Catching Up

Today I'm in the process of catching up on many things:  my laundry, my yard, this blog...if you should ever become a teacher, Jules, remember that it's all-consuming and takes over your life.  Kind-of like parenthood, I guess, except that at least we have daycare for you!  Maybe we need daycare for college students...

The last time I posted was November 20th, and the post didn't even make it up on here, so that's a lot to catch up on.  Let's see if I can try.  By November, you were sitting up, fully, and very proud of it.  In fact, still, every time you get up on your hands and knees, you revert petulantly into a sitting position.

This is one of our favorite pictures of you, with Daddy, at the Thanksgiving Day parade.  By this time, you didn't even really have to hold on, but his hair is irresistable!  I love that you're looking one way, dad is looking the other, and there's a "one way" sign in the background.  Sad to say, that was the highlight of that particular parade.  Thanksgiving itself was a bit different this year; we went to one of Grammy and Papa's neighbors' houses, so it was definitely more rowdy.  Nice, though.  Everyone loved you, of course.

Christmas was lovely: your very first!!  I did take lots of pictures but haven't put them up here, so here's just one:

It's my favorite, of you and Daddy putting the star up on top of the tree.  With the help of Miss Beth, your OT, you had started grasping for more things and were able to hold it, but with help.  Now you could fling it across the room (but that will come later!).

In January, we celebrated your first birthday!  Look at you sitting up so perfectly!  You always did have the best posture--in fact, you generally don't do anything until you can do it well, a fact about which I'm both proud and worried.  You know what?  Don't worry so much about being perfect.  The truth is, NO ONE IS.  We are all flawed, we all fail, but the true definition of courage is the ability to get up and try again.  And don't let anyone tell you differently.

So what did we do in February?  Let's see.  You were sick for most of it, unfortunately, but here's a sweet picture of that perfect sitting up I was talking about!! In March, you had your adenoids out and tubes put into your ears.  A routine surgery, but I was still nervous about the anesthesia.  You got through it like a champ, though, and rocked those hospital blues, as Grammy would say:

We spent March getting over the surgery, and then you had a sinus infection.  After that, you were still congested, so they finally prescribed you Flonase, twice a day.  This might seem extreme--the pharmacist was particularly judgmental about it--but it has helped so very much.  So in April, you were able to celebrate Easter in style:

Grammy came to spend Easter with us, so I'm actually in the picture.  Here's a picture of you and her:

And look at you eating your solid foods!!  I can't believe how much you've grown since October.  Last but definitely not least, you've been playing at crawling, but your real goal is to pull up and walk.  I have this great picture of you in our papasan, trying to crawl.  Look at it and compare it to the picture of you when you were two weeks old, lost in that big chair:

It's pretty amazing how you've grown, changed, and just blossomed.  Mama is so proud of you, Jules.  Now that I'm almost done grading (well, that's an overstatement, but it WILL happen), I can post more over the summer, when you go and meet your family in Hungary for the first time.  DS awareness in Hungary, here we come!!