la la la, boo-ey boo-ey
I keep forgetting to specify exactly how insanely cute Julia is. She makes fish faces when she kisses you. She’s talking a lot, and when she gets her point across she says “Yay!” She still has her ecstatic “Eeeee!” for random good times. But if you ask her to do something for you, she no longer blindly complies; she’ll actually think about it, and if she’s not that into it, she’ll say no. Only it comes out sounding like “Nw.”
Her hair is still the palest, softest silk you can imagine, in a cloud around her head. Huge eyes and a red rosebud mouth. As her mother am I allowed to notice that she is beautiful? As with Claire, people stop me in the street to remark on it. But her gorgeous face is just a pale shadow of who she is, funny, affectionate, indomitable, steely Jules.
She climbs anything and slides down the slide hooting “Whee!” She sings at various times: “La la la, boo-ey, booey.” When she wants to leave the house she cries “Go! Go!” When she concedes a point she says “OH-kay.” She has taken to saying “I loff you mama,” which stops my heart, every time. When she hugs you she spreadeagles across your whole body and nestles her face in your collarbone. It’s warm and solid and unshakeable, like her love. When she hugs you, you stay hugged.
And the energy, dear God the continual bouncing, from the second she opens her eyes at frickin daybreak, hugs and playfulness and all-around joie de frickin vivre. Let’s give the last word to Jules’ matinee idol Claire, who was being followed about and forcibly played with and adored, until she climbed into Jeremy’s lap and said:
“I don’t like Julia right now. She is too mighty.”
