Friends

It's been a whole week again, but it seems to turn out that Sunday night is the time I really think about sitting down to blog. (We'll see if next week is any different.)

This week we had three play dates, dinner with Grandma Sandy and Grandpa Tim, and dinner with friends. So Judith got to spend a lot of time with people besides me (a nice break for both of us!). Here are some pictures of all our times together:

On Monday morning we went to visit Kelsey and Naomi (9 months). Judith was almost a little scared of Naomi - whenever Naomi would crawl toward her, she'd come running to me. And Naomi thought Judith was fascinating, so she kept trying to crawl toward her - Judith spent the first 1/2 hour glued to my leg :-). But eventually Judith got more comfortable, and was willing to play near Naomi. Here they're sharing a Cheerio snack.


On Monday night Grandma Sandy came along with Grandpa Tim to his weekly computer time with Lance. Judith got to hang out with Grandma for a couple hours - and they had a great time playing together. They played hide-and-seek in the curtains and behind the couch cushions, played with Judith's kitchen, shared some coconut sorbet, and colored some pictures. It was especially good to see Judith interact so joyfully with Grandma, because a year ago she (Judith) cried whenever she saw her. :-)

On Wednesday morning we had a playdate with Ethan at Miss Traci's house. Ethan is two months younger than Judith, and she seemed a little more comfortable with someone closer to her size than she did with 9-month old Naomi. They didn't play together necessarily - unless "fighting" over toys is playing :-). I'm hoping that as we have more play dates Judith will learn more about sharing. Here's Ethan watching carefully while Judith plays with his guitar.

On Wednesday afternoon we met Julia and Vika at the park again (it was such a beautiful day!). This time I brought my camera along so I could capture Judith on the slide - here she and Vika are sliding down together. We had a very hard time getting them to slide simultaneously because they were both so excited to go down that they didn't want to wait. A little anecdote about the slide: Vika prefers to try to climb up the slide from the bottom, while Judith likes to go up the steps. Note that Vika can't climb the slide - she can't grip it well enough, and she only makes it as far as the beginning of the slope before she starts asking for help, so I wasn't too worried when Judith decided to try it too. In fact, I was standing a few feet away when she climbed up on to the bottom of it from the ground - a pretty big feat for a little girl who can't even climb onto the sofa by herself! She stood up and started to climb as Vika had done, and I thought, "she'll ask for help and I'll get her down." But either her shoes stick to the slide better or she's a little stronger, because she had no trouble at all once the slope started - and she made it all the way to the top of the slide! (I did move very close behind her once I saw her starting to climb.) I'm not going to encourage her to climb up that way, but I think it's pretty cool that she figured out how to do it :-)

On Friday night we had FLG at our house, and Judith was in high heaven having so many friends to play with at once. She chased Caleb all around the house, and she had great fun knocking down towers that the older kids built for her with the blocks we made at her birthday party. Here she is checking out Camryn's earrings.


Another note from this week: Her right lower molar is finally through. I think it's probably been slightly through for a little while, because I suddenly saw a huge mass of white - and I doubt the whole tooth came through at once. We also started brushing her teeth this week - and she wants to do it all the time. If she didn't drool all over herself while she chews on the toothbrush, I might be more inclined to let her hold it more often.