Wife Without Borders: Juliet 10.5 months

Happy 10 months Juliet!

We finally got the bright idea to move my desktop into a different room than where Jonathan is working from home so I have a little more time to work on my computer. Still, free time is hard to come by and most of my child-free moments are spent exercising or napping.

Forest officially will not be returning to school this year and since his school campus is also home to the majority of his summer camps, we are pretty crestfallen that those will likely not be held either.

After 3 months of this, I am officially over it. There is currently no community spread and while things are slowly starting to reopen in Thailand, it's a confusing and random process with a ton of mixed signals and 'never mind, that's still closed' last minute decisions. But we feel very safe as far as Covid-19 goes, just ready to get on with our lives and looking forward to the day where the travel routes between us and home are running smoothly.

For now, only Thai citizens are allowed into the Kingdom with a 14 day state quarantine. Next is supposed to be those with work permit visas (just Jonathan in our household) and then who knows. The rumor is that international travel will open to a certain bubble of countries deemed safe. We don't expect USA to be on the 'safe list' any time soon. So yea, we are discouraged and just really try not to dwell on how much we miss our families or when we might realistically see everyone again.

This is certainly not part of the deal we signed up for. It's been hard. But I know it's been hard for everyone, and we are sitting pretty compared to so many. So mostly we put one foot in front of the other and find joy in the little things but other times we hit metaphorical walls and throw super mature temper tantrums.

But anyway, this blog post is supposed to be all about Juliet and her development over the past month or so so let's get on with that!

Y'all. The cheeks in this girl.

Milestones since 9 months:
-The most important milestone has been *walking*!

She took her first steps a few weeks before turning 10 months and she is becoming a more stable and confident walker everyday, more and more letting go and walking into open space and walking clear across the room if she sets her mind to it.

She still isn't popping up to a standing position on her own so I think that's the missing link to walking full time at this point, but I think she'll make the transition soon. Exciting and terrifying!
- Blowing kisses
- Points and says 'this' or 'that'
- Has started to point to correct items if we are reading a book and say 'where is the bee?' etc.
- Will point to eyes and say 'eyes', will also point to mouth and ears when asked.
-In addition to daddy, Bruder, hi, and bye now says 'This' 'That' 'Yes' and 'eyes' and a pretty decent attempt at 'thank you' and 'good-night'. STILL no 'momma' despite us making sure she hears this word a zillion times everyday.
-Frequently will repeat words after us like 'book' 'fish' 'egg' etc but I don't add it to her word list until she says it spontaneously.
-Is starting to follow simple commands like 'put your bunny in bed'. It's really been a big month for her receptive language! Fascinating to me, especially since she's demonstrating understanding in two languages (our nanny speaks to her in Nepali).

Schedule- Her schedule is much the same. STILL struggling with early wakings but consistently sleeping about 10.5 hours from about 7:15 pm to 5:45 AM. We keep her in bed until 6:30 but she rarely falls back to sleep once she's up, just quietly plays in bed. She naps about 3 hours a day, from 9:30-11 and then 2:30-4 but the last week has been struggling with falling asleep at nap time. I think this is common when hitting big milestones like walking so we are just continuing to go through the motions with her schedule.

Feeding- Juliet has been off breastmilk since 8 months. Formula has been a curveball digestively. In fact, her early wakings started when we switched to formula because she's now pooping around 5:30 AM. We found a US formula with added rice starch that helped slow things down in that department but it's crazy expensive to ship it here. We do it, but mix it with 1/2 Thai formula to make it last longer. It's helped the poop situation maybe 2 mornings a week. I cannot wait until we can stop with the formula! She isn't a milk feen like Forest was and getting her to drink more than 3 oz at a time is a fight. So instead of the babywise principle of feeding them 4 big feedings a day we are feeding 6 smaller bottles a day plus 3 solid meals. It feels like I'm feeding her all day. And it shows because she's top of the charts for size in both weight and height.

She's doing a fairly good job with solids. She prefers fruit and meat/protein to anything else. She and Forest both are on a self-imposed low carb diet for some reason.

Stats: At her well check a month ago she was 29.25 inches (90th) and 22 lbs (92nd). Her head circumference was even 74th which is remarkable since we have genetically small heads in our family. She's an all around big girl! She's in 12-18 month clothes and size 4 diapers. She's already outgrown her size 4 shoes. I think it's so funny that I birth tiny children who quickly turn into giants.

Likes: She loves any and all people. She is Miss Social and is generous with the smiles and waves. She loves seizing opportunities to access things we don't allow like remotes, climbing the stairs, glass dishes on display shelves that I'm too stubborn to move because surely babies exist that are capable of understanding the word no. Her most faithful pursuit is getting her hands on Forest's luscious locks and yanking it as hard as she can. We've been working with her on being 'soft' and 'gentle' as if he were the family golden retriever. Another hobby of hers is making a high pitch squeal which certainly makes our neighbors think we are in the business of drowning cats.

Dislikes: her highchair, baby jail, staying still for diaper changes/getting dressed/reading books. She throws actual temper tantrums already when we say no or take something away from her. And y'all, I've had a 2/3/4 year old. I know what a real tantrum is. And she's throwing them. At 10 months! I'm afraid, I'm very afraid.