Julianna had her dedication yesterday. The dress got finished on Saturday night, but not at midnight, so I had plenty of time to spare. I'm going to get some formal photos done in the dress.
Julianna has finally learned "no". Sigh. It is not her favorite word and half the time she does not use it in proper context. All in good time, I suppose. Mostly we are just thrilled that she is using words at all. She tried a sentence this week. It was "garble, garble cracker". This was progress over her usually which is "cracker" in continually increasing tones. Hopefully we will soon be saying "I would like a cracker please, mommy" (I can at least dream).

Mommy, your books don't have any duck pictures!!

Julianna has discovered that mommy likes to read books and that mommy likes to read books to her. This has lead to a new game around our house. When I am occupied in a task that does not involve her, she will get a book and come ask me to read it to her. And by read, I mean look at about four pages before she tries to take over the project or get down. In some ways it is good because she is learning to sit in my lap and read and also because it means she wants to be with mommy, which makes me happy.

We are having a word explosion around here. She is attempting lots of words and picking up more and more. She is also starting to use them for requests. Yesterday she asked for an apple and when we are out and she is ready to go home, she will starting saying house. The funniest word so far is "R2", which is has not quite mastered, but she is trying.

In my prolonged attempted to write this blog, we have now completely read through a book, cover to cover in one setting. (Plus three or four partial readings).

I was so excited on Saturday as I headed to work. I made it out of the house in one trip, with very little drama from Julianna. I had my list, my coat, my parking passes. I was set. I get to the hospital to see my first patient and there is not a stethoscope in my coat pocket. "Someone" had taken it out of my pocket. No one has of yet confessed, but I have a short list of suspects.

Our Brown Envelope has arrived!! Hallelujah, I was starting to worry.


To catch everyone up, when you adopt internationally, there is a collection of paperwork to be completed at the consulate of the country of origin. The consulate will send you the paperwork sometime after your I171 is approved so that when you travel, you will have all the necessary forms. Good thing our has finally come.

The letter accompanying our packet is actually dated for before we traveled. Why it took four and a half months to get to us, is a mystery for the US Postal service.

May I speak to Pa Pa, please?

Julianna is now the proud owner of a Library card. We attempted story hour last week, but it did not work. They will restart in the fall and hopefully by then she will be able to sit in my lap and listen to a story being read. She does like picking books off the shelves and turning pages. And the toddler size tables are just too cool. She is getting better with the books. She let me read about four pages of one before she decided the pages were just turning too slowly and she had to speed up the process.

She is working really hard on her words. The new ones are cheese, diaper, bath, bike, truck. We are trying to do sign language with her as well, but it is slow because half the time we have to look the symbol up in the book before we can use it. I think we will have to start sooner with baby #2 and learn it before we have the little one. We had not planned to use it with Julianna, but she is acquiring spoken language slower than we had anticipated.

The tech whiz has just discovered the Nintendo. Wonder if they still make games for the Super Nintendo version?

Maybe she will have her own blog at Christmas.

This is totally a staged picture. She tossed the hat every time I put it on her head, so Grammy would get all focused and ready and I would drop the hat on for a quick photo before the toss.

Finally, pictures. Julianna has decided to pick up some more words. She now says bird, bear, ball, Paul (for monkey Paul) and book. Hallelujah, she can say book. She is even starting to enjoy books. Right now she has her favorite books and likes to turn the pages and look at the animals on the pages. Every once in a while, she will let me read the words on the page and not just point out the animals. She is picky about her books, though. Not every book with animal pictures will do. It always amazes me how selective she can be.

She is going to be a technology whiz. She has been running around the TV room with my palm, trying to call Pa Pa. She has learned how to put discs into the CD drive and we are working on learning to put them back in their case. Yesterday I caught her with my iPod (trying to call Pa Pa, of course). She likes to play with the computer mouse and push the keyboard buttons, which makes blogging a challenge. She has also discovered the reset button, meaning some blogs are written twice. Thankfully, blogspot added a autosave function.

Baby's patience is now exceeded. Bye bye

It is another no picture post. I have taken some, just need to download them.

We went to the doctor today. Julianna has grown 3/4 of an inch and gained 3 ounces. He is not at all concerned. He was also not worried about her language skills and we will go back in six months for another check-up.

Happy Fourth to everyone. Mommy is taking her first real day off. I loaded Julianna and Daddy up in the car this morning, bound for his parents and I am going to relax. Would you believe it is raining at Wimbledon? I guess I can scratch that off my days plans. Probably a good thing because there are only so many hours in a day. With any luck I will finish her dedication dress today.

I am enjoying being a mommy. She is quite the little sweetheart. We seem to have come to a standstill on our language acquisition. She is pretty content with "da" and pointing. It is a bit frustrating for me because it does not work for complicated requests. I guess she does not see the need.

Well, off to start my busy day of relaxing...