stories

Chapter 1:
My dad and Julianna quickly developed a routine with each other down here. One of the first few days we were here at the beach they headed to the swimming pool as usual right after Jules woke up from her nap. They played until she was ready to go and then Pap convinced her to head to the ocean to ride some waves for a little bit. They stopped by the potty underneath the building first and then they headed out to the ocean for a while. When they came back upstairs I noticed right away that Julianna was wearing her swimsuit backwards. Dad told me that he had some trouble getting it back on after they went to the bathroom at the pool. She must have worn her bathing suit like that out on the beach too. Luckily she was with her grandfather the whole time so maybe people understood...?

Chapter 2:
I can't remember now what I was doing one day a couple of weeks ago when Julianna looked up at me and exclaimed, "Mama! You not paying attention to me!" That certainly did the trick and she got my attention for sure. I was laughing so hard about her sincere honesty that my side began to hurt.

Chapter 3:
My little girl? She wants to paint billboards when she grows up. We were riding down the road the other day and Jules mentioned something about not being able "to get up there" as she pointed to the billboards. We told her that yes, she was right - the only way to really get up there was if we were the men who painted the billboards. Julianna replied matter-of-factly, "I need to be a painter. I want to go way up high and paint the billboards!" Now when people ask her what she wanted to do when she grew up she can say that she always wanted to be in advertising - she wanted to be a billboard painter. Although it is strange indeed, she has her first life goal.

Chapter 4:
I've been wanting to go to Senor Frogs ever since it opened in Myrtle Beach three years ago and last night I managed to convince my brother and sister-in-law to go have dinner with us there so that I could get my free nachos. We figured that if we went kinda early (around 6, 6:30) that it wouldn't be too crowded and non-kid friendly since we would both be taking youngins. We didn't have to wait too long once we got there and Julianna was pretty excited about it. She kept walking towards the place pointing and yelling, "Look at that frog, Ya'll!"

We got to a table pretty quickly and as the bartender was standing on the bar pouring free shots of tequila straight into people's mouths I was wondering what I'd gotten my child exposed to at the ripe old age of two. Well, it was so loud in there that we couldn't hear the waiter enough to give our order. He was a jerk anyway. My sister-in-law jokingly asked Jules if she wanted to go up on stage with her and dance to which wide-eyed Julianna replied with fascination, "No, thank you." At one point they got everyone to get up and stand on their chairs to do the YMCA. It occurred to me then that Julianna didn't even know what the YWCA was so after a really quick lesson so got the hang of it and went to town. She had a blast! So after a little bit Jules starts saying over and over again, "I need to go up there, Brittany! I need to go up there and dance with you!" We could hardly convince her otherwise. Jonathan finally just started telling her that she wasn't old enough yet.

My daughter, doing the YMCA while standing on chairs at the bar since the early age of 28 months.

<img src="http://www.aisforbeautiful.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/dsc05378small.jpg" alt="How to do the YMCA - Part Y" />

<img src="http://www.aisforbeautiful.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/dsc05377small.jpg" alt="How to do the YMCA - Part C" />