18 months

I've given up trying to keep track of her words, she knows so many now! She's starting to string words together though, and using phrases at appropriate times with minimal prompting. For example: "I want passey", "Oh's please!" (Cherrios, please), "Tink you Mama" (Thank you Mama), etc.

Now that she's starting to remember things, and she will sit for much longer periods while reading books, I'm starting to tell her more about things going on for the fall and upcoming holidays. We went and picked apples toward the end of September, and I kept telling her how apples grew on trees, and we would try to find apples in books (we don't have one about apple picking specifically). Now she continually asks for "Apple?!" The last weekend in September we went pumpkin picking and we read "Duck and Goose Find a Pumpkin" almost the whole week leading up to the trip. She painted a small pumpkin while we were there, and we got a large pumpkin to carve later. We may carve it this weekend and then try to clean it out with a bleach and water solution to have it last until the end of the month. I envision Juliana helping with the scooping the insides out, but all the sharp knife and carving tasks will be left to Dad (or Mom). She has two pairs of fleece Santa jammies that I got at the end of the season last year (buying ahead when things are on sale!), and so we've been pointing out who Santa is. I was thrilled when we were reading a book the other day (forget which one), and there was a character wearing red and she pointed and said "Santa." It wasn't Santa, but it had been a few days since we said anything about it, so it was still exciting for me!

We stopped nursing on Oct 1st. I had been spacing out her morning nursing session to every other day, every two days, etc, but it kind of reached this point when she wasn't asking for it anymore, except in circumstances when she didn't want to be trying to sleep anymore in the morning. (When she wakes up before 6:30am, which is almost everyday, Brian or I go into her room, tell her it's still nite-nite time, and cuddle with her to try and get her to go back to sleep. Sometimes she does, other times she lays quietly for a period of time. If she decides the cuddle time is over prior to my set time of 6:30, she will cry and fuss, and try to crawl off the bed to get away. This is also when she will ask" Nurse?" or, like this morning, say "I want play!" So, I decided that last Tuesday (the first) was the last day. Then I felt bittersweet about it because she hadn't asked to nurse at all through the weekend. But then Monday, she asked, and before I had even time to think about her request, I immediately said "It's still nite-nite time." so I know it's officially over. We do have to be mindful of getting something into her fairly soon after she wakes up though. Usually this is a sippy cup of juice (diluted 50% with water), or milk, to keep the crabby monster off until breakfast (usually scrambled eggs with cheese or oatmeal) is ready to eat.

She is still a great eater, but what I'm discovering is that she 1) won't eat the same thing (for the most part) two days in a row. If she had mac and cheese on Monday, she won't touch it on Tuesday. 2) wants variety. 3) loves ice cream, but isn't such a huge fan of cake or brownies (what?! Oh, that's right, she's only been around those things like once at the wedding we went to last weekend... Maybe that's why ;) 4) loves snacking all day long so we try to make sure these are healthy options, and eats a huge huge dinner, almost like she's been starving herself all day...

We pack her food to go to school everyday. She has breakfast at home with me (well as much of it as she'll eat, the rest goes to school), and lunch, snack, and dinner at school. Everyday I send her with a small container of Sunnyfield Farm's whole milk French Vanilla yogurt, a Baybel cheese, a fruit (banana, freeze-dried fruit from Costco, raisins, strawberry-banana puree, pear sauce (pureed pears), applesauce, fresh fruit if we have it (she loves cantaloupe, blueberries, grapes, etc)), and a "pouch" (either a homemade one, going through old recipes that she doesn't really like, plus new ones that she does like: Applesauce, pears, and barley; peach compote with plain greek yogurt; blueberry compote with plain greek yogurt; raspberry compote with plain greek yogurt). Those are all snack options, plus the snacks that day care offers which are crackers/pretzels on MWF and a fruit on TT. Then for lunch and dinner I try to send a "meat/protein" and a veggie option. Our stash is winding down on these things, most of the meats and veggies I try to make ahead, but she'll eat frozen peas (cooked of course), and corn, so those are easy to put together the night before, I just make sure to add butter. I also try to send a variety of "feed myself" foods and foods to eat with a spoon or fork. She's actually quite good with her utensils.

I can't remember if I mentioned it before, but we've started introducing Juliana to the potty. About a month ago I bought the potty seat to go into the real potty (I didn't want to be dumping waste into the potty as an additional step in the process), and so before/after her bath when she doesn't have her clothes on we would ask if she wanted to sit on the potty. If she doesn't want to, then we don't push it, but she's peed on the potty about 5/6 times now! We don't do it everyday, but if she asks, we let her and try to encourage her. I've been reading a lot on the all-knowing internet (ha!) about potty training, but am not sure I've decided on a "method" yet. In the next room up at day care they have a little potty and said that if she asks, they'll take her to it. But, from what I can tell online, the methods for potty training mainly consist of letting the child run around without pants or diaper on and making sure they have easy access to the potty, without cajoling them into telling you when they need to use the potty. I.e. play into their independence and let them make the decisions. With our house on the multi-levels (we have grass now, so I'l have to make a separate post of the home improvements we've been busy working on!), there isn't a potty on the floor with the kitchen and play room, so I'll have to get a little potty for her then... Plus, I want to make sure I'm in the right mind set to deal with accidents which are bound to happen, haha. We'll see! I'm not feeling pressure or rushed or anything, but she keeps getting these awful rashes when she doesn't get changed immediately after pooping, so being potty trained would be a HUGE help in that department.

She likes to be a helper, but mostly on her terms, i.e. if she dumps all her eggs on the floor and you tell her you need her help picking them up, she may pick up 2 or 3 pieces of the 20+, but then you have to really work to rope her back into helping to complete the project. I definitely don't think she does it on purpose, she just gets distracted by other things and is very impulsive. But, this is a great thing for distracting her from getting into trouble, if you just holler out "Juliana! I need your help!"

Okay, so here are pictures!

Yes her arm is through the crib slats and she's fast asleep

See passey on the left side? And Elly and blankey

Feeding baby... Yes that's salad dressing

What a morning outfit! Santa pj's and penguin hat

Juliana got her own small shovel (the avalanche shovel from the car), to help Dad scrape dirt and rocks off the driveway.

Cleaning off the driveway from where we put in new drainage pipe on the side

Her own small grass seeder to help put down the grass seed in the back yard

Chasing after Dad. His grass seeder was much more fun.

One rainy weekend day I made eatable dough out of peanut butter, powdered sugar, and honey. Juliana definitely enjoyed eating it more than full on playing with it, but we tried to show her how to use cookie cutters, and dough shapes.

Swinging at the park by our house.

"Driving" Dad's new work truck

The c.b. radio is sorta like a telephone.

Apple picking with Dad (and Mom)

Yummy apple!

In the pumpkin patch

Trying to lift the heavy, heavy pumpkin

Painting is a very serious job

She was thrilled when she could dance to the DJ at the pumpkin patch's fall festival, and crawl around the mini houses for kids.

Her Halloween costume! I'm totally thrilled with how it turned out. A little Rockford Peaches costume from "A League of Their Own." I got the idea on Pinterest, made it from scratch, and loved the process and challenge! Now I'm trying to figure out how to make a business out of the passion ;-)

Selfie!

We've been making her try the costume on to show everyone (and get more use out of it besides just Halloween), so here she is at Nana's the past weekend, chilling in her costume.

Smiling for Aunt Caitlin in the car on the way to a cousin's wedding.

So far so good, before the ceremony, sitting pretty...

...and passed out with Dad during the wedding. It was better than the crying fit she threw last summer during another cousin's wedding...

Juliana with her Aunt, her Great Aunts, and her Great-Great Aunts!

The girls

Selfie with Caitlin

Stopped at Tamarack artisan's center on the long way home. It was a beautiful day, and it was awesome to allow her to run around the inside courtyard