I'd held you off long enough

I guess I can't rely on pictures to hold you over much longer. I'm sure you would also like to hear what is new in Julian's world as well.

Yesterday he and I had our first swimming experience in both a very shallow wadding/toddler pool and an adult pool. He didn't hate it but he didn't seem to really enjoy it either. He stuck to me like glue. I didn't have to worry about holding on to him because of his amputating grip. We took it very slow and I didn't put him under. I was just letting him go in, or not go in, at his own pace. If I forced it he'd probably never want to go near a pool again. There were so many kids around I think it was a little overstimulating to him. He seemed more relaxed in the adult pool because it was pretty much just us. He had no desire to venture off on his own even out of the pool until some kids from play group showed up and he wanted to chase after them. It's cute to see him recognize his "friends."

The pool is so nice, a brand new public pool that just opened right by our house and is only $1.50 to get in! Cheaper than Starbucks and less calories! I just bought a Summer pass for $25 though which INCLUDES 8 Mommy and Me swimming lessons that start next Wednesday. They have these huge sprinkler things and a killer sand box "factory" type thing. I took some pictures of the pool area but couldn't really get any of Julian in action since Bryan wasn't with me but he's off next week (yay!) so hopefully we'll get some family swimming in and lots of photos.

We've been making playgroup pretty consistently. We all just realized that the majority of the time the group is all boys. All around the same age. Julian is the only one that is still crawling so maybe they will inspire him. I'm in no rush but I hate seeing his knees all bruised and scraped up. He doesn't even mind crawling on cement anymore or a splintery wooden deck. He does attempt walking, usually indoors more than out but he's still a crawler at heart. As you've seen he gets his thrills in other ways!

We're looking forward to Bryan being home with us for a week straight. We're talking about night weaning to try to cut back on some of the night nursing. If we could eliminate at least 3 of the wakings that would be a HUGE improvment. I'm not looking forward to it at all.

We're also dragging our feet on his first birthday planning. We're going to try to get access to the Tot Lot the playgroup meets at and just have a casual cookout. Well his ears must have been burning b/c he's awake now!

Foto Friday: Food for thought

What happens when you go to Sam's Club? 72 ounces of gluttonous mayonnaise
and mustard, that's what happens.

He loved the yogurt until it had to get pulled from the lineup due to funky
pooh. Dairy is still a no go.

Double fisting the Veggie Booty. His top choice these days.
Did anyone see that?

Wacky for watermelon
Testing the tomato
Lovin' hummus by the spoonful


And handful


Psst, hey you! The one who hates fruit...wanna try this?


Haha, who's eating fruit now, sucker! He loved the fruit smoothies, too bad his Mama is an idiot and insists on making it with banana (+ rice milk and ice) when it's been proven time and time again to upset his tummy.

Alas, his favorite thing to eat is still dirt.

Other Julian approved foods: broccoli, organic soy yogurt, organic oatmeal mixed with soy yogurt and rice milk, dairy free, all-natural chicken nuggets (new!), pretzels, all-natural turkey ham steak, hot italian turkey sausage (illegally consumed), dairy/wheat free Fig Newmans

Also wanted to say a big congrats to my niece for landing her first modeling gig. Just remember Erica, we knew you when :)

The boy is out of control. Picture a very angry monkey at a testing lab gripped on to the cage bars while jumping up and down, bouncing all over the place trying to break out. That's Julian. It's not that he's mad though, he's just crazed. A mad man. A rabid raccoon. A wild banshee. A hyped up caged monkey. I am no match for him.

You know what I do all day now? I stare at him. I am no longer that interesting to him and understandably so because there are walls to climb, cliffs to jump off of, danger to seek! So I stare and wait for my turn to save him from death. I finally think he's wearing himself out so I get ready to take him up to his nap and on the way there I'm holding a sleepy boy who is yawning and rubbing his eyes. I get to the stairs and he leaps out of my arms. He doesn't wiggle or try to slide down, he manages to break free from my grasp and lunges for the stairs. After 45 minutes we finally reach the top because of the many intermissions of unsafe playtime he likes to do while teetering on the steepest steps in the world. We get to the bed where he lays down for a second to catch his breath and he then springs onto his feet, hands on the bed rail as he jumps up and down rocking the bed rail back and forth. I grip his ankles like anchors trying to prevent another one of those episodes.

He then climbs over the bed rail on to the night stand where he can fondle the alarm clock. Every time he hits the magical button that gets the CD turning and music blasting out of the speakers scaring the drool out of him. He then giggles it off. Alarm clocks, that's a funny concept. We had to have one of those pricey models that play CDs. I couldn't possibly be woken to a repetitive buzz or dreaded morning radio. I needed to be woken by the likes of Depeche Mode from our wedding album or Bad Religion. I could also set it to the Nature sounds but being woken by nature sounds? That's just silly. I wish someone told me alarm clocks have no purpose in your life post-baby. Instead of a repetitive buzz we get babbling in our ear. Instead of bad morning radio we get climbed on. Instead of a CD playing we get our hair pulled. Instead of soothing sounds of nature on a loop, we get a smack upside the head from the monitor that Julian climbed onto the night stand to get. And that's only the beginning of the adventures ahead.

I just go on auto-pilot now protecting myself from all of the heart attacks I'm sure to endure. I keep the "be careful!" inside my head as to not make him insecure and doubt his thrill seeking abilities because that will surely make him fall. I just have to watch my little Evil Knieval. So I sit and wait....and take pictures of the adrenaline pumping in action.






*Despite the appearance of his diaper hanging between his knees, it is clean. Just a poor fitting Huggies. And I did promptly place Julian on the ground, I would not allow him to stand up in his stroller unassisted unless taking a photograph. It's all about priorities.

Julian Ridley: Month 11

I should be used to this by now, right? I mean for the past 11 months you've been growing up no matter how hard I've tried to stop you. But 11 months! E-L-E-V-E-N! Do you know what comes after 11? Oh that's right, you don't. But I'll tell you, 12 comes next! That's ONE FULL YEAR. Let's not get ahead of ourselves though just yet as you are still hanging on to infancy by a thread. And I'm going to milk it for all it's worth.

I guess I should break the news to you now though, once you hit your first birthday we won't be doing these newsletters anymore. I know, I know. We're going to be too busy living that we won't be able to stop and write everything down. Plus you change so much on a daily basis, these things will end up being miles long. I figured I should tell you now because next month you are going to be overwhelmed with all the changes turning 1 brings like your new list of chores, having to find a job, sleeping through the night and in general taking care of yourself. Uh, finnnne, I guess we can push those things off until you are two. Except the sleeping, that's in full effect on 7.11.



Let's see what have you done the past month? What haven't you done might be an easier way to ask that. You still have the two slowest teeth coming in from last month. You've had a little more variety in the food area but you aren't too crazy about it. You won't hesitate to eat a dead bug or cigarette butts but how dare I expect you to try some hummus. Which by the way you like depending on your mood. You love chicken and beef, not big on fruit, some vegetables are OK but until you stop nursing every 3.5 seconds you don't seem to have a desire to eat much food that can actually be served on a plate.



You totally impressed us with your ability to fly down stairs in a belly flop manner then impressed us even more when you learned how to go down backwards but now you are trying to go down forward standing up! You definitely can't accomplish this without assistance plus I think walking might have to come first. You've been making great progress in that area as well. Before you would take a couple steps but it was more like a dive. Now you are attempting to walk all the time and you will take a couple steps, stop to regain your balance and start again. You've gotten pretty far this way! Crawling is still your mode of choice and who can blame you with your ability to crawl faster than a jaguar.

You are such a little mountain climber too. You climb on everything and you manage to get onto things we've never thought were possible. You can actually climb out of our bathtub and this isn't a standard tub, this is one of those big, deep Jacuzzi tubs. How do you do this? Nothing is safe from your reach and determination anymore. You are such a busy little boy. I thought a lot of what you do was normal 11 month old behavior until I'm around other babies your age and I realize I'M THE ONLY MOM RUNNING ALL OVER THE PLACE chasing after you. Did I mention I'm tired? What happened to the mellow little boy in the womb who was too laid back to give me all those kicks every expecting mother wants? Well you kick plenty now, and hit and pull and throw.



You are also showing empathy these days. You bit your Dad and when he over exaggeratedly yelled out in pain you started to cry. What I can't figure out is when you bit me and I sincerely yelled out in pain you scrunched up your nose, furrowed your brows and blew a raspberry at me as if to say "ha, I spit on you, you evil lady!"

You are always full of surprises. Just the other day I heard you wake up from your nap on the monitor and I immediately went up to get you. By the time I got there, you had already gotten out of bed yourself and got over to the bedroom door and were about to open it yourself. I was not expecting to almost knock you down when I opened the door, you made me jump out of my skin! I see more babyproofing is in store. Not sure why we bother because you have already broken off a few of them. Plus, broke off our toilet paper holder from the wall and have caused damage to several other things. We don't clean up around here much these days, I'm not sure it would make a difference!

You love to take things down and out now. You will stand at any shelf, drawer or toy box and just pull everything out as fast as you can. You don't stop to play with anything, you just want to take it out. Like our shoes in the bedroom closet. They used to be lined up neatly but now they are in one big heap on the floor. You stood there and within 5 minutes every single shoe was out of the closet and you sat in the middle of the big pile looking victorious. I started to put them back and you stood up, huffed, took down the few I managed to put back, huffed again and sat back down in your pile. I tried it again and every time you would get annoyed, stop what you were doing to take them down again. Which is why they are still in one big pile on the floor. At least you are starting to put things back. Your toy basket, which has been downgraded from a toy box - we're doing this whole few select toy rotation - you will empty it and sit there and put your toys back in. You always have to have two of something though. You know how to find pairs, that's for sure. You will only pick two of the same shoes, two of the same blocks, two of the same dog bones, it's ridiculously cute.



You love to point too. You also sound like you are advancing in your speaking ability. No more mama, dada, you still do those but you now have all kinds of other sounds. You'll come up to us and begin to ramble, complete with pointing, hand gestures and facial expressions. You are definitely trying to tell us something (you seem to be telling on the dogs for something, I'm sure they stole your dog bone again) we just don't know what you are saying yet. But you do say dog now! That's exciting. We were having one of our picnics and anytime a dog would walk by you would point and say "dah!" It's not exact but we'll give it to you. I think that is your first official word aside from mama and dada.

You show your frustration to though. If you can't reach something or get stuck under something because you didn't realize you grew a million inches and can no longer cruise under the table you will get so upset.



It's been harder and harder to get pictures of you and write about all your little achievements these days. You are always on the go, we can't possibly capture that with the camera especially when we are running after you and you accomplish so much every day we can't keep up.

Oh Julian you are such an awesome little boy. I looked back just now and you are crawling towards me, shaking your head from side to side like you do now so vigorously you almost fall over as you laugh manically. How did we ever smile before you were here?

to

Foto Friday: Born to be blogged.

The real reason I had a baby, I needed something to blog about.


Serious concentration



Nope, I won't eat it!


Fine I'll try it


Yup, gross


Mmm, condiments, now this is what I want!


Taking a bite out of soccer

Summer Cold Season

It's been a total yuckfest around here since Monday when Julian's nose turned on and has yet to stop. Yes, he has his official first Summer cold, I'm sure thanks to the kid with the green goo hanging out of his nose that decided to chew all over Julian's Cheerio container. He's been acting fine it's just the snot, ohmygodthesnot won't stop. Other than that he's been his little old charming, ahem, self. We have a 2 year old's birthday party to go to Saturday which may have to be cancelled if we can't get some control over the nose flow.

Other news we think his first official word aside from Mama and Dada is "dog." No surprise there. We were having our family picnic Sunday by the water and anytime a dog walked by he would point and say "dah!" Not exact but we'll give it to him!

Back when it was safe to wear black before the nose faucet was turned on and in our matching outfits.