Now we are Six! And a Happy Star Wars birthday!

I'm only 6 weeks late on wishing forest a Happy 6th birthday on the blog! Honestly, that's not so bad. I knew I didn't have it in me to put together a Star Wars themed party this year so I outsourced to our favorite neighborhood watering hole, Sweet Poppy, who put together the most impeccable events around. It was expensive by Thai standards but actually pretty cheap by American standards considering they did all the food, the custom designed cake, and amazing decorations including life size character cut outs. Take a look!

grilled cheese sandwiches in the birthday boys honor:) 

big smiles with his besties

Another reason we chose Sweet Poppy is for their amazing outdoor space. Forest loves nothing more than free play with his friends, so we opted out of any organized activities (sweet poppy will arrange all sort of things!) and just let the kids play. 

A sweet friend of mine makes pinatas and when she heard f's party theme she offered to make him a Darth Vader piñata. So perfect! (Though Forest and his friends may have tried to get into it before it was go time, so it got a little messed up before the photo ops....)

For the first time ever, I went against my philosophical principles and made party favor bags for the kids. There is just so much great Star Wars stuff out there and Jonathan was making a trek to the US right before the party so it worked out for him to be a party favor courier. 

Included were: Star Wars Pez, inflatable lightsabers, lightsaber pencils, Star Wars grab and go coloring packs, and The Force is Strong with You silicone bracelets (Forest is very into bracelets right now). And we threw in some Ring Pops just because they are awesome and people outside of America don't know what they are missing. Forest helped me make them and was so excited to hand them out. 

So the party was a hit and Sweet Poppy did a great job! Now on to a little snapshot of Forest at age 6:

Height: 48 inches
Weight: 50 lbs
Favorite color: Green
Favorite TV show: Rescuebots and Octonauts 
Favorite movie: Home Alone and Return of the Jedi 
Favorite sport: Tennis
Favorite book: 13 story Treehouse series
Best Friend: Vake
Wants to be a: LEGO creator and filmmaker and arctic scientist. 

What can I say about Forest? He's truly one of a kind. Introspective and sensitive. Abundant and insatiable energy. Busy mind and body. Emotionally intense. Socially shy but bossy with his friends. Compulsive reader. Walking Star Wars and Octonauts encyclopedia. School lover. Rule follower. 

He's SUCH a good kid and yet SUCH a challenge. I truly believe he has a sweet heart and a brilliant mind, but his energy, fearlessness and intelligence get him into mischief. He's such a 'pick your battles' sort of child and I've had to admit that I have a finite amount of energy and I have to let many of his wild and feral antics go. 

It's been an isolating road navigating his baby/toddler/preschooler years because I so often felt that no one could help me normalize his behavior. He's just always been so different. In some ways good and in others very hard. Honestly, maybe I didn't even realize just how different until I had Juliet and suddenly I feel like I can actually relate to other moms with my normal run-of-the-mill baby. She isn't terrified by the sound of me popping open a can of coke. She went to her first playdate and lasted an hour just contentedly observing the other babies before she started to fuss a little. I'm amazed and appreciative of these tiny little things. Like if we'd had her first, there probably wouldn't be a 5.5 year age gap between my kids... 

But also having Juliet, I realize the ways Forest really took it easy on us. We never had to sleep train him. Potty training was a breeze. He freaking TAUGHT HIMSELF TO READ. At age 3! He's an expert traveler and has always been such a super fun kid, always enthusiastic and up for anything! I just feel like he was never a baby. He was just always ready to grow up and do the next thing. Or maybe we pushed him to that because we aren't really baby people. I don't know. 

Now that he's reached Kindergarten he is truly thriving.  He is Mr. Social and he has a crew full of friends that call his name as soon as he gets to school. He is still VERY shy in group situations but is becoming so much more confident than we ever dreamed possible. He even shared at show and tell in his Kindergarten class! 

We love him and are proud to call this busy little daredevil ours. 

Juliet is 4 months!

Whew! I have so much catching up to do on the blog. it's almost Thanksgiving and I've yet to write about Forest's 6th birthday celebrations or Halloween. This two kid thing- its no joke! Jonathan had Forest on an adventure up in Chiang Mai last weekend so I feel like just having Juliet I had a bit more free time than usual, so I'm trying to keep this blog updated. 

Juliet turned 4 months on the 21st. I remember 4 months being a big turning point for myself with Forest. My post partum depression eased up and things fell into a more manageable and predictable routine. I'm finding the same to be true with Juliet and I've also learned to not be so stubborn about asking for help, especially in the sleep department. 

Jonathan travelled SOOOOO much between 2-3 months and Juliet went through 2 major sleep regressions in that time period which left me totally bonkers. Now Jon and I have a deal that if she's having a rough few nights we will switch off being in charge of the monitor. It helps me to know that even if I have rough night of sleep, the next night I'll get to rest. He was gone for 4 nights in a row last week but she slept like a total champ! Here's a snapshot of our daily lives:

Stats: 
Weight: 13 lbs 14 oz (43rd percentile- slowly but surely moving up the charts!)
Height: 24.5 inches (48th percentile)
Head circumference- 15.9 in (44th percentile. This is great news as head circumference was what we were most keeping our eye on.)

At her 2 month appt she was 11th percentile for height, 17th for weight and 15th for head circumference so these are BIG gains. Forest followed a similar trajectory up the charts except his height was 75% by this point. Ha! He's always been a string bean. 

Milestones:
*Grasping items and bringing them to her mouth.
*Understanding some language. Ex. will kick her legs if I say 'splash' or will look at Forest if I ask her 'Where is brother?'
*Spontaneous belly laughs. 
*Mimicking- blowing raspberries back at me, waving her hand when we wave at her. 
*Scooting a bit on both her back and belly.
*Rolling both ways with mastery. 
*Sucking her thumb and self soothing this way at night (still swaddled for naps. Naps are tricky with this one!)
So mostly the skills that were just emerging a month ago are more developed at this point. 

Routine:
I feel like the routine is getting more consistent but she still keeps us on our toes. We are mostly successfully down to a 3 nap schedule which gives us sooooo much more wiggle room. She's able to stay awake about 1hr 45 minutes-2 hours at a time and I just feed her whenever she wakes up from naps and once right before bed. She currently eats 5 xs a day and it will probably stay that way for years to come! So a perfect day would go sort of like this:

6:30-7AM- wake up eat
8:30-10:30- nap
10:30 wake up and eat
12:30-1:30- nap
1:30- wake up and eat
3:30-4:30- nap
6:40- eat
7-7:30- in bed

Nights have been going beautifully for the past week or so. She's successfully transitioned out of the swaddle so all we have left is out of dock-a-tot and into crib, but if possible we will wait until after our Christmas travels to tackle this since she'll be sleeping in a pack n play and portacrib while there and I think having the dock-a-tot will help her to sleep better through moving locations. 

Naps are way trickier. Technically, she naps well. Usually 2 hours in the morning and around 1 hour for her second 2 naps. The problem is she doesn't just conk out for that whole time but wakes up once or twice and needs to be rocked back to sleep. She also is still swaddled for naps (we've tried to break this unsuccessfully but know we have to do it before our trip home) and is rocked to sleep. 

I try every nap to put her down drowsy but awake but after 15 minutes if she's still up and fussing then I will rock her to sleep. Lately this has been every single nap. As for the 4 month sleep regression- I *think* (and hope and pray) that it has passed. Right around 3.5 months she started waking 2-3 xs a night. We braced ourselves for the regression, decided to transition out of the swaddle to kill 2 birds with one stone and within a week she was sleeping through better than before. 

Before the regression she was waking around 5 and then going back to sleep once we gave her her Paci but now that she's sucking her thumb she seems to be self soothing through that wake up and sleeping until 6/7. Some nights she falls asleep nursing but other times she falls asleep independently once I put her down. This can take up to 3 visits from mom and dad to give her a Paci and rub her head a bit to calm her but within 20 minutes she's usually down for the night. 

We feel super lucky but are wary about the upcoming long haul travel and huge time difference we will be facing for our trip to the US over Christmas break. And also, maybe the regression isn't entirely over yet. Her naps are still a hot mess and she's pretty fussy during the day lately (very unusual for her) so I know there is still a ton of development happening right now. 

Likes: She's a social little bug. She loves people and has become more generous with her smiles. 

This was her smile when our nanny walked in the room. So sweet. 

she has precious dimples but you can't see them well with her chubby cheeks:)

She likes bath time, her lamaze toys, and sucking her thumb. But most of all she LOVES Forest. He's pretty indifferent to her but she lights up when he's around and he elicits spontaneous laughter just by being in the room and doing his normal Forest-y stuff. He is kind of like a puppy and I guess we are just desensitized to the fact that his actions are probably a little goofy and weird. 

Dislikes: She's a bit of a grumpy mood these days but apparently that's typical of most 4 month olds just because they are changing and growing so quickly. I'd say her dislikes these days are being left in a room by herself, not having a change of scenery every 10 minutes, stroller rides, and long naps. 

I'm 75% sure she's teething. She's just overly fussy lately and drooling through her clothes everyday. We've nicknamed her 'drooly Julie'. Forest was 4 months when he cut his first tooth so I wouldn't be surprised if little sister follows suit. (Side note: Forest was an extremely early teether. He had 12 teeth on his first birthday. But yet he hasn't lost a single tooth! He's 6! And rocking a full set of baby teeth. He's starting to feel insecure about it since most of his kindergarten compadres have already started losing theirs.)

Biggest challenges: I still have anxiety about baby sleep. She's in a good streak but every night I hold my breath. I wake up several times thinking I hear the monitor and yet she's sound asleep. Hopefully her nights stay consistent and I can start to relax a bit. 

For our trip to the US in a month I know everything will get turned upside down. Maybe I won't be able to fully relax until we are on the other end of that trip and have a few stable months when we can do any sleep training we need to do. 

Other than that I feel like 4 months is when I start to come up for a bit of air. I'm feeding her 5 xs a day, she's napping 3xs with 2 hours of wake time between naps, so there is lot more breathing room at this point, especially with a full time nanny! I can even feed her, leave her with the nanny to run some errands and then be back in time to put her down for a nap. Being in Thailand during this season of life has been a really tough move for us, but having a mommy's helper is really invaluable. 

*A note on breastfeeding- My goal with breastfeeding was 8 weeks. At 4 months I am still mostly nursing. Since J is only eating 5 xs a day and going 12ish hours overnight without eating, my supply has dropped a little but I'm able to supplement with 1-2 oz in a bottle after nursing and she gets an additional 4 oz after nursing at bedtime. 

Since I'm only pumping enough to replace a 5 oz feed I'm not longer adding to my freezer stash and we've started doing about 2 oz of formula per day and she gets a bottle from the freezer each evening before bed. I still have about 40 bottles worth in the freezer but it's dwindling fast! I feel like I could easily add a pumping session into my day to increase my supply and stash but I don't really want to. By 4 months I was done nursing Forest and not the least bit sad about it. 

However, with him my supply just completely dried up by the 4 month mark (exclusively pumping). With Juliet, things are going easily enough so it feels weird just to stop. If I can make it through our US trip nursing, I guess that's kind of convenient for the plane rides. But kind of inconvenient for things like long road trips and days at Disneyworld where I have to find a quiet spot to nurse every 3 hours. I feel like the US trip being so long is putting a lot of pressure on my decision to stop or keep going. 

Like right now, I am fine nursing and giving a bit of formula and slowly increasing that balance as I wean out a feeding or two. But dealing with mixed feeding and not having enough BM supply to last for a 25+ hour journey from Bangkok to Lafayette, LA (and back) is stressful but I also don't want to keep nursing exclusively for another 2 months! It definitely feels like an all or nothing decision is best at this point. 

Some people are high on 'breastfeeding is life' but I am not one of them and most of the supposed benefits decrease steeply after the 6 month mark anyway. Juliet also isn't breast obsessed. I have to basically force feed her breast or bottle because she's so distractible and just wants to smile and chat instead of eating. For comfort, she'd much rather suck on her thumb than me, a bottle, or a pacifier. 

*A note on sleeping arrangements. Juliet is in her own room, in a dockatot in her bassinet. I'd love for her to be without the dockatot in her crib but she's sleeping 11ish hours a night and I'm scared to rock the boat. it's another one of those- do we transition her out now or wait until we are back in Bangkok and through the jet lag? They make bigger Dockatot that's for 8mos-2years but it's pretty expensive. And maybe she'll do fine without it but also maybe it will be a bumpy transition. And I'm just thinking I'll go ahead and enjoy my sleep before we travel across the world with her and flip days/night twice in a month... 

In actuality we will try to transition her straight to the crib before the trip but I'm dreading it. 1o-12 hours of sleep a night has been heavenly! But she's really impressed me with how well she's done getting out of the swaddle so maybe she'll sleep just as well in her crib.