Accomplishments and more accomplishments

Julia has had a few exciting accomplishments in the past 24 hours, beginning with last night's dinner. Despite the fact that she didn't want to eat it because "it's too fall-y," she finished ALL of her dasparagus at dinner last night! And this morning she had her last swim lesson of the summer, receiving her report card showing what skills she has learned. I even managed to get a video of her doing her "alligator walk" (a precursor to the crawl stroke) across the pool today:



She has absolutely loved swim lessons, and is quite fond of her teachers; in fact, when we were making a card for the head teacher yesterday, she wanted me to write the following message: "I want you to come over to my house and see my silly bands." However, we opted for: "Thank you for teaching me swim lessons!" instead. She was extra goofy and excited at lessons today, and after playing the water game "Fishy, fishy, cross my ocean," Julia decided it was really important to run over to her teacher in the middle of the next game to tell her: "Do you want to know something funny? MOMMY, MOMMY, CROSS MY OCEAN!" DEFINITELY worth getting the teacher's attention for that one.

And finally, Julia had to get blood taken from her arm to check her iron levels today, and she was such a brave little trooper, she didn't even cry. (Madeleine, for her part, also held together pretty well at her orthopaedic exam and x-ray confirming she does NOT have a hip dysplasia - although, according to Ethan, she was pretty steamed about the sandbags placed over her arms to keep her from trying to move all around while having her x-ray taken.) At any rate, Julia even declared that the blood draw didn't even hurt - it only pinched for one minute! Now, if we could have a little of that bravery applied towards the 85 degree, cloudless days on which she is terrified of a thunderstorm, all would be right in our world...