Juliet 15 month snapshot

 My computer will be packed up in our air shipment in 2 days so who knows when I'll be able to do an update again. Air shipments are *supposed* to take about 7 days to arrive, but we've never been so lucky and usually get ours in the 4-6 week range. I'm packing my camera and crockpot in the air shipment as well so hopefully this one gets to CA quicker than previous air shipments. Juliet turned 15 months on Wednesday. She is still full of energy, spunk and opinions but she's also a delightful little girl who is joyful and adorable. Everyone says kids are so different, but so far my two are freakishly similar. 

Stats: She's a big girl. 27 pounds and 32.3 inches, 97% for both.  She's mostly between sizes 18 M and 24 M right now. 

Teeth: 16 teeth are finally in. The last canines and molars took forever. Seriously, the molars took over 3 weeks to fully come in and the canines were especially miserable. Luckily it doesn't effect her sleep too much but her attitude during the day was difficult! We should get a bit of a respite for a few months before the 2 year molars start. Good thing we'll be using that eye of the storm to combat 14 hour jetlag. Sighhhhh. It's ALWAYS something. 

Schedule: Juliet decided to make the 2-1 nap transition 2 weeks before the big jet lag switcheroo. Not ideal, but Juliet does what she wants when she wants. It's gone relatively smoothly and I think it will actually help get her over jet lag sooner than taking 2 naps. It's only been about a week but right now the schedule is:

6/6:30 wake up

7 breakfast

11 lunch

12-2/3: nap (her naps vary from 1.5-3 hours with 2 hours being average).

3: snack

6: dinner

7/7:30: bedtime

Feeding: Food is not a problem with this girl. She is our little foodie and kind of obsessed, honestly. She acts like we are starving her most of the time. Its so different than Forest where I stressed about him not eating enough, and if we didn't have a feeding schedule we'd forget to feed him because he'd be so busy/happy just to keep on playing. With Juliet I worry it's too much! She's constantly begging at the fridge for snacks. 

Our doctor says as long as we are feeding her healthy foods, we should give her as much as she wants, but sometimes my mommy instincts tell me it's excessive. It's interesting but I wonder if I'd be worried about her voracious appetite if she were a boy. I don't think I would be, honestly. Isn't that absurd? Anyway, she's technically overweight but if the doctor isn't concerned (especially in Asia) then I guess I shouldn't be either. She's super active and healthy. And those chubby cheeks are delicious! Her favorite foods are yogurt, any fruit, sweet potatoes, and salmon. 

Favorite book: We've come a long way with literary appreciation in the past few weeks. Her absolute favorites are her Sandra Boynton books, especially Dinosnores. She loves Jimmy Fallon's MAMA and DADA books, and Brown Bear, brown bear. Also, she's getting into Little Blue Truck. She doesn't like to sit still for reading so we mostly read after meals while she's still strapped into her highchair, and we read 5-6 books at bedtime which is the only time she's content to sit and cuddle. But she'll contentedly flip through her books independently for 10 minutes or so (for her that is a loooong time). 

Favorite toy: She's not super into toys really. She loves her stuffies and books, but she mostly just enjoys taking every single thing out of every drawer and cabinet she can reach. She also enjoys climbing anything she can possibly climb. Sometimes she will empty a drawer and then use said drawer to climb up a piece of furniture. Two birds with one stone and whatnot. 

She likes to color, and also enjoys putting on accessories. 

She really likes to be outside and enjoys her small slide. I can't wait to get this girl to CA where it's actually enjoyable to be outside all day everyday. 

Words: Juliet is slowly but steadily building up her vocabulary. She has about 20 words in English and a handful in Nepali. Her most common words are still 'momma, daddy, brubba, hi, bye, uh oh, this and that', but she occasionally will throw in a 'banana' 'up' 'yes' 'dog' 'apple'  etc and has a myriad of animal sounds including her favorite 'cockadoodledoo'. She says 'hi daddy' and 'love you' but that's the extent of her 2 word phrases. She will say '3' if you count 1-2... and sometimes she'll also say 6 and 10 if you pause in your counting. 

New skills: She can walk down stairs and she can actually jump! Her gross motor skills are very advanced which makes sense since that's what she works on the most. 

And it's not really a new skill, but her hair is now long enough to put into piggies, so I consider that a pretty important milestone.

Oh and she knows various body parts- ears, hair, belly, toes, nose, eyes, etc.  

Other favorites: Playing peekaboo, following Forest around like an imprinted duckling, shoes, Sesame Street music videos.

Dislikes:  The car. This makes life hard. We are hoping for some road trips once we return to CA so I hope this is a phase she grows out of quickly. On the way to the doctor's office this week she actually did ok and only had one little fussy period in 45 minutes. The way home was not as great but was also post 3 shots and getting close to lunch and nap time. So there's hope!!

General observations: She loves people and offers a friendly smile and wave (or wai) to everyone she sees. She loves dogs, especially those that are barking at her (we've had some close calls of her not understanding dog body language). She always wants to be outside and gets very stir crazy if we are having a homebody day. 

She's similar to Forest in many ways, but they differ here. Forest loves nothing more than to bum around in his pjs and read books and watch TV all day. Juliet does not have time for that! She likes to do things for herself and gets frustrated if someone tries to help her. She is kind of in a whiny phase but at the same time she is mostly a happy girl, as long as someone is interacting with her. She just hates being confined or being told she can't have something she likes- so...pretty normal toddler behavior! She's Paci obsessed and will hunt down pacis in all of our secret hiding spots. If you take her Paci away she will suck on the inside of her cheeks like a fish face. 

Happy 15 months to you, Juliet. You are a delight. Fierce and joyful and opinionated and oh so cute!!! 

Going to California

 Oh boy! We found out a month ago that we were being relocated back to San Ramon, CA and we are leaving in TWO WEEKS! While we are thrilled to be going back to our favorite location we have ever lived, it's not without it's complications, especially during Covid times. 

California has been playing things very conservatively (never thought I'd use conservative and California in a sentence together) and very low risk. Things are just starting to open back up but most people I've talked to feel very wary about it and public schools have voted to remain closed until at least January. After coming safely out of lockdown and returning to our normal school activities, this was quite the blow to face for Forest. 

We had decided I would stay in Bangkok with the kids until Christmas break and then would likely homeschool Forest for the remainder of 1st grade. Out of Hail Mary desperation I reached out to our old church to see if we could possibly get him on a waiting list for their highly-in-demand private school and unbelievably they had a spot for him! Since they are private they can open under California regulations and are moving forward with reopening this week! 

They are holding Forest's spot until he can start on November 2. Which is ahhhhh-mazing! But also AAAHHHHHH because it pushed our moving timeline up by 7 weeks. 

Also AAAAHHHHHHH is the housing market there. Last time we lived there we were on a TDA (Temporary Domestic Assignment) which meant Jon's job was helping us pay rent and it made zero sense to buy. With rent supplemented we ended up in a big house in a new development with tons of parks and trails. 

But this time around we are really hoping we can be there for at least a few years so we are hoping to buy. The market is INSANE. Most houses have multiple offers for significantly more over asking. We've made an offer on one house for 50,000 over asking and the other realtor told us we weren't even in the ballpark of being competitive.

 

You may offer 100,000 over asking and still get outbid. You also have to waive your right for an appraisal so you are on the hook in cash for the difference between what you've offered and what the house appraises for. It's so nuts and high stress. 

And yes, we are bidding on houses sight unseen. We have a great realtor who Facetimes us while she views houses and I also have a great friend who stakes out potential houses for me as well. Closing will likely happen really quickly (21 days) and we have an airbnb until mid-December so as long as we have an offer accepted by Thanksgiving I think we won't end up homeless. If we don't then we may have no choice but to go the rental route. 

PS. Even at the top of our budget we will likely be significantly downsizing to move to this area. If we want something sizable it would be a gut job. Some of the smaller homes in our budget still need some work. 

In other news, Juliet has decided this is the perfect time to switch from 2 naps to 1 nap. So yea, I'm a tad frantic.