2-0 Fun-O

Julia turned 20 months on the 12th! There aren't many discrete milestones these days, as she just continues to get better and more sophisticated at what she already does, so I thought I'd share some of the fun Julia stories from the past month. I think they illustrate pretty well how much Julia continues to grow and develop.

• Aaron and Julia went out on a walk one morning, pushing some of Julia's stuffed toys on top of her Mickey fire truck. Ernie fell off without either of them realizing it. When Aaron noticed, he asked Julia where Ernie was. Julia said, "Oh my goodness! I lost Ernie!" She began backtracking, asking, "Where did Ernie go?" punctuated with more exclamations of, "Oh my goodness!" and "I lost Ernie!" When she finally found him, she gave him a nice long hug.
• Julia wandered into Meghan's old room at my parents' house, and my dad followed her in there. For some reason, Sarah's old Stitch doll was in that room. Julia saw the Stitch doll, pointed at it, and said, "What's THAT?!" My dad told her, "That's Stitch." Julia said, "That's SCARY" and turned around and walked out of the room. 
• One day, Julia started to climb into the stroller, so my mom asked her if she wanted to go on a walk. She replied, "Let's go on an adventure!" Mom mom was rather shocked, since she didn't know Julia knew that word, let alone its proper context! But off adventuring they went!
• Uncle Erik babysat Julia one night when I was helping to host a bridal shower and Aaron was working. Julia let him know that her diaper needed to be changed before bed, saying, "Change diaper." When he put her crib, he wasn't sure what to do next. "Prayers?" he asked her. "Yes," she said. So he said a prayer with her. Then, Julia said, "Blanket," and pointed to the blanket on the floor that she wanted. After he covered her with a blanket, he left the room. As he was leaving, Julia said, "Door." So, he said goodnight and shut the door. So, basically, if you ever want to babysit Julia, she will tell you exactly what you need to do when you need to do it. We're signing her up for the Red Cross babysitting course. She'll be the model AND instructor.
• We went to a consignment sale last weekend. Whenever Julia saw something she wanted, she inhaled loudly and then shouted out, "Ooooooo! I be EXCITED!!!" She did manage to convince to shell out a couple (literally) bucks for a Thomas the Tank Engine Board game.
• Speaking of Thomas, on the way to the consignment sale, I was saying morning prayers for us all in the car. Aaron and I always end our morning prayers by asking our friends in heaven to pray for us with a little litany of the saints. We always include St. Thomas Aquinas, patron of students. When I said, "St. Thomas," Aaron replied, "Pray for us!" and Julia replied, "Pray for us! Choo Choo!" Then she said, "Ernie, pray for us!" I guess she thought we were asking all her toys to pray for us! I laughed and to humor her and repeated, "St. Ernie, pray for us!" Aaron laughed and said he didn't think there was a Saint Ernie, to which I replied that surely there are some Ernies (or at least Ernests!) in heaven ;-) The next morning when we were praying, Julia interjected again, with a "Saint Choo Choo, pray for us!" Haha!
• And one final Thomas story (she has been obsessed ever since Aaron bought her a Thomas toy at a neighborhood garage sale). My mom was talking to Julia about Meghan and Erik's baby, and Julia told my mom that the baby was "in Meghan's belly." Then, my mom said, "What do you think Meghan and Erik will name the baby?" and Julia replied, "Thomas." Sounds logical to me... who wouldn't want to name their baby Thomas in honor of that noble blue tank engine? I mean, if Julia had been a boy, we probably would have chosen the name Sir Topham Hatt.
• When Aunt Sarah had her wisdom teeth out, she felt pretty miserable for a few days and passed some of her time watching "Psych" on Netflix. Julia fell in love with the theme song. She sings TONS of different songs, but it's particularly funny to hear her singing, "I know you know... I’m telling the truth...I know you know... don’t have any proof... PSYCH you out in the end."

Umm, Julia you're hilarious. And a joy. And we love you.

Privacy Settings

*Sigh*

If you are currently reading this post, it is because you got an invitation to read my blog, which is now private. I wasn't sending out invitations just to invite you to read something I told you about many moons ago... I invited you because, without it, you'd currently not be able to look at it again. And, even if you're not a regular reader, I at least wanted you to have the option of viewing it (if for no other reason than for the beautiful Julia photos :-)

I actually really liked having a public blog because I loved that anyone could stumble upon it. I can't see who reads my blog, but I can see what search terms end up allowing people to find it. For instance, people have searched for "cactus cupcakes," "pretzel paintbrushes," and "Brown Bear, Brown Bear birthday" and found my site. Fun! The exchange of creative ideas makes me happy.

And, more so than that, I would love for my blog to be a tool for reaching people for God. I liked thinking that maybe people stumbled upon it and got some encouragement in their vocation or in their walk with Christ. Sometimes being a Catholic, medical school mom is a little bit lonely, since I don't know many others in my somewhat unique situation, and I liked to think that maybe another Jesus-loving mom in school or work somewhere might find my blog and feel solidarity and community, knowing she wasn't alone. 

And then, I made a fatal mistake, friends.

Tonight, I noticed that I had hundreds of page views. Just today. I get a few hundred in a month. Not hundreds in a day. I knew something was up. I looked up the Traffic Source....Facebook. Confound it! Then, I noticed there was only one post that was getting all the Traffic: My last post, regarding our vacation, which I mindlessly had called by its proper name (which I have since removed).

The pieces of the puzzle began clicking. I searched for the name of the vacation spot on facebook, and came to the lodge's official site and saw the following:

That vacation locale has feelers out, I guess, for good PR for their business. Can't blame them for that. I'm sure, too, they thought they were doing me a favor posting that on their site. Probably just thought I'd be flattered.

But, honestly, I was just plain creeped out by it. I didn't like having hundreds of views from people I didn't know, only connected to me by a vacation spot. I certainly didn't get into blogging to give anyone free advertising, and I don't like to be publicly linked without permission. So, I asked them to remove the post and I made my blog private.

If they remove it, I may make my blog public again in a week or two and just be more careful in the future, because I really hate that only people I thought to add can now look at it. And that they'd all need a gmail account :-( And that I'm sure I accidentally left plenty of people off. And that it's now impossible for anyone to stumble upon this blog for a good reason.

Anyhow, regardless of what I decide to do, I apologize for the inconvenience, and promise to be more careful with my rantings and ravings about proper nouns. From now on, for instance, maybe I will blog in code words about topics such as Julia's love of Gloomio's cereal, Goodbye Doggy, and Poppy Avenue characters, like Little Fish and Vegetable Fairy. Or maybe I will just have to get extra descriptive, talking about such things as her love of small, wheat, O-shaped cereal; an Asian cartoon cat with a pink bow; and puppets from a popular television series, like a tall, yellow avian creature, and a blue, sweet-craving, furry creature.

;-)

I better say it once more... sorry!