Julia May
Our baby is a year old, and what a year it's been! Lots of highs, LOTS of lows, lots of growing as people and parents. Julia has been the sweetest (and feistiest:) addition to our family, and we are so lucky to have her.
The circumstances under which she joined our family were a little rough. Hayden had just graduated from nursing school, and my job had just transitioned from requiring employees to be in the office two days a week to four, which I was not thrilled about. Luckily, I had 12 weeks of maternity leave plus 12 weeks of an exception to come in two days rather than four days a week, so I had a nice buffer in case I decided to find a new position.
Hayden was finding his profession to be even more stressful than he'd anticipated. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), he injured his back at work just a couple of weeks after Julia was born, so we actually spent a fair amount of time all together as a family during those first few weeks. Those were such sweet times. We would go to the gym together every morning as a family; SJ would go to the daycare while Hayden worked out, and I walked around the track with my tiny baby on my chest. Recovery was a breeze, so I felt really good moving my body in the early stages of postpartum.
For her first Halloween, Julia was Pascal from Tangled! I had lots of time to put together a fun family costume before Julia was born, so SJ was Rapunzel, Hayden was Flynn Ryder, and I was Mother Gothel. Should I have taken my three-day-old baby to the ward Halloween party? Maybe not. But we looked cute!
Julia was a good newborn just like her big sister. She started waking up only once a night at about three weeks old, which was amazing. Also, like her sister, she spit up a lot, but we've been so lucky to have two good little eaters. Breastfeeding was less painful this time around, but it was a little more stressful being stuck in one place while I had a toddler doing who-knew-what around the house. But overall, SJ was a great big sister from the beginning.
When Julia was six weeks old, I came down with an awful throat infection that had me down on the couch for three straight days. Just as I started recovering, our poor baby caught a virus that gave her a fever of 104, which was terrifying for a baby so small! I took her to the pediatrician, and he advised that I take her to the ER. We spent an afternoon at Primary Children's, missing Lorna's 60th birthday party. Luckily, a few tests and a few HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS later, we were dismissed with nothing but Tylenol and a rhinovirus diagnosis (basically the common cold). Of course, I was thrilled our baby was fine, but the bill was so annoying.
Julia May Anderson was blessed by her dad on December 8th in my blessing dress, just like her sister. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and we had a nice luncheon at Hayden's parents' house.
The holidays were magical. We spent a beautiful Thanksgiving in St. George and spent Christmas with Hayden's parents in Lehi. We traveled south once again for New Year's, and when we returned, we started getting SJ ready to go to preschool! That's when things started to get really, really hard.
The first week of January, when I was supposed to return to work, I got sicker than I have EVER been. I'm pretty certain I had the flu. It was absolutely miserable. I had the worst cough, fever, chills, and absolute pain in my face from what I knew was a sinus infection. After a full two weeks, I could finally get an antibiotic and start feeling better.
SJ started going to school about mid-January, and after just one week, she came down with an awful sickness, too! And thus began a five-month stretch when at least one of the four of us was sick at all times.
That's also around when Hayden started feeling acute pain in his stomach every time he ate. This went on for literally months and has only recently been sort of resolved after a colonoscopy and some medication for what is apparently a chronic illness. He's in a much better place now, but dang, those were some ROUGH months. I would consider the first half of 2025 the hardest six months of my life, between adjusting to two kids, battling sickness after sickness, and having a husband who was basically a shell of a person.
Okay, enough about our problems! This post was supposed to be about Julia, sorry for being such a downer!! Through it all, Julia was so sweet and fun to have around. In February, we took the girls to Disneyland along with all their cousins, and it was magical (apart from Hayden being miserable). Julia was a PERFECT baby. She was just four months old, which is the end of the perfect time to take a baby to Disneyland because she didn't mind being in the stroller a lot of the time. It was so fun to experience the park with SJ as a three-year-old, and I can't wait to take both of the girls when they're a little older! Ugh. I love Disneyland so much.
The day we came home from Disneyland, Julia was sick again. We also moved that same weekend! We moved from our little two-bed, one-bath Grant Street apartment to the nice, new, three-bed, two-bath basement apartment just behind us. We literally passed our stuff through our bedroom windows and into our new backyard. It was such an easy move! We upgraded to a place with so much more space, and it's been a wonderful place to raise our two kids. Heck, we even have room to have another one someday!
Shortly thereafter, Julia hit a sleep regression. And oh, it was awful. The only experience I'd ever had was with a PERFECT sleeper. SJ started sleeping through the night at two months old and never, ever, to this day, regressed. Julia...has been a different story. There were a couple of nights when she woke up every two hours, and it was agony. She also only took 30-minute naps unless she was in her car seat, which was almost more frustrating. Dealing with knowing when and how to sleep train was a point of extreme stress for me, as a real type-A girl. Somehow, we got through it! And around six months, she was sleeping through the night and taking pretty consistent naps.
After an awful stomach bug in mid-May, we were finally out of the sickness woods for a while. Our summer was one of the best phases of my life! I wrote all about it in my other blog post. The stark contrast between the cold, sick season and the warm, healthy, happy season was such a relief. I loved watching my girls play outside and enjoy the sunshi ne. Julia is OBSESSED with water! She was happiest any time we were at a splash pad or pool. It didn't matter how cold the water was or how much her sister splashed her in the face, she just loved it!
I was really good at documenting every month of SJ's first year of life, but this year was just too chaotic. So, before I forget, here are some of the milestones she's hit during her first year:
2 months: smiling
4 months: sleep regression :/
5 months: rolling (but only from back to front for a while:) and sitting up on her own
6 months: sleeping through the night and taking two regular naps (usually for more than 30 minutes!)
7 months: two bottom teeth
8 months: crawling and pulling up to stand
11 months: another sleep regression :/, top tooth #1
12 months: top tooth #2
Our girl is soooo close to walking! She didn't quite take her first steps before her first birthday, but I'm sure that within the next month, we're going to have a toddler on our hands!
She may not be walking as soon as SJ was, but she sure is a blabbermouth! Here are the fun tricks she can do as of her first birthday:
- "Night night...MORNING!" (puts her head down and up)
- Makes the sound of a chicken, dog panting, horse
- Says "baba" for her bottle
- Says "mo" for more (won't do the sign language, but we're working on it)
- Says "ahhh-duuh" for "all done" (will do the sign:)
- Does a cute squinty-smiley face and breathes really quickly when provoked
- Climbs up and slides down slides...even the biggest slides at the park!
She's opinionated and stubborn and kind of a stinker, but she's the cutest darn thing ever, and I love her to pieces. I can't wait to see what a remarkable person she turns out to be.
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