12.04.2006
Julia Juice
I realized that it's been a while since I talked in depth about Julia. So...
Extracted and condensed for your consumption...
1) She spends her days dancing. We always have music playing and it’s like she can’t help herself, when a good beat comes on she can’t help but bounce to it. And then when she notices us smiling at her she gets more creative – adding head and arm movements, getting bigger in her bounces. And she’s usually on the beat, too. Girl’s got rhythm!
2) She sings. She walks around the house singing little unrecognizable tunes. She also sings to the radio. The first song I noticed her singing along to was Patty Griffin’s “Rowing Song” As I row, row, row going so slow, slow, slow... little row row rows and slow slow slows coming from the back seat. Then, just Saturday, we were driving around running errands, and a Swamp Mama Johnson song came on, one with some real kick-ass saxophone action, and suddenly, from the carseat in the back, came some incredible scat vocals. Holy shit! She was imitating the saxophone solo!
3) She swears like a sailor. Julia now understands the correct use of the phrase “oh shit!” Used to be when she dropped something she would say, “Uh oh, I dropped it.” I’ve been trying to get her to start saying, “Yeah, I dropped it” with a bit of a ‘tude, since her “dropping” things is rarely accidental, but she’s resistant to the substitution. However, she’s taken to saying, “Oh shit!” when she drops things on accident. We try not to laugh, because though we don’t have a problem with her swearing (I have strong feelings about restricting language use re: the swears) we really don’t want her to start doing it for the reaction it gets her. Still, it’s pretty fucking funny.
4) My God, this girl can talk. For several months now she’s been using two word phrases, but I was unclear on whether she was aware that the phrases had two different words in them, or if she just thought that the phrase was one big word. In other words, even though she was technically speaking in 2 word (or more, as in the case of “I dropped it”) phrases, was she capable of creating new ones in order to get her meaning across? That question was solved last weekend when she spontaneously identified a stuffed animal as “[Grandchild the First]’s doggie”. She’s capable of answering yes and no questions about what she wants or doesn’t want, and has begun to have a say in what she wears in the morning. She’ll also answer open-ended questions, but we often have a difficult time understanding what she’s trying to say. She’ll utter a string of syllables, and when we tell her that we don’t understand, she’ll repeat herself exactly and then look at us expectantly. There’s no doubt in our minds that she is saying something specific, something repeatable, something she expects us to be able to understand. I can’t wait until her physiology catches up with her vocabulary so that we can finally understand what she’s saying, as I’m sure whatever she’s saying is fascinating. And funny. She’s already started telling little toddler jokes. She cracks herself up.
5) Picky eater. All weekend she would eat only clementines. Why she’s sick with all that vitamin c running through her system is beyond me.
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Damn, I love me some Swamp Mama Johnson. So awesome that she's learning to scat!!
Love the update.
My first word was "shit." Seriously.
I don't know what my first word was, but I'm pretty sure it was "yawn" LOL being the lazy girl I am hehehe.
I would love to see some of that dancing!!! take a video!!! or even better, take a video of the oh shit! lol...
is so amazing how grown up Julia is now!!! love her!!!!!!!!!!!!!