hugs

There is no child-borne annoyance or offense that cannot be redressed by one of Julius' famous "ugg-AH"s. For a tiny little person with chubby little baby arms he sure can hug your neck tightly!

The pillow

This isn't an incredible significant bit of information but I thought it should be documented all the same.
Nothing brings Julius more joy than rolling around on the floor, clutching a pillow and farting. He does it on almost a daily basis and all the while he just smiles and laughs and laughs.

coming home

I love coming home to Julius. Doesn't matter what he's doing (or how full my arms are), as soon as he sees me he says, "OH!" and his arms shoot up so quickly that it hurts me to imitate him.
He does similar moves for when I get him out of bed after a nap or enter a room he's been playing in for a while. He makes a sweet, guileless face and says, "OH." What a sweet bundle of big boy -- even if he rolls around and yells all night!

Cuddle Treatment

Last night, around 2:00 am I whispered to Alan "Hey, did you blog about 'the cuddle treatment,' yet?" He said no so I am updating now in order to document this phenomenon.

Julius has entered a phase in his life where he must fuss or cry a bit before he is willing to finally give in and welcome sleep. Now, what we don't do is leave him alone in a room inside of a crib to cry. What we do do is hold him in our arms and rock him gently and sing. Boy does he hate it. He just cries and cries. I don't hold him very tightly so he breaks free quite a bit. After a couple of minutes of the cuddle treatment he's ready for sleep, though.
It's like some strange little dance we do now before bed.

Birthday Pictures

cake!



presents!


big boy!

Just One Year

I have been thinking a great deal about this last year, Julius' first year. Tonight I think about what I was doing last year at this very same time as we began Julius' birth adventure.

This time last year I had just entered into active labor and after a failed movie watching / birthing ball bouncing excursion I had decided to call in my doula. I also called on Alan's parents to watch Sylvia.
The events of that night are well described in mine and Alan's birth stories.
I think about that night often. When Julius' starts to nod off at the breast I remember how afraid I was and uncertain if he would take to the breast at all. When he speaks and calls out my name, "Mama," I can't help but think about those hours spent waiting, not knowing if he would make it. But most of all, I think about how immensely happy he has made our lives.
Our family seemed more whole with his arrival and feels even more so with every day that passes.

Today we celebrated his first year of life with a party in the park.. last night I celebrated with Julius alone, in our big bed. He nursed off to sleep and once finished he unlatched and bopped his way up to rest his head in the crook of my arm. I watched him sleep and as he began to snore my eyes focused in on his size and how much he has grown over this last year.
It's amazing and also a little bittersweet to think that this is just the first of many birthdays he will have where I will lay or sit with him and be in awe of how fast and how big he has grown.

adventurer

Julius is trying to do himself in. He keeps climbing to perilous heights. He'll stand on Sylvia's wooden chair, use that to climb onto her table, and then lift the curtains to look out the window. He's actually pretty good at climbing, but trouble sets in when music starts playing, since he cannot resist the urge to dance even in mid-climbing-step, or when someone smiles at him, since he cannot resist the urge to laugh and charm. We have an unfortunate video of Julius climbing up a chair, doing his sweet Woody Woodpecker laugh, and then suffering a terrible fall.
He already climbs so high, I don't know what we'll do when he starts walking! I'm sure he and big sister will have a great time exploring, though.