Big Sister!

A couple of weeks ago (4/6/11) Julie was reading to Lily from a black and white shape book that we received when she was a baby. I loved the exchange because the book just has pictures but Julie was putting together stories for all the pictures. Watching her interact with Lily is so much fun and she tries so hard to be a good big sister! I love how she looks at Lily and watches what she does. Whenver Lily is awake Julie is so excited that her eyes are open. I would, however, like to point out that Lily did not have a dirty diaper.

Everyone knows that our cats and Thumper ruled the house before Julie was born and they've really adapted well. Chloe, one of our cats died back in October this year and her death has had a surprising impact on Julie. I wasn't sure how much she had connected with Chloe but apparently it was a little more than I had realized because even now she still often talks about the fact that Chloe died because her insides stopped working (she had kidney failure). Bella, the other cat is pretty oblivious to the girls, although Julie loves chasing her around and yelling "Bella" at the top of her lungs. The most interesting interactions occur between Thumper and the girls, as shown in the video! Before we adopted Thumper we saw her interact with our friends' baby (Sofi) and she was really gentle which is surprising because the rest of the time she is a 35 lb tornado. We spend a lot of time "asking" her to calm down which Julie has picked up on and is often my mimic, yelling at Thumper as I do. However, for all of her faults she is amazing with babies and really gentle with them (and we never leave her alone with them).