Yes, Julia, I am Momma!

Today, even the nanny couldn't keep but smile big at Julia's happy little full-body dance she does when she greets us!  Every limb and every inch of her sweet little face just bursts with joy!!  It is an awesome thing to witness and even writing about it now about moves me to tears.

Then came the part that does move me to tears!  We were helping get her dressed as she was laughing and wiggling around.  At one point, her nanny had her sit down so she could put on her pants.  As she was dressing to her, she was speaking.  She asked her something to the effect of 'where is mama?' and she pointed straight at me without hesitation!!  I could barely wipe the smile off my face all morning.  We know that they tell her who we are all the time and the kids all very much know that we are a 'mama' and a 'papa' as we hear it all the time when we are there.  This is the first time that she's come up with it on her own though.

When we were downstairs, we had a few close encounters with some pigeons.  For whatever reason, they really captured her attention for quite a while.  She watched them about as intently as I've seen her focus on anything yet.  (I don't want to say that we'll be getting a pet pigeon when we get home by any means, but it definitely caught my attention.)

I am still not sure if she was happy to see them or not as one time she even went as far as scolding them, complete with a finger wagging.   At the end of their first visit to our feet, two of them flew pretty suddenly away and it caught her by surprise enough that she let out a little scream.  I quickly pulled her to me to reassure her and she kind of nestled back into my arms, seeming very comfortable there.

Yesterday I wrote about changing up the toys and it went over with great success.  Some favorites we had to keep like the poor battered box of four crayons, bubbles and the well reviewed photo album.  She definitely found some new favorites in the mix too!  The beach ball has gone over very well!

We blow it up, deflate it, pull the plug, re-plug the plug, put it in the bag and start all over again.  She's had so much fun with it!  It also makes for a good little handle to grab the ball and run!!

Then another first happened.  As we started to pack up the bag for real, you could see in her face that she was realizing it was time for us to bring her back upstairs to her groupa.  Her face started to pull and she started to whimper.  The whimper started to turn to a cry and I picked her up.  It didn't take long for me to grab her up when I heard her start fussing and by the time I got her, she already had small tears under her eyes.  As sad as it was, it was another positive for us.  A sign that she doesn't want us to go.  A sign that she is bonding.  A sign that maybe, just maybe, she will be doing that happy little dance when it's time for us all to go--together.  Forever.  I know one thing--my heart sure does that happy little dance when I think about that!