June: Nine Months!

Happy nine month birthday, Junie!
I can't believe she's nine months old. Next month she will be two-digit months old. That means she will soon be a year old. A year! How can that be?

I snapped this photo this morning as Dane was supposed to be watering the garden plants (that are not actually in the ground yet, as you can see through the door) but he ended up playing with June through the glass instead. I was okay with it.

Do you see June's beautiful, smiling face eerily floating on Dane's head? It reminds me of those creepy, floating head photos from the 80's. Except way more awesome because it's a real reflection.

Her stats as of this morning:

Height: 29.5 in., 95th percentile

Weight: 17 lbs. 11 oz., 20th percentile

Head: 44.2 cm, 50th percentile

I can't believe she's still so tall. Dane was always about 80th percentile until he was about 6 months old, when things started curving downward to his expected, slightly smaller than average size. But here June is, 9 months old, and still 95th percentile. Is she going to be one of those tall girls? Tall girls whose lives I can't even imagine? Will it give her advantages I never had, like...volleyball? That's the only thing I could think of. Oh, I know, jeans that you don't have to roll up. That's a good advantage. 

It's a strange situation. I have no problem with Dane being a little small, and I have no problem with June being tall. Except will Dane's little sister actually be taller than him? Since they're 4 years apart, I don't anticipate it being much of a problem, but...as adults? I just don't want either of them to have a issues. I used every tiny aberration from "normal" to throw me into hyper-self-consciousness while I was a teenager. Hopefully the will be more confident than their mom was.

Anyway. 

I think June is so beautiful. Sometimes I look at her, and I think she's the most beautiful baby in the world. It's kind of a strange feeling because I know rationally that she's not literally THE most beautiful baby in the world. But it feels that way. It makes me happy.

She appreciates good literature. She stands unassisted for seconds at a time. She crawls with proficiency. And when she think you're not paying attention, she gets into mischief:

I have a video of her mischief in action, but it won't upload. 

She's sleeping a little better these days. When she's in the mood, she'll give kisses, clap, and wave. She eats all sorts of vegetables, but the only fruit she'll eat is prunes. Prunes! She's started doing this coy little scrunched faced chuckle. And she will let you know when she's unhappy by bellowing. Bellow! She isn't super dextrous with her fingers but she is really good at working cheerios around in her hand to make them accessible. And every time she wakes up from a nap, she stands up in her crib and reaches one arm out to me. She's my sweet little baby. 

Dane has his moments of bonking her and getting frustrated with her (and biting her) but mostly he's so sweet. He's so excited to see her in the morning and loves to snuggle her and hug her. He's recently figured out how to pick her up and move her away from his toys, which he likes to do frequently. And nobody can make June laugh like Dane can. 

I love my two sweet babies. 

Happy Anniversay!

Today is our 8th anniversary. As cliche as it sounds, I think every anniversary has been happier than the last. I am grateful to have a happy marriage, beautiful children, and a kind, hilarious husband. We kind of have a problem staying up too late because we are just talking about random stuff. Maybe if we didn't like each other so much, we would get more sleep. But I can think of a lot worse problems to have.

On Saturday, Joel arranged for us to go sailing on Lake Hefner. It was beautiful, and a long-awaited event. See, back when we were engaged, we made various unrealistic plans for our wedding day and honeymoon. ("We'll have a couple hours between the sealing and the luncheon, and a couple more between the luncheon and the reception--let's go sailing!" Ha. As if you have any downtime during a DIY wedding.) So the sailing never actually happened on May 1, 2004, or any other day since.

Until now!

Here is our lovely jib sail.

My handsome husband

You can see our guide, our sailor, if you will in the background of this picture:

His name is Bill Rains, and his email is sailorbrains. I'm sure he means Sailor B Rains, but Joel and I called him Sailor Brains behind his back. Haha, we are jerks, but it made us laugh.

At first, it all felt a little underwhelming because there was hardly any breeze, and it felt awkward trying to make conversation with this random man steering the boat. But after a while, we all relaxed a little, the wind picked up, and Sailor Brains kept asking us why we didn't bring any beer or wine on with us. I think that made us friends.

So, I am pretty much awesome at sailing. I didn't want to steer at first, for fear of messing something up really badly, but after a while, Joel convinced me to man the rudder, and it was fun. Here are I am, on the lake side of the fake lighthouse. I've always been on the land side, so it was cool to finally be on the other side for a bit. 

After both of my pregnancies, I got the common "baby blues" for a bit. It's not terrible, and it goes away one its own after a couple of weeks, but it's not really my favorite time, you know? So, after June was born, I read this book, The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud. It's really not that great of a book, for multiple reasons, but there were a lot of descriptions of sailing, and it made me feel like I needed to experience it. In fact, the anticipation of someday sailing helped me feel happier. So it was fun and validating to finally make it happen, and to not even have to travel to New England to do it. (Though I will do that someday, too.)

Anyway, at one point, I had stopped paying attention to our direction for a minute, and the main sail swung out into the other direction. It was an accident, and I felt all embarrassed, but the Sailor Brains said I had actually accomplished something kind of tricky: the wing and wing position of the sails:

So yeah, I'm awesome. 

And have any of you been wondering if Joel attempted to recreate the famous "I'm sailing!" scene from What About Bob?:

Did you really have to ask?

Happy Anniversary, dear. Thanks for 8 happy years and 1 really great sailing voyage (what are they called, anyway...?)