Mommy put the girls in red to celebrate Valentine’s Day and then tried to get photos of the girls. Neither were interested in posing for photos. So we have what we have. Emily stole her Granddaddy’s hat and consented to look in the direction of the camera. We thought that she looked like a rock star with the hat, arms, and attitude.

Wow – it has been four months already for little Julia. I have been holding her this week and thinking that she is so much heavier and getting a little chunky. Well, chunky for one of my daughters.

I try to document all of Julia’s significant changes around the time they happen, but I realized that I missed a big one. Julia has neck control and holds her head up really well. At one point she was close and I thought it would be much longer, and then the next thing I noticed, she was a pro at it. I guess I blinked. But she has been doing this for weeks, and I am just now journaling it.

There are some things she has been working on this week that I haven’t missed. She has found her voice. Not in a crying way, she has been working on that one since birth. She has found a coo & a holler. She can keep a conversation with you and at other times she joins in on loud conversations or attempts to get our attention. Tonight, I could have sworn that she was making noise to get Emily’s attention. It is really funny and I love it.

Something else that she is working on is trying to flip over. For a while, she has been doing leg lifts. She alternates between lifting her legs and then lifting her head/shoulders. Her leg lifts get pretty high and now she is adding a twisting motion to them that is getting her close to a flip. She will roll herself over and on her side when on soft cushions like the couch or bed.

Julia has the most beautiful bald spot on the back of her head. I would prefer her to not have it, but she just loves to rub her head back and forth. She likes to have her head rubbed on in general so she must be rubbing it herself. She will quit soon enough, and her hair will grow and it will be a distant memory.

One of my favorite thing she does is hold on to our fingers. When she is fussing herself to sleep in our arms, she pokes her hand out of the blanket in which she is swaddled. If we put one of our fingers into her hand, she will grip it, start to relax, and fight less. She will then drop into sleep, relax, and make herself so heavy. Julia is starting to not need to be swaddled to fall asleep. I remember Emily moving into the stage of not needing swaddling. It will coincide well with warmer weather, but I will miss my baby bundle.

Julia loves to chew on her fingers. This day she was sitting up like a big girl and chewing on her fingers. How cute!!

Julia was weighed and measured at her doctor appointment. At 3-1/2 months she weights 11 lbs 6oz and measures 24-1/4 inches long.

We took Julia to see a pediatric heart doctor today to have a heart murmur reviewed. Overall the visit went well, we liked the doctor and felt that he covered her condition well for us. Julia was a good sport for all of the poking.

She has an ‘innocent’ heart murmur. This just means that it is not a significant murmur. I will be generic in the description to try to keep from being boring. There are two aspects of her heart that are not functioning normally. One problem is the vessel that takes blood from her heart to her lungs has not grown enough to handle the volume of blood. He said that this condition is common in little ones and should fix itself in the next six months.

The second problem is referred to as a PFO, which is an incomplete closure of a valve between the left and right atria. This valve is open during the fetal development to direct blood away from the non-functioning lungs. After birth, this valve closes and redirects the blood to the now functioning lungs. In 20 percent of the population this valve is not completely closed. The bottom line for Julia is that it is not going to cause any problems now and we will have her looked at again at age 3. At that point they will be able to see better how her heart is growing and how this closure has developed. It can close, it can grow to a point where the pressure of blood in her heart holds it closed, or it can be a hole between the sections of the heart. It sounds like the long term effects to Julia will be a concern for blood clots.

We will pray that in three years when she is examined again that she will be given a clean bill of health!

This is Julia sleeping in her cradle. It won’t be long before she fills it up and has to move to her crib. It dawned on me that I hadn’t taken a photo of her in it yet and might miss the opportunity if I didn’t do it soon. It is always a little dangerous to take a photo of a sleeping baby, but I got away with it and didn’t wake her up. This cradle was not only used by Emily, but Mommy and Uncle Philip also. The cradle was made by Grammy and Granddaddy while they were waiting for Uncle Philip’s arrival.

We were playing in the girls room and Emily discovered that she could check on Julia for Mommy. If she could figure out how to climb in with Julia, she would. This week, Emily also discovered that she could climb into her own crib with the side down. She didn’t think she could crawl out after she got in, so we kept playing the game with Mommy taking her out and she would climb in again.