Julie the Baby Genius

I am going to use this post to shamelessly brag about our daughter. She is 9 months now and has impressed us with all that she has learned since we have had her. Please keep in mind that this little girl was in an institution for the first 8 months of her precious life. Here's what she is already doing:

Julie is almost walking. Yesterday she stood on her own for like 3 seconds and then took 3 steps!!! It's an amusing yet scary sight. You have to be right by this child at all times. Right now she is in her exersaucer bobbing her head to early Beatles. She screamed during the song "Twist and Shout". I guess she really likes that one. Every day she listens to a Slovenian nursery songs CD and loves it. She likes polka. Who would have guessed?

Julie started waving "hi" and "bye" this week. It's cute because she waves towards herself and we find her practicing on her own every once in a while. Sometimes she confuses that hand motion with clapping and will clap "hi" instead.

She babbles a lot of "words" like baba, dada, mama. She fake coughs and sneezes for attention. She shakes her head back and forth when we say "shake shake shake". She imitates screams and intonations. Sometimes she plays a game of imitating screams. She'll scream for daddy's attention, Spencer will scream back, and Julie will scream louder, more obnoxiously back. This can go on for minutes on end. Julie "wins" in the volume and pitch department.

She loves swimming and making splashes in the water.

She seems to understand a lot of words, like mommy, daddy, ball, bottle, more, hi, bye. Somehow she hasn't quite grasped the word "no". ;-) Actually I think she understands the word, but pays no mind to it!!

I am thrilled that she enjoys books! I can read her the same book 3-4 times in a row! She just seems to love it.

I am sure I am missing a lot of awesome things she can do, but I will leave you all with that for now.