I realized this afternoon that we take very few pictures of Julianna now that we are home. We will have to take more so we can share them with everyone.

We went shopping for more clothes. I'm sure those of you who have seen her closet find that surprising. But mommy got tired of her "pants around the pelvis, undies exposed" fashion statement and we got some smaller shorts.

Here is something else to contemplate (because we do): things to expose your child to. We are not big TV watchers ourselves, so there is not a lot of baby TV going on in our house, but we are big readers. Everything seems different now and is questioned. For instance, Anne of Green Gables is a wonderful children's story and has very funny and endearing parts. Plus she is an orphan who gets adopted. But the mother does not want her at the beginning of the story and initially intends to send her back. Now when I think of having my child read that story, I wonder if she will move past that part or if it will be something she dwells on, wondering if we would send her back. The same goes for The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. Absolutely beautiful book with wonderful illustrations, but it is a story of loss and, eventually recovery. How old should a child who has suffered horrendous loss in their life be before reading a story with loss? Most of this will probably work itself out as she grows, because by the time she is old enough to read independently, we will probably have a better understanding of her personality and temperament.

I think the fact that we have time to sit around and think about books and culture shows that things are going much more smoothly here. She is a very happy baby and her temper tantrums are becoming less frequent and of shorter duration. We have not had a complete meltdown in awhile. She is showing some attachment signs, like walking off and looking back to make sure I am watching. She also walked away from me this morning while I was working on the laundry. She let me empty the dishwasher and refill it and wash some dishes, although by then she wanted to be held. She is much better at going down for naps and at night and will even let me rock her in the rocking chair in her room. She still will not go to Phillip.

Thanks for your comments on the Bible reading. We have a children's story Bible and an adult one for her. We will probably do stories from the children's and maybe Psalms from the adult one.