Juliet has grown and changed so much this month! She went through a bit of a difficult patch right after her birthday that had us pulling our hair out with her, but now we are realizing it was just huge developmental leap and now she is just such a full-fledged toddler. She is super smart and super active; a mountain goat climber and foot-stomping tantrumer. Here is just a few highlights of what daily life is like at this stage in her development.
She's wearing 5.5 shoes and depending on the brand, size 18 month or 24 month clothes. Today she's even in a Cotton On 2T shorts, but like I said, her legs are freakishly long so that makes sense. Speaking of Cotton On, we just got one right next to our house and I am so excited!!! I've been paying to have clothes shipped from the US because H&M was just not cutting it (what's the point of having a girl if you have nowhere to shop for them?!?!), but now that we have the Australian version of Old Navy I am pretty pumped!!
Teeth: We are currently counting 12 (8 on the bottom and 4 on the top). It appears as if there is some swelling up top in the canine area and we've recently started seeing copious amounts of drool and an uptick in clinginess so I expect by 14 months we may have a few more sprouting. One more big push and then hopefully a few months of respite before the 2 year molars appear.
Schedule: Schedule is basically the same with occasional morning nap fighting. I'd say every 10 days or so she only takes one nap. We are thankful (knock on wood) that she seems to fight her first nap so at least we can adjust the day, whereas Forest would skip the second nap and then be a mess and have to go to bed at like 6 pm. So a typical day is:
6/6:20- Wake up
6:45- get out of bed
7:00- milk and breakfast
9:00- milk
9:30/9:45-11- nap
11:30- lunch
2:00- snack
2:30-4- nap
6:00- dinner
7:00- milk
7:15/7:30- bedtime
She seems to max out at 10.5 hours of sleep at night so a little below sleep needs of most kids that fall in the 11-12 hour range. She happily stays in bed until closer to 7 so I honestly just try to ignore the fact that she's up. I use this time to exercise and get everything ready for Forest to get to school. Most days she's a napping rockstar!
Feeding: It's feast or famine with this girl. She's either insatiably ravenous or on a hunger strike. She recently acquired 4 new teeth in rapid succession so I'm sure that played into it. She now loves her milk so we aren't stressing about that and we dropped the bedtime bottle since she's drinking plenty during the day. She's not a fan of veggies recently so I'm sort of stressed about that.
She's suuuuuper stubborn so there is no getting it even near her mouth if she's decided it's inedible. The only thing that works is hand feeding them to her while she's roaming free. She won't touch the stuff when she's in her high chair but once she's down she will gladly eat whatever you offer her. So I'm not sure if it's the veggies or the high chair that she truly hates, but at 13 months she's learned the art of compromise. These strong willed children are going to break me, I swear.
She's still an avid consumer of all fruits, proteins (except tofu- bleck!) and pastas. Her favorite thing on earth is Peanut Butter and Banana milkshakes. If she hears the blender she is in there begging like a puppy and she throws a fit when she drains her cup and I tell her there is no more.
Favorite book: Juliet has started liking books a bit more! She mostly likes to flip through them herself and I've caught her mimicking reading to her dolls and stuffies which is soooooo cute!
Favorite toy: Still balls for sure! She also loves her shopping cart and her brother's light saber. She's still struggling with a short attention span and is definitely more into movement than sitting down and playing with toys. But she will pause for brief moments to play with Duplos or stacking rings which is an improvement over the last few weeks!
Words: I still feel like this has plateaued a bit but she's still saying quit a bit for a young 1 year old. New words this month have been 'bubbles' 'Bump bump', 'night-night', 'bee' 'yea/yep/yes', 'please' 'welcome' 'milk' 'ball' 'ah ah (like a monkey)' and 'ok'.
It's just that she'll say something as clear as day but when we try to get her to repeat it, she won't. Like one day she'll clearly say 'fish' when playing with her fishy bath toys but the next night I'll say 'what's this?' and she just looks at me with a blank stare. So it isn't very consistent!
Her most frequent words are still momma, daddy, brubba, hi, bye, that and this. And her babbling is different these days. Instead of repeating syllables, it sounds like she's speaking a bonafide language. She's mimicking conversations and responding verbally if I ask her a question. So I think she's on the cusp of being quite the verbal little one. I can't wait! One of my favorite things about toddlers is watching their language explode.
Also her receptive language is clearly taking off. She is truly getting and following directions. The other day I was reading her a book with a tiger and she got up, went to her toy basket and grabbed her stuffed tiger. And counting to 3 when I want her to stop doing something has been pretty effective! Though sometimes she looks me right in the eye and does it anyway (or even better, excitedly exclaims 'THREE!' after I count 1,2). She has a defiant streak already! Very cheeky!
Also, she's signing 'more' and 'all done' like a champ. Sometimes she says 'all done' as well.
New skills: Quite a lot. She's coming along with her fine motor skills so getting much better at stacking things, unzipping, unlocking, figuring out switches and buckles, etc. She's a climbing expert and has figured out how to get on her bum and scooch forward to go down slides. Unfortunately she's already figured out how to take her sleep sack off and is beginning to attempt getting out of the crib. Since she easily climbs over the back of the couch I have no doubt she would climb out of the crib if given ample opportunity.
Our goal is to keep her in the crib to 3 years old and beyond so to have a 13 month old attempting to escape is freaking me out more than any other thing! We've since put the sleep sack on backwards so the zipper is on her back but it has button snaps too that she's trying to work out. So far the backward trick is helping her to sleep better, as before she'd take the sleep sack off immediately and then couldn't seem to get comfortable.
She's also walking up stairs and can walk down one or two stairs. Unfortunately, our stairwell is a toddler deathtrap so she doesn't get much practice with mommy and nanny hovering over her.
Other favorites: Stuffies, pillows, blankets, swings, water, brother, zippers, Sesame Street music videos.
Dislikes: Still mainly the car or being confined in general for any length of time. She just hates being still. She will tolerate the highchair if I read to her or put on cocomelon, and that is progress.
General observations: Juliet continues to both wow and worry us with her persistence. If she wants to figure something out, she will figure it out and then she will practice, practice, practice until it's mastered. She is paying attention to *everything* and is a creative problem solver.
Tantrums have kicked up a notch and include occasional slaps, foot stomping, nose breathing and arms crossing. It's frightening and adorable at the same time.
She is incredibly friendly and happiest when surrounded by adoring fans (not hard to come by in Thailand!). She charms the stuffing out of everyone she meets with her radiant smile, sparkling blue eyes and adorable waves. And I dare you to try to resist kissing those squeezable cheeks.
