A hodge-podge of things...

On Friday, Julia had a follow-up appointment with the hematologist that took care of her in the NICU when she was born. This was to follow-up on the hereditary parts of the blood clotting issues in our family. When she was in the NICU, it was determined that she had the Factor V leiden (genetic mutation) of the blood clotting issues, but the other part, the protein C level, couldn't be determined because those levels don't normalize to adult levels until about 6-9 months. So, on Friday, Julia had her blood taken to test her protein C levels. She did great with the blood draw. She whimpered just a little while Mike entertained her with her favorite spoons rattle toy and I held her. After it was done, she was just fine as if nothing happened. She got some Veggie Tales and Sponge Bob stickers for her heroic efforts (OK, the Sponge Bob stickers were a request from mommy). She definitely handles medical stuff well. I hope and pray that her protein C level comes back normal and that she does not have a low level giving her the other part of the hereditary component that I have, protein C deficiency. My gut feeling tells me that she has it; but that is just a hunch. We will know by Monday or Tuesday next week.


Julia and I hit it big at two local garage sales on Friday. I always swore my children would always get new clothes, but then reality hit and we realized how much new children's clothes are! The sales were right in our neighborhood. One had a ton of Gap and Gymboree girl's clothes; the other had tons of books and toys. At the clothing sale, we got 8 pairs of pants, 5 shirts, PJ's, a toy phone, and a jean dress all for $13. At the toy sale we got 26 books and two toy city play sets for $5.25! Yes, that was 26 books! It was fun going through all the books and many of them were from my childhood. I grabbed every Berenstein Bears book (one of my favorites) as well as others with Sponge Bob, Dora and Spot the Dog. It is so funny how a child changes your life. I was always into finding deals for myself at the mall or trying to get a round or two of golf in on the weekends; now a good weekend is finding cheap deals on your kid's stuff! :)

My back is slow to heal and it frustrates me how long this pain has lasted. Julia continues to grow and learn something new everyday. To help my back, I have been walking a lot and we went on a nice, long walk today while daddy put together large storage shelves for all of Julia's toys. We picked up these shelves today during Julia's first trip to IKEA!

We finally got to pick some produce from our garden today. We have lovely sugar snap peas growing and Julia and I munched on a few while we surveyed the rest of the garden. We tasted 2 grape tomatoes that were just ripe enough to enjoy. I was able to make a delicious corn and black bean salsa with some fresh cilantro from the garden. All the other veggies are growing well and have lots of unripened fruit that is still growing. Another pleasant surprise is that we realized there are numerous raspberry and blackberry bushes growing in the tall brush behind our house near the garden. I don't know if they are edible, but I am going to try to find a way to figure out if they are. Julia loves fruits, veggies and whole grains. She does eat more meats now, but seems partial to the ground grown stuff.

Julia continues to really enjoy swim lessons. When I signed her up for them, I really didn't think she would learn to swim or the mechanics of swimming; more of just getting used to the pool and playing with toys. Well, at each lesson it seems as if she is catching on more and more to this swimming thing. She now kicks both of her legs, albeit a bit slow, but she moves both of her arms back and forth when she is floating on her tummy "chasing" a toy in the water. This is a huge change from day one when all she wanted to do was splash in the water with her hands. It is so much fun being in the pool with her.

Here are some pictures from our walk and visit to a local park:

Big, brown eyes in the midday sun

Look out ahead! Julia riding one of the playground bouncy, spring things...this one was a tractor (the other in the background is a motorcycle).

Julia LOVES to swing!

Higher mommy!
(don't worry, we didn't go too high)

I am pooped after that walk and all that playing at the park. Julia is resting comfortably on daddy.

Pain, pain go away.....!

Julia and I are both dealing with our separate pain issues this week. She is sprouting teeth like crazy! She now has 3 teeth on the top and 4 on the bottom with more coming in! It is crazy how fast they are pushing through. I on the other hand am still dealing with my back pain, though it has improved throughout the weekend. I have been resting a lot, icing, and using my muscle zapper. This combined with not picking up Julia at all (OK, I did maybe 3-4 times when I got overzealous on the pain medication) has definitely helped things heal. I am about 60% better and the pain is worse in the morning. I only take one pain pill a day which seems to take the edge off. I don't like to take too much pain medication and can tolerate a low to moderate level of pain. Having a little pain also reminds me to not overdo it, which I did yesterday when the pain medication kicked in, I picked up Julia and started doing some cleaning because I felt so good. I didn't pay for it thankfully, but Mike gives me gentle reminders to take it easy. On Tuesday, I will start physical therapy again and hopefully that will help me in the recovery process. We seem to be handling things pretty well right now, though I think Mike is a little more exhausted than usual because he has to do all the heavy work himself in terms of the parenting. :) With me laying around so much, I have had the opportunity to get a lot of floor play time in with Julia.

On Friday, Julia had her 9 month well-baby check-up. She did great. The doctor was extremely pleased by how healthy and well developed she is. She said she is developing just fine and not at all worried that she isn't crawling or lifting herself up onto furniture yet. She stands very well with our support or if we put her on a piece of furniture. She is scooting around in circles on her butt and belly, but no forward or backward motions. The doctor said crawling is not a developmental milestone because some babies skip crawling all together. The doc was also pleased with how well Julia is eating and advancing on her solid foods. Julia basically eats everything and anything now. She gets limited baby food because she loves table food and eating what we eat. It hasn't been a struggle at all to get her to try new things. The doc said there is no reason to keep her on baby food if she is tolerating table food. This is great because we can start buying less and less baby food and feed her what we eat during meals. Julia's lungs were completely clear and healthy and her ears were also clear and the doctor could see her ear drums and they looked great. No shots at this appointment, so it was a quick check-up. Her are her stats:
Weight: 23 lbs; 1 oz (96th percentile!) Doctor was not at all concerned about her weight-"she is a healthy eater" she said. She will lose a lot of this weight when she starts moving.
Height: 28.5 inches (76th percentile) She may be a little taller though because it was tough getting her to lay straight
Head circumference: 18.11 inches (92nd percentile)

Like I said, Julia eats everything. Yesterday we went to a local farmer's market and bought a bunch of fresh, locally grown produce. At the market we purchased some cucumbers (pickling cucumbers because those are the only ones in season right now, but they are tasty). When I was eating one, Julia wanted to try it, so I let her take a "bite". Oddly, she loved it! So, I cut a few small pieces for her without the skin and she happily at it. She loved taking a "bite" (which is where I would cut off a small piece and place it on the top of the cucumber and she would eat it off like she was biting it) after mommy took a bite. She will eat anything and definitely has her mommy's taste for fruits and veggies.

Speaking of fresh veggies, our garden is growing extremely well. All the plants now have blooms and there should be some veggies on them any day now. The tomatoes are doing well and there are many small green tomatoes on them waiting to ripen in the warm summer sun. With Julia loving veggies so much, I am very glad Mike and my dad made a garden for us so we could grow some of our own produce.

Julia loves sitting on the stairs (with daddy's help of course)

Our garden with lots of greenery!

Julia napping on daddy

One of Julia's favorite sit and play toys

This is just a silly picture we took...so sorry Julia to subject you to this (every kid has these set up pose pictures)

OK, seriously mom and dad...this is enough. Can we get these off please?

Another Wisconsin Trip

Over the 4th of July weekend, we traveled to Wisconsin to visit lots of family members. We arrived at Grandpa and Grandma Mock's house on Friday around noon. Grandpa and Grandma were of course ecstatic to see Julia. Grandpa is doing much better and it was great to see him feeling better and able to play with Julia. On Saturday, we went for a nice long walk with Grandma Mock to a nearby park. The walk was very nice and was nice for my back which was stiff from the long car ride the day before. On Saturday afternoon we traveled to Stoughton for cousin Ainsley's baptism. We arrived around 3pm and had a great time with Grandma and Grandpa Stephany, Aunt Heather, Uncle Dave, cousin Ainsley of course, great grandmas Voelker and Stephany and other Gerard family members. Since Julia is a very scheduled sleeper, Mike stayed at Heather and Dave's house while we went to the 5:15pm church service for Ainsley's baptism. I of course had to and wanted to be there because I am Ainsley's godmother ( I am so proud!). When we returned around 6:30pm, Julia was in her PJs, ready for bed. We were going to have her snooze in Ainsley's pack n play until we were ready to leave after the baptism party, but Julia wanted none of that. She didn't want to sleep, so we ended up leaving early around 8pm. Julia was so tired, she cried about 3/4 of the time during the drive to Grandma and Grandpa Mock's house. Once there, she was fast asleep after drinking about 1/2 ounce of her bottle.

In other news, my back is still on the mend. Actually, it is worse than last week. The pain finally got to me this morning, so I went to urgent care. I was given prescription pain medications and also a device that delivers little electrical currents through the muscle. I place the device on using patches around the area of pain and crank up the electricity. It helps a little, but I have a bunch of doctor appointments the rest of this week to get evaluated further and hopefully have an MRI to see what is going on. It is quite painful and exhausting having to alternate my movements and lifestyle around this pain.

My bath time hairdo!

I am so glad you are feeling better Grandpa, now you can play with me and all my toys!

My niece, Ainsley, and me at the church after the baptism. The tall guy is Nate, the godfather.

The "Juli's": from left to right: Juliet, Julia and Julie

Mommy and Julia

Julia and Ainsley playing before out attempted bedtime.

Julia and Aunt Heather