10 Months

October 4-
My sweet little girl is growing way too fast!

We ended this month with a double ear infection, but Julienna has been such a trooper.  Hind sight is 20/20, but after 4 or 5 sleepless nights (or rather sleep in 1 hour increments) I finally took her to the urgent care only to discover that she has had a double ear infection.  Poor girl. She has had a fever too, but she is one tough cookie when it comes to getting her to take medicine.  She purses her little lips closed and then if you get the medicine in she just pushes it out.  It's going to be a painful next 10 days of getting her to take the antibiotic.
This month Julienna hit a major milestone...crawling!  That was just what she needed to gain a bit of independence and now she is getting into all sorts of stuff.  Don't get me wrong, she still loves to be held by mom, but she is starting to explore the world on her own now!  Which is good because she is getting really heavy in the front pack.  I think she is up to a whopping 17 lbs!  I think she skipped the whole army crawl phase (although in her room she would use the rug to pull herself around) and went right to hands and knees.  We had practiced a couple days on the stairs so that she would get the rhythm and then she was off!

 
She also pulls herself up on EVERYTHING!  One morning I came into her room to find her standing in her crib looking over the side...that day I lowered her mattress.  And the same thing happened at the cabin, except she was in the pack n' play on her hands and knees holding onto the side and rocking back and forth with that smile that says "I'm trouble now!"  And she did have an accident, trying to pull herself up on some folded chairs.  Instead of her going up, the chairs came down.  But otherwise she is enjoying the extra bit of independence.  Although, it's all happening too fast for me.  I still feel like she should be that little bitty baby I brought home from the hospital.

  

 

She is still my good little eater and she tried a meatball this month along with frozen peas and anything else I throw at her.  She absolutely loves sour cream and onion potato chips (who doesn't it) and graham crackers.  She even takes 9 ounce bottles at night time, which is awesome because it gets her through the whole night!
Julienna got her 4th tooth mid month and they look so cute on her!  She still has bright blue eyes and her hair has really lightened up to blonde like her brother and mama.  Her hair is filling out and getting longer, she no longer has the bald spot in the back from laying on it!  Such a beautiful girl, especially when she smiles!
She still loves her "keke" and now she will put it in her mouth to carry it while she is crawling.  So cute!  And if she drops it out of her crib at night, she lets me know!  That little keke has definitely been a life saver.  She still puts it up close to her face and kind of talks to it as she falls asleep.
My favorite thing about this month....she says "mama".  Not all the time, but clear enough that other people recognize it!  It is music to my ears.  Now we can start on dada, but after everything we've been through, I needed that !

Kingston is still her number one. Just the mention of his name causes her to light up and look around for him.  She tolerates so much of his roughness, which I guess is just making her stronger (or at least that's what I tell her :).  And too think I was worried he wouldn't  want her!

We've gotten into a pretty good daily routine. Julienna wakes up anywhere from 7-8 am. We usually play in her room for a bit and Kingston will bring his toys in and take over the place.  Then we head down for breakfast.  Around 11, she takes a bottle and goes down for a nap. That nap is usually a solid hour if not more, depends on the commotion going on outside her door (sometimes when the transformers are battling, it gets a little loud). Lunch, play time, and a bottle and then we try really hard for that second nap.  I can get either Kingston or Julienna down for the afternoon nap, but I'm not very successful at getting them both down.  Julienna will rarely take a nap longer than an hour in the afternoon (unless of course she is with someone else!).  Then we play until dinner time at 6.  By 7 we are working on bedtime and play in her room, read stories, and take a bath.  Then it is a bottle and bed by 8.  She has been going to bed a little bit awake but curls up with her blankets and falls asleep on her own.  Then, she sometimes cries out at 4 or 5, but I just rock her back to sleep or nurse her for a minute.
Julienna is so fun.  She will play and interact with her toys and I love that.  She will roll a ball and chase it or sit and play with a car or her tea cakes.

Julienna gets excited to be in her room and she comes crawling when she hears the bathtub.  She is also starting to be curious about the dogs and loves to pull Barney's fur and touch Tucker's jowls.

 

I just can't get enough of her!  She has so many similarities to Kingston as a baby, yet at the same time she is so different.  I'm so excited to watch her continue to grow into the beautiful rambunctious little girl I know she is going to be.