And now there's 6

Ever since I moved out of my mom's house about a year ago, I've been lamenting the fact that there was no dog around! I've had dogs my whole life and they were a normal part of my everyday routine. For a while that was a good thing, since I had a different kind of small animal to take care of, but now that we're in our own apartment we decided it was time. Legally this is our roommate's dog, since they paid for him and are going to pay his rent, but we all care about him and share taking care of him. Everyone... meet Link! (The dog formerly known as Chico)

 He is a Chihuahua mix that we picked up at the shelter on Monday. There were a few other dogs that we wanted to meet but they got adopted very quickly, plus, they were probably too big to have around Julian. He's just the right size for our apartment, but he's not buggy-eyed or shaky (no offense to Chihuahuas that are like that)

 So far him and Julian are getting along fine. They don't seem too interested in each other most of the time but they aren't fighting either. Link is a serious lover and jumps on anyone's available lap to curl up. If your door is open, he'll jump in bed and snuggle up with you too! He's lazy most of the day but he can be very fast and energetic if you give him the chance and play with him. And damn he can jump high! He's got great balance and can stand and walk on his hind legs for a long time. I'm glad to be around a dog again, even if he's only slightly bigger than my old rat Octo.

Julian will soon be bigger than Link. He's growing so fast; at 7 months old he wears 9 month size clothes and they fit him snuggly. He can army-crawl around the room at a terrifying speed, and yesterday he took two little crawling steps before plopping back on his belly. He grabs anything around him to help pull himself up onto his knees. I can put him on the floor of the living room, go in the kitchen, and he'll actually scootch himself and follow me! It's so cute but scary at the same time. Soon he'll be completely mobile and I'll never be able to let him out of my sight!

 

It's been a pretty warm fall here, which was nice in a way, but today it finally snowed! After living in Colorado for over 10 years now, I've finally began to actually like the snow and I look forward to taking Julian out to play in it.

With Teeth

I saw an old acquaintance from  high school yesterday and we got a chance to talk and catch up. Of course a big part of that was talking about Julian, and I got the usual question, "Is it hard being a mom?" I really haven't found it this way. Julian is so relaxed and does great playing and hanging out by himself, giving me a chance to take care of myself. Even teething, supposedly a very tough time for babies, went smoothly for him.

Yesterday morning Julian woke up with two new teeth. Another top tooth looks like it will pop out soon. Over the past week, he hasn't been screaming and has slept relatively well, despite his tooth pain. He's just been a little grumpier than usual, but that was easily handled just by playing with him more and giving him a little medicine.

I am both proud and scared of how quickly Julian seems to be growing. The other day he actually grabbed onto the coffee table and pulled himself up to a standing position! We both literally screamed. He wobbled for about half a second before taking a little tumble back down. After that incident I had to put some corner bumpers on it :)

I don't have any pictures for this post, but I'll keep my camera out and have something ready for ya'll next time. Thanks for still checking in here even though I stopped writing for a while!

Sorry!

I've had a lot going on the past month or so, so I haven't written anything since September 16th now. In fact, I have barely gotten online at all except to check my email and watch True Blood. But, with all that going on of course I have some exciting new things to share!

We moved in to our new apartment!

I'm not going to put many pictures because there's not much to show. We still don't have a ton of furniture or decorations but that doesn't stop it from feeling like our home. I'm so proud and it's hard to explain the feeling of living on your own for the first time. It's been over two weeks now and there've been no fires, we've eaten many real dinners, and have even thrown a party.

Here's a really unflattering picture of our kitchen - but I just needed something to show and it's probably the most interesting part of our living areas. This was just after our Halloween party, explaining the candy bowls and the mutilated pumpkin. Can you spot the Hello Kitty toaster? It burns her face on your toast... Let's just say my roommates wanted to buy a new one. 

Here's Julian from about 6 months old. He can sit on his own now! And I know he'll be crawling soon, at least before Christmas. He's getting so big and mobile now, it's honestly king of scary.

And he's eating solid foods now! Thank you WIC for giving us a bunch of baby food jars and baby cereal. He LOVES food so much and gets so excited.

Anyway... even my dad has asked why I'm not blogging anymore. I was so surprised when he asked me this! Well this is for you Dad! I really want to get back to writing regularly, especially because Julian is going through so many changes now and we are having a lot of new experiences in our own apartment. Such as our neighbor dropping off a bottle of wine as a housewarming gift... although none of us are over 21! Haha.

Ok, well thanks for still reading after my little hiatus. I really appreciate it! And a special thanks goes out to my Dad to reading and keeping updated on his little G-Son, and to anyone out there who actually doesn't know me in real life but just finds this a little interesting!

Have a great weekend everyone,
Lily