Our Valentine’s Day was a beautiful, sunny and breezy day. It was still cool enough that you wanted to be in the sun, but warm enough you wanted to be outside! For all the snow and cold we had this winter, an early spring was really wonderful to enjoy. We spent the morning at the Knoxville Botanical Garden in our special “Secret Garden”. The kids drank up the sun and loved moving around.

Emily was excited to go for her 4-year checkup. I’m not quite sure why, but she was. She was great about her exam. She enjoyed the eye chart and took a couple of takes at the hearing test. She was just having trouble with reacting, not hearing. Emily is now old enough to get to wear a gown for her exam. She loved it and danced around in it like it was a beautiful dress. Funny stuff!

Her weight was 35 lbs. and height was 41-1/2 inches. Like usual her percentages are low for weight, but high for height. I was pleased that she averaged out to the 50 percentile. This Mama can handle average.

No shots, but we were told that she had a year and half to work the 4 required shots for beginning school. I thought a shot-free day was in order and we put them off until next fall when we would be getting our flu shot anyway. We will not discuss my sadness at just being a year and half away from starting school.

Both girls were thrilled for some stickers at the end. Given that Emily can stay well, we will not go back for a visit until her 5th birthday.

Little Julia has been struggling these last couple of days. The inner Julia is trying to come out and she hasn’t figured out how to do that.

Yesterday, we had a lot of crying over everything. The details do not matter, but she cried if you said “Yes” or “No” to the same request. After a while and a little Mommy comfort, it seemed to pass and she was ok. Today, we had a rash of misunderstandings. Julia would hear something and interpret it. Then she was devistated when she realized that it wasn’t happening. For instance, Emily was playing pretend shower and Julia thought she was going to take a bath. She was in hysterics when she did not get a bath.

I guess the hardest part of watching Julia figure all of this out is watching her not be able to communicate what she is thinking. I wonder what she is going to discover as she blossoms through this next stage.

Congratulations to Miss Julia for figuring out how to climb up by herself in one of the indoor playgrounds we play at! I told Julia I would be there in a minute to help her past the two tricky steps and the next thing I knew Emily was announcing that Julia had done it all by herself. We did a happy dance and had a lot of excitement from all parties. She had been close, but just couldn’t figure how to lock her knee and push off. Maybe climbing out of bed has given her the confidence to try it again.

Today was the day that Julia discovered she could climb out of her crib. She has climbed out of the pack-n-play for a couple of days now, and she must have decided that the crib was possible too. This morning, Mommy heard several unusual noises coming from the girls’ bedroom and decided to wait and see what happened. Sure enough, in a few minutes a little person was opening the door with a grin across her face. Emily and Mommy praised her accomplishment and we took her back in to re-create the accomplishment. Julia was pleased to show off her new skill which she was still perfecting.

After Julia’s nap she gets some milk to enjoy. She was hanging with Mommy for her milk. She decided she needed to bring all of her friends and have them cuddle with her while she enjoyed her milk. I love these sweet moments.