Juliette Turns 2!

While Juliette turned 2 on August 19th, her doctor's appointment was this past Friday. Since she had to be examined first (Abbey's request - see below), she was very brave and did great! She was not at all bothered by the exam, the finger prick that had to be done, or the shot she got. After the shot, she looked down at her arm and said, "Mommy, that's an owie!" and then resumed sucking her thumb (Abbey on the other hand began to cry when Juliette got a shot, but quickly calmed down when I assured her that she was not going to get a shot that day). The doctor was very impressed with her verbal skills and said she was doing fine. So now on to her stats...she weighed in at 25 pounds and 31 3/4 inches, which puts her in the 30% for weight and 10% for height...I guess one out of the three is taking after me in the height department, although she is doing better than I did as a child considering she is at least on the growth charts!

Developmentally, she is turning into quite a little girl and not as much of a baby. She loves following her brother and sister around and trying to do whatever it is they are doing. She thinks it is hilarious to run as fast as she can with them. She loves to sing songs and dance around. She speaks in full and complex sentences, although she seems to feel the need to shout to be heard (perhaps this is a consequence of being a third child). She will often shout some sort of command (Get me milk!", and when I say, "I'm sorry?" she will get quiet and whisper what she wants in a polite way ("Can you please get me some milk?"). We are working on avoiding this first step of shouting before being polite, but we'll get there.

She loves Dora the Explorer and asks to watch it whenever it is her turn to pick a tv show. For anyone who has not seen this show, it is very interactive and asks the kids to repeat things or say when they see something on the screen. It is also teaching spanish so it asks to repeat certain phrases in spanish too. Juliette will repeat everything and really interact with the show...it is super cute to watch it with her, especially when she tries to repeat the spanish phrases! And at the end of the day during dinner, we often have the conversation of "What was your favorite part about today," to which the kids will respond with something we did or something that happened. Juliette always responds, "My favorite part was Dora and Boots" regardless of what we have done that day or if we even watched Dora!

She is still in her crib and will probably stay there until we get some sort of bunk beds for the girls' room. She is a great napper and good at night time too. She usually wakes up early though (around 6:15-6:30) and wakes Abbey up, but they have to stay in their room until 6:40, which Abbey is very good about with her tot clock. She is getting better at eating, although she still rarely gets dessert since she won't eat most of what is on her plate for dinner. She preys on her siblings by being cute to them and asking them for bites of their dessert and they usually try to sneak her some (we strongly discourage the other kids giving her any bites - they lose their dessert if they do - but it is cute to watch). There are times she will eat all vegetables and not touch anything else and times she will only eat meat or potatoes or whatever, so I am not too worried about her nutrition, but it would be nice if she would eat an entire meal for once!

She is growing well and I am excited to take her to a mom/tot gymnastics class this fall. She is both adventuresome and cautious at the same time. For example, she has no problem climbing the tall ladder to get up into the play set, but she wants someone to hold her hand before she will go down the slide! She loves swimming and has no fear about going in the deep water.

She is turning from our sweet baby into a big girl and that has us both sad and excited to see what this next year brings. We love you Juju!