Juliet's 2 year snapshot!

Juliet turned 2 on July 21. We celebrated with family and friends in our backyard with some water play, BBQ and cupcakes. 

She is growing up before our eyes and her development is going at warped speed these days. Here's a little insight into who she is at this moment in time.

Stats: Juliet is 37 inches (>99th percentile) and 31 lbs (90th percentile), so proportionally she's slimming down as she's lengthening out. She is VERY tall. She's in 3T clothes and size 8 shoes. 

Teeth: She starting cutting her first 2 year molar right after her birthday and it's now all the way through with the 2nd bottom one breaking the skin as we speak. She seems fairly ok during the day (but her baseline is kind of whiny in general so who knows), but sleep is whack-a-doo. So after this tooth breaks the skin we will have 2 more to go until all 20 baby teeth are accounted for. 

Schedule: I really shouldn't discuss fight club. Every time I start to feel some confidence about her sleep she goes haywire and the past 2 weeks have definitely been all over the place. Plus, F starting school will also shift her schedule times as we have to pick him up at a time which will cut her naps short. But for now:

6:30/7 Wake up 

1-3 nap

7:30/8 bedtime

She's been waking up early and resisting naps with these molars coming through. She started preschool on MWF from 8:30-12:30 and we are signed up for a bible study on Tuesday and Hiking class on Thursdays for the fall (covid permitting). Juliet is extroverted and busy busy so just bumming around the house with her is zero fun for all involved. Keeping her schedule busy and engaging is a necessity. 

Feeding: Juliet is feast or famine. She will go a few days where she literally will not eat anything followed by a few days where she's eating everything on her plate and asking for more. She's very picky and doesn't like sweets other than ice cream and popsicles. Her favorite foods are tortellini with pesto sauce, scrambled eggs with shredded cheese, apples, cucumbers, French fries, and anything dipped in ketchup (including apples). 

Favorite book: She currently loves this Hello World Dinosaurs book by Jill McDonald. She's low key interested in dinosaurs and I'm here for it. She also loves Sandra Boynton 'oh My oh my Oh Dinosaurs' and 'Dinosnores', so she's definitely loving anything dinosaur themed lately. We showed her the trailer for The Good Dinosaur and the excitement on her face was pretty darn cute. 

Favorite toy: Duplos for sure! And she loves to color. Getting her to color on paper vs herself/the couch/the floor is an issue, but we're working on it. She also loves her scooter, her balance bike and her cozy coupe car. 

Words: I stopped counting at the 500 word mark but she's well over that. She's speaking in sophisticated sentences and able to repeat most words she hears. I feel like Forest had a more robust vocabulary at this age but yet she's talking *more* and in a more conversational/social way. Like Forest would just memorize the names of 100 animals in a book, whereas Juliet might mistake a gorilla for a monkey but will say 'That monkey is black. This one is brown.'' She's definitely more outgoing and extroverted than he ever was so she just talks nonstop. She knows most of her letters and a few letter sounds and occasionally successfully counts to 10, but mostly skips around. Colors she has down though, as well as many shapes. 

New skills: Speaking mostly in sentences. Coming along on her balance bike. Hanging on a bar. Taking herself to the potty and actually going several times a day. We haven't officially started potty training but she's got a good head start going!

Other favorites: Cocomelon (though she'll still only watch TV for about 10 minutes). Preschool. Playing outside. The color blue. 

General observations: She's such a cutie with a hilarious and dramatic personality. She loves attention and unfortunately seeks it in some negative ways. She's *very* destructive and prone to injuries so I feel like I have to watch her very closely or something will end up broken/destroyed/hurt. 

She has days where she is sweet. cooperative, and easy going and other days where she is whiny, defiant, and opinionated. I never know what kind of day it will be. She's super high energy with a short attention span. She likes to be out and about and to do things by herself. She's charming and outgoing, friendly to everyone we come across. She's a thrill seeker who loves to have fun and is a sensory seeker to the max. 

She makes up her mind and sticks to it and its very hard to get her to comply if she's set against it. After witnessing the breadth of her personality in a 20 minute long well check, her doctor remarked 'These are the kind of kids who grow up to be CEOs' while I secretly thought 'yes, CEOS or terrorists.' And you know I wouldn't mind raising a toddler where the doctor says 'this is the kind of kid who is going to enjoy a quiet life with a possible knitting hobby or perhaps fostering cats.' I bet THOSE toddlers aren't aging their mommas at warped speed. Not my lot in life. So here we are with our diabolically cute, classically terrible 2 year old. She is the best snuggler, an amazingly sweet sharer and turn taker, tough as nails, adventurous, passionate about road safety, and an over the top extrovert (at least compared to the rest of her family).