Thank Heaven it is Summer! I have been looking forward to this moment for the last 9 months! This last year has been so challenging for me and I am happy to say that I've made it! Challenge #1 was becoming a parent. This turned out to be a very small challenge because Julia has never given me any challenge at all! She has been sick a total of 2 times, each of which were short and not any big deal. She did have one trip to the emergency room a couple weeks ago with a small case of croup. She was having a hard time breathing but the minute we took her outside to the car in the cool air, she was fine. We took her in anyway but it proved to be nothing a little cool mist humidifier couldn't cure! She has been the biggest blessing to my life, I am amazed at her development, her beauty, and the joy she brings to me. Here are some recent updates on my amazing child:
- She is walking! Julia has been taking steps since the end of last month. At 10 1/2 months old, I am thrilled that she is developing so quickly and well! She's not exactly running around yet, crawling is still her main mode of transport, but she walks from one thing to another and is getting pretty good at it!
- She is getting better and better with eating foods. She has gone through stages of good eating and bad. At this moment, she is in a pretty good stage. She loves to self-feed, especially cheese cubes, cheerios, canned green beans, and noodles.
- She has six teeth! The bottom two teeth came in between 6 and 7 months. Then there was a long break but then all four teeth on the top came in at once. It was quite the drama from Julia, believe me! When she's teething, the eating habits go way down and all she wants is formula but that's okay, I'm willing to spoil her a little to comfort her pain, poor baby!
- She has her own room now (kind of). We moved down the hall to a much bigger apartment. It's still a studio loft but with 300 more square feet. It has made a huge difference in space for us. We moved at just the right time because Julia was starting to crawl EVERYWHERE. This new place has a lot of open floor space for exploring and she has her own space with our clothing racks as her walls. She has real crib now that we have the space for one and it will turn into a toddler bed when she's ready.
Challenge #2 from this last year was rehabilitating from the stroke I had a week after Julia was born. For those of you who didn't know, the stroke affected the right side of my body, including my right hand, which took a big hit. Despite the setback, I have worked extremely hard to rehabilitate my hand through physical therapy and a LOT of practicing. Needless to say, I made it through the first year of working on my doctorate (Challenge #3!) and I gave my first doctoral recital May 5th. I was really happy with the way it went and after it was over, I felt I came a really long way in the rehab of my right side. There is still work to be done but I'm ready to face it!
This summer is going to be awesome! I have ZERO work lined up so I am spending mucho tiempo with Julia and at the gym. We've been going swimming at the YMCA. She LOVES the pool, I mean loves it! She is a great swimmer already (well, with a little support from underneath)! She has been a water baby from the very start, always loving the bath. She loves to be dunked under water and comes up squealing with delight! She is really good at kicking and swimming with her arms and I'm trying to teach her how to float on her back. It's so much fun. After swimming I drop her off at the child watch they have at the Y and I enjoy the spinning classes that have. Man I love Summer!
One more project I have for this summer is learning and practicing food dehydration. We've had a food dehydrator since before we got married but I've never had time to start. So finally, things are all settled and I got all the supplies to start. Last night was my first attempt and I made Mango Raspberry fruit leather. It turned out really good and right now there is some Strawberry Banana leather in process. It's fun and I'm working on finding some healthy snack recipes for Julia since she loves finger foods so much.
Other plans for the summer include Adam's brother's wedding, and then a week later up to Oregon for my own brother's wedding. Yep, Clay is all grown up!
I have a beautiful family, wonderful friends, and overall a very blessed life! Hopefully this blog will see some updates now that I finally have time to do other things besides schoolwork!
Lauren~
Next is a picture from a recent beach party we went to for some friends who are moving. Julia and her friend Kate are always cute playing together but this was especially funny when they were climbing on the beach chair together trying to share it.
A few nights ago, Adam and I decided to go out to Santa Monica Place and Promenade to do a little window shopping. We took our camera and caught a few good pictures:
Thanks for reading!
