Dogs n' Cheese

We have discovered that the Cheese has an inexhaustible love for animals. We have some baby animal books that she loves to look at. The first dog that she ever really spent any time with was Emmy - Auntie Eve and Uncle Blair's Canadian Lab. She is a giant ball of sweetness and loves Julia. When Emmy would get around Julia she would let out these little whines and whimpers that Julia has since associated with all dogs. So, when you ask the Cheese what the doggy says, she squeaks.

One day this past summer, I heard a dog right outside our door. I got the Cheese and took her out there to pet it. She doesn't really pet the dog, because she's too busy freaking out at the fact that she is actually in the presence of a dog. If you listen closely you can hear Julia squeaking.

The same thing happened when Lynnie came home with this battery powered toy dog that talks! She just freaked out.

Gettin' the Cheese

Usually, if I'm outside the room and I threaten to "get" Julia, she starts shrieking and flapping her arms. This time, she saw me coming, so it wasn't the normal thrilling suspense of an impending "getting." Most of you know, my baby girl isn't the most affectionate child on the block, so kisses and love are a tight commodity around here. And hampered by the fact that I do not lactate makes me even less "lovable" to my little Cheese. I was pretty shocked when she let me give her kisses like this. It was a rare and beautiful moment that I was pleased to have caught for posterity - and for all those times she slaps me rather than kisses me!

Crazy Foot and The Cheese

The other day Julia was enjoying some delicious Gold Fish crackers. She was sitting in her high-chair takin' story with her Momma, when all of a sudden they were visited by Julia's Crazy Left Foot. Since she was born, she had these crazy lookin' toes on her left foot. We called it her "Crazy Foot" and would treat it like a separate personality from the rest of her. If she is in a foul mood - it's probably because of "Crazy Foot." If she does something goofy - it's because "Crazy Foot" told her to do it. You can see from the video footage, that Crazy Foot just does what it wants.

Crawling Cheese?

Today I came home from the library and before I opened the door I could hear Lynnie and Julia shrieking inside. I came into the apartment to find my daughter scurrying about in the buff while Lynnie made her laugh. Naked time is happy time...for everyone. I don't know what happened between this morning and this afternoon, but the Cheese had really made monumental strides in her mobility.

Crawling - It ain't pretty, but it is forward progress. Julia has a tendency to get on her knees, cry, flop on her stomach, cry, pivot in a circle, cry, scoot backward, cry, get stuck under the couch, cry and give up. This afternoon, however, we saw a marked improvement. She went forward - it wasn't straight, it wasn't easy, but it was definitely forward. You will note her polite disposition as she says "Hi" on her way past me.

Lynnie was reading an ABC's book to Julia today. For the letter T there is a turkey tripping. We've read the book 100 times before, but today "tripping turkeys" were HYSTERICAL, because Lynnie would say "whoa" and pretend to make Julia trip. So whenever Lynnie told Julia not to trip, she would giggle. At the end of the video, you'll see Julia in stitches because Lynnie was warning her against tripping.

After some time as a quadruped, we quickly evolved to biped status, which she has been doing much longer, and scurried about.

After such a strenuous work out - we hit the showers!