. She climbed the stairs in our house for the first time today. (I think they may be a little taller than the steps on the jungle gym, since she hadn’t been able to get up them before.)

She’s begin to push objects around while crawling, which is funny to watch. She puts something low, like a book, under one hand, and slides it across the floor as she travels. Although she is spending a lot of her energy on gross motor skills, she hasn’t abandoned other areas. She just started banging two objects together. She would previously bang on an object with her hand, but she won’t bang a put with a spoon, for instance. (I suppose we should be thankful for that while it lasts!) Now she can hold two blocks and clack them together.

Julia’s been increasingly talkative recently, babbling away. Although we don’t think she’s made any signs yet (her “nurse” effort was not consistent, although we tried to reinforce it), we’ve added signs for “change” (as in diaper) and “all done,” a made-up sign used in our playgroup, similar to the baseball signal for “safe,” but a little more contained.

Thursday, April 19

Another new babble! this time it’s “mum mum mum.” It’s funny to listen to, and adds to her car-motor repertoire.

Saturday, April 21

You can see that Julia is thinking about walking. Several times today I saw her cruising along a piece of furniture, then stopping and letting go when she got to the end. She would stand there for several seconds, looking at her desired destination, clearly trying to decide if she could reach it. But each time she ultimately decided to fall into a crawl and proceed that way.

Sunday, April 22

Today Josh saw Julia take one step without holding on to anything! OF course, I had my back turned and missed it. Later in the day, each of her grandmothers spoke to her over the phone. Both times, Julia listened for a minute and then pulled her head away to stare at the phone receiver as if to say “how can my grandmother be in there?”

Monday, April 23

We’ve had a very exciting development today. For some time, Julia has reached out to me if someone else were carrying her and I came nearby. But today she was in my arms when she saw her daddy, and she reached out so he would take her, which of course he did!

Wednesday, April 25

Julia likes to play a game where she puts her fingers in my mouth and I pull my head back, making a popping sound as her fingers come out. Although we haven’t played this game in a few months, today she initiated it, this time pulling her own fingers out rather than waiting for me to.

Friday, April 27

During a visit to see Julia’s Gramma and Grampa, Julia was running a fever which hit 106 degrees early this morning. We spent the better part of the morning in an emergency room in Utica, NY. The fever went down from that frighteningly high temperature, but she continued to be sick and feverish throughout the day. The doctors in the ER checked for an ear infection, urinary tract infection, and pneumonia, but weren’t able to find anything specific. We suspect it’s a virus, and her pediatrician says to keep the fever down and the virus will run its course.

Sunday, April 29

This illness, by far the sickest Julia has ever been, makes it clear what a social personality she has. She has been feeling terrible — crying, clinging, and nursing or sleeping most of the time. But three times this weekend, when guests have come over to eat, she has rallied as soon as they walked through the door, crawling around, pulling up, laughing and showing off for everyone before crashing again and going down for another nap.