Happy 20 months (+9 days), Miss Jules! Â The scoop:
Favorite developments this month mostly have to do with Juliette’s expanding vocabulary and the sweet (often nonsense) chatter tumbling out of her mouth. Â She’s mastering longer words and phrases, like “opp-o-sus” (“octopus”, shouted enthusiastically when the octopus picture rolls around on the little nightlight projector she loves to play with); “besh you” (“bless you”, said to herself after she sneezes or coughs); and “mama-see” (said over and over and over, usually chanted and clapped like some sort of song, though I still for the life of me figure out what she means). Â We’ve been working on colors and numbers, but right now everything is “BUE!” and attempts at counting usually begin and end with “twooooooo?”. Â She loves rattling off the names of her classmates at daycare and is apparently quite smitten with her buddy Emmett.
The word of the month is “HI!”, said with much enthusiasm whenever she enters a room or rounds a corner or just wants to get your attention. Â She says it to family and friends and to strangers walking down the street – I came across this video last night when I was doing some iPhone album cleanup and chuckled to myself. Â Such a friendly kid…
We still love our weekly outings with our little buddies – we passed a rainy Friday morning at the aquarium and Juliette had a blast, darting from tide pool to jellyfish tank and back again.
She’s a water-baby through and through, thrilled when the sun comes out and she’s allowed to ditch her pants for a romp in the lake.
We spend a lot of Thursday mornings at Alki beach, throwing rocks and scooping sand, spreading out a picnic blanket on warm days and chomping on watermelon slices.
Shane bought a bike trailer a couple of weeks ago and Juliette’s new favorite pastime is taking a spin around the ‘hood with dad.
Even better when a buddy comes along for the ride!
Bubbles, thankfully, have yet to lose their charm – we have passed many a long afternoon at our special bubble-blowing spot in the greenbelt.
There have certainly been moments this month that have left me at my wits end, when Juliette has brazenly disobeyed me or swatted at me or reached her hand into her poopy diaper. But there have been more moments in which I’ve been delighted at the ways I’ve seen her personality take shape and really shine through.  She’s so wonderfully exuberant, with her bounding gait and slightly devilish laugh.  She’s goofy and adventurous and affectionate.  She’s also chock full of surprises – I can’t wait to see what else this girl has up her sleeve…
