Happy Valentine's Day!

I clearly made the best decision of my life when I married Greg. Since this is the first year he wasn't scrambling to get home from work, stopping at the grocery store for a card and flowers last minute, he decided to take advantage of the situation. He made me a wonderful dinner, complete with homemade bread (via breadmaker) since that is my favorite food.

And this was dessert! (Notice Julia's shirt says "Daddy's Sweetheart." She's going to have to fight me for him! I'M HIS SWEETHEART!)

Chocolate cake complete with caramel and fudge sauce, whipped cream, berries, and cookies 'n cream ice cream.

Hmmm...who was this dessert really for?

Girls in Pink

Can you see it? Julia got her first tooth on Valentine's Day, bottom left (your right).

The better to bite you with, my dear!

What do you do in the wintertime?

If you're in Georgia, you can go hiking in the wintertime! 

Wave hi!

Yep, it's January, and Greg is wearing short-sleeves.

Making friends with the tree

BUT...if you go to Franklin, TN, you can go SLEDDING in the wintertime.

Family Sledding Time!

We were visiting Ben, Jenny, Tyler and Tucker

Greg threw a snowball at her, and she thought it was hilarious!

All the kids....Tucker didn't go sledding, but he did hang out with us in the snow.

Tyler took Julia down. There's only one thing she loves more than sledding, and that is Tyler. She worships Tyler.

And this is the little man we came to visit...Tucker Jay.

He was blessed on the first Sunday of February.

How adorable are these matching suits?!

And how adorable is this dress, compliments of Aunt Jenny?

The Happy Family

Tyler dancing with Julia

Can you tell how much she adores her older cousin?

The Tornado

Julia went from being a passive, slow-army-crawling, never-makes-any-trouble baby to a wild, into-everything, crawls-everywhere-in-the-blink-of-an-eye, tornado baby! It all happened when she finally transitioned to crawling on her knees, and of course the day she figured out how to open cabinets and drawers.  

This is Julia when she was a good baby. See how innocent she looks?

Then she learned how to pull all the DVDs off the shelves

And climb into cabinets

And she figured out a new place she could poop in private

She found all the baby-safe toys we left for her under the sink

Yeah, we let our 10-month-old play with plastic bags. Don't you?

What's that? Actually playing with her own toys! It happens every once in a while.

Hello!

Open, close, open, close...it never gets old

And I'm getting really nervous about what Greg is teaching her while I'm at work. THE TRUMPET? Seriously???!!!

She even goes wild in her crib when we're not watching

Notice how she has to stand on everything, like the dustpan.

And she loves the stairs, and is good at going up AND down them.

I wonder what is in this cabinet....

Or this cabinet

Making friends with the cans

More cabinets

And more cabinets...

And drawers...

Smoking a syringe...good thing I took all of the cigars out of that drawer!

She crawled right into this box

And she insists on putting the elephant's tail in her mouth and crawling around the house. I don't know why, but it's adorable.

So why are we encouraging her to learn how to walk when she's already a tornado? Now THAT'S a good question.

My 10-Month-Old is in Therapy...

Feeding therapy, that is.

When we last saw the GI specialist in October, he recommended feeding therapy for her swallowing problems. By the time the referral called, I had decided she was fine. When my pediatrician told me at her 10-month appointment that we should consider feeding therapy, I decided I should finally listen. Two doctors? Okay, we've got a problem.

The problem was that when Julia would eat solids, she would gag, choke, and throw up on food with textures, and sometimes foods that were completely pureed. It was so bad that I didn't want to give her solids anymore. And of course, because of these constant unpleasant experiences, Julia hates to eat and refuses food. 

So we went to therapy, and it was LIFE CHANGING. In our 50-minute assessment, Shannon (who is a speech and feeding therapist) identified that Julia's issues stem from control over thick textures. It had nothing to do with chunks, and everything to do with viscosity. She taught us to close her mouth when she starts to gag to initiate the swallow reflex which has in turn prevented her from throwing up, and she taught us to push the spoon down on her tongue and let her take the food from us so that she is in control. Okay, so maybe this is no-brainer information for you veteran mothers out there, but we were clueless. 

A whole new world has opened up for Julia. She is eating spaghetti, carrots, beans, rice and puffs and all sorts of new stuff! (She could always eat Cheerios which dissolve into a thin texture, but would constantly throw up with Puffs which dissolve into a stickier substance.) 

And since she is able to eat finger foods, she is finally feeding herself...

She hasn't quite mastered the spoon (which is a Squirt - the best thing ever invented, thank you Tammy!), but she enjoyed making a mess. 

Hmm....maybe we should have stuck to the pureed foods for longer. I think we'll be doing a lot more laundry in the future...