March 30, 2010: I have been horrible about updating the blog lately. Where to begin... We'll start with me and my pregnancy. I am 6 months pregnant now. I have been feeling fine overall and have gotten into a good work out routine. I do some exercise videos and I also do spinning on my bike with a spinning video. I have not worked out for a few weeks now though because my back has been hurting a lot lately. Last night I went to a yoga class and it was a great stretch and my back feels the best it has in weeks. I have my next check up tomorrow but all has been well with the baby. I don't think I have announced that we are having a third girl yet! James was unable to attend the ultrasound when I found out so I had the technician write it on a ultrasound picture and put it in an envelope, we opened it at home that night together.
Julia is doing great. She is just about to be 17 months. She is changing and developing so much every single day. I think I probably write that in every blog entry but this age range is just such an amazing time and such a fun time. She is getting bigger, finally getting a little more hair, she is running around full speed trying to keep up with her sister. Her vocabulary is amazing. I never thought she would be verbal the way that Casey was, I thought Casey was a fluke, but Julia really does speak a lot for her age. She never liked books early on but lately she is obsessed. She wants to read books all the time and will grab a book and come up to us and say "book, book, sit, sit". If we are sitting on the floor she will sidle up to us and back right in and sit on our lap, it is hilarious. A while back now she finally got good at going down stairs and getting off of high things like the bed or couch.
At her 15 month check up (now again, this is almost two months ago) she weighed 19 and a half pounds which is about the 10th percentile. She was in the 50th percentile for height. We went to Florida over our Spring break and Julia became a water bug. She would play around on the steps, dunking her head under and fearlessly jumping off the steps. I am so happy she has taken to the water the way Casey did, I think we'll try to start her on the same mommy and me swim class that I did with Casey last year. I'm having a lot of fun with Julia now. She is very cute, funny, snuggly, and smart. She is also VERY feisty! She is stubborn if she doesn't get what she want. She will scream and stamp her feet if I take something from her.
Casey is also great. She went through a stage where she completely gave up on her nap and I was sad to see it end, but then after about two weeks she just went back to it. If she doesn't take a nap the wheels start coming off by 6pm and she conks out by 7pm. On those nights it gets tricky at bed time because usually we put Julia down at 7pm and she is asleep by the time Casey gets in there at 7:30-7:45. But if Casey needs to go to bed near 7 and Julia isn't asleep yet Julia gets all fired up and starts talking to Casey. We have just let them play it out and now Julia might talk for a few minutes but they just go to sleep without too much trouble. Also, Casey has not been doing her middle of the night yelling any more. She used to cry out a few times a night anywhere from 5 seconds long to a few minutes, but this had faded out over the past few months and she really doesn't do it anymore which is great. Casey also had fun swimming in Florida. She was just brave and experimented a lot in the pool. She would flop around and figured out her buoyancy which helps her swimming a lot. It makes a big difference when you don't have to watch her every single second. She really can swim by herself now which is fun. She has been getting into more pretend play. I will overhear her having conversations with herself or with a doll which is new behavior.
Julia and Casey get along fairly well. I absolutely love when I catch them doing things together and playing nicely. I love it when Casey tried to include Julia and help her do things. Julia is always interested in what Casey is up to and if Casey is receptive to her being there then it goes well but if Casey wants to do something on her own then she will yell at Julia to get away. It is a fine line for me to try and balance having Casey learn tolerance and being inclusive of Julia but also giving her the time and right to do her own thing and give her the space she needs to be independent of Julia.
Also we found out that Casey got a good pick in the lottery for her pre school for next year. We had done a lot of searching around and looked at public, private and montessori schools. After a lot of thought we decided on the public school system here in Watertown. They have a lottery to get in and we got the assignment we were hoping for. So starting in September she will go to school Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings for about 2 1/2 hours. She is really looking forward to it. I am happy she is excited about the idea but also I cannot believe it.
Anyways, I think that is about it for now...I will get some pix up and maybe some videos up too.
Here's one of James and the girls with our friend Julie Chu and her silver medal.
