One Year (and a bit)

Dear Julia:

A year really has gone by since you were moving around inside my tummy, or more accurately, kicking, punching and wanting out. You'd had enough. Kind of like you'd had enough of that not moving around stuff and rushed to roll and then crawl. Now you're into everything you can get your hands on. You have a particular fondness for shoes, wallets, phones, and remotes. I imagine I could infer something about what kind of a woman you'll be from that but it's much more fun to watch it unfold rather than speculate.

Instead of talking about all the wonderful things you do, though, I'm going to attempt to capture Hunter and your relationship. But first, I do have to tell you that one of my favourite things you are doing right now is arm farts. If there's someone in the vicinity wearing a short-sleeved shirt, you like to lean over like you're doing something sweet like giving a kiss and then surprise them with the loudest fart sound you can muster. Then you come up with a giant grin on your face. This will go on for as long as your victim is willing to take it. I'm not sure where you learned this little gem but it is definitely among your favourite games.

As for you and Hunter, I love watching the two of you in the mornings. It's kind of like your special time together to play. Usually you guys are fairly in sync with when you wake up but occasionally you're up first, and when you are you can't stand it if Hunter's not up. Instead of taking advantage of some just parents and you time, you like to get as close to Hunter as possible and whap him a few times to see if he'll wake up. You like to look right into his face and say "hi, hi, hi Huntah." If that doesn't work and you're able to stand next to him (like if he's crawled into our bed in the morning and you've managed to sucker us into letting you in as well) you jump, right next to him to shake him out of his slumber. Lucky for you he always wakes up in a good mood in the mornings.

I was thinking I should probably take you right out of the room so that Hunter can get that extra bit of sleep those mornings, but the other day when he was the first one up (which is more usual) I watched him pacing around trying to get you to wake up. I asked him to let you sleep and he said he would but I noticed he kept coming up with excuses to go into the room and when he thought I wasn't looking he put his face next to yours and whispered "Julia, it's time to get up and play." I chased him out again only to find him in there a few minutes later holding your hand and talking to you as you slept. That didn't work either and Hunter was devastated because he was worried he was going to have to go to school without having gotten his Julia playing time in. That's about the only morning I can think of in recent memory where you guys haven't had your bit of playing time together.

What exactly do you guys do together? Well, it seems you like to play dinosaurs, zoo, cars, trains, dolls, castle, and store. Pretty much everything (except for puzzles, which you eat and games, which you tend to destroy). I like when Hunter is playing something by himself and you crawl (or furniture walk) over and instead of getting mad when you inevitably knock over something he's playing with he just factors you in to his play - "ah the giant baby is attacking!!" Other than that, you guys mostly like to chase each other. He likes to read to you, or at least tell you about the pictures (especially since he saw on PBS that you should be read to at least 15 minutes a day). Sometimes I think it's like you have three parents because Hunter is so protective of you. You're one lucky girl. And we couldn't be luckier to have you in our lives - I can't imagine the world without you.

Love you my Mungry,

Love Mum