Tuesday, January 2

Julia had her first fever today, coming with the beginning of a cold. It wasn’t very high, but it did make her feel cranky. We easily brought it down with children’s acetaminophen. 

Cute things Julia does these days: rubs her eyes when she’s sleepy, revs like a motor when she’s trying to go to sleep, raspberries constantly when she’s happy. She’s also becoming less interested in something you hand her than in something lying around or something you’re using (that is, she only wants what’s not offered to her.)

Monday, January 8

Julia had her 6-month visit at the pediatrician’s office today. She weighs 16 pounds, 6 ounces, which is just about the 50th percentile for her age, but she’s only in the 25th percentile for her height (25 1/4 inches) – shocking considering her towering parents! She had a fever last week, and we had taken her in for her first sick visit, but she appeared just to have a cold. Dr. David Landis, her fabulous pediatrician, continues to say that she’s doing very well.

Friday, January 12

Julia clearly wants to crawl, but she’s just not sure what to do. If you put her on the floor, she starts doing full pushups – she’s always been very strong – but she hasn’t figured out how to move to go forwards. The force of her arms tends to push her backwards somewhat, so she just gets madder and madder as she gets farther away from whatever she’s trying to reach.

Thursday, January 18

Well I know we reported in November that Julia had begun to babble, saying “ah ma ma ma” one night, but since then we hadn’t heard another consonant until today. Tonight she began saying “ga ga ga ga ga” and regaled us repeatedly with her animated chatter.

Sunday, January 21

Julia is getting closer to being able to crawl. She continues to do push ups and then flop down onto her stomach to reach for a desired object. Then she pushes up again and repeats the process. Unfortunately this tends to result in her creeping backwards (notice in the video how she gets farther away from the yellow toy) and is very frustrating. However, today I saw her up on her hands and knees in perfect crawling position for the first time. We hope for her sake she will crawl soon, because it’s terrible to see her so frustrated, but we’re alarmed at the amount of babyproofing we’ll need to do!

Yesterday we started teaching Julia to sign. Since babies can understand language long before they can form words, you can give them the tools to communicate months before they can speak, and reduce their frustration. Studies have shown that babies who sign start speaking just as early as other babies, so it doesn’t cause any delays. We’re using ASL with the assistance of a kit called Sign with Your Baby, and we started with the signs for “milk” (which we use for “nurse”), “eat” (for solid food), and “more”.

Wednesday, January 24

Julia has very specific tastes in art! We have a small collage hanging at the top of our stairs by South Carolina artist Arliss Day, and we noticed that Julia was staring at it with a huge grin on her face as we carried her up and down the stairs. She gets very excited as she approaches it and does a little wiggly dance.  It’s very funny. No other art we’ve shown her produces the same reaction.

Saturday, January 27

A week ago, we moved Julia from our bed to her crib at night. (“Shocking!” say half of you. “They had their baby in bed with them for 6 1/2 months! She’ll never be independent!” “Shocking!” say the other half. “They’re letting their baby sleep alone when she’s only 6 1/2 months old! She’ll feel abandoned!”) It was a difficult decision, but she was waking up every hour or two, and Josh was looking increasingly sleep deprived. We now put her in her crib and rub her back and sing to her until she falls asleep. She is waking up much less, though. She always slept on her back or side in our bed but rolls over to her stomach immediately in the crib, and as our mothers always knew, babies seem to sleep more soundly on their stomachs. We are appreciating the increased sleep, but we miss our snuggly (not to mention wiggly) little baby at night.

Tuesday, January 30

Julia achieved forward movement today! I wouldn’t call it crawling – it was more of a flopping up and down – but she did manage to move forward, which is good since she never figured out how to harness her backward movement to go in a desired direction. She continues to be very curious and wants to get her hands on everything around her – here she is taking a bath in the sink at Gramma and Grampa’s house in Clinton, NY, and trying to grab everything in sight.