Juliet is 9 Months!

General 
Busy month!  Juliet is on the move!  She started crawling shortly after turning 8 months and hasn't slowed down since.  She is so curious.  She loves to pick herself up to standing on the couch and anything else she can get her hands on.  Not sure if Winnie and Ellie are loving the new mobility since any of their things are now within reach!

Feeding/Sleeping
She usually gets up once per night, hopefully that habit will break soon!  She loves having a pacifier at night so I make sure there are at least 2 in her crib.  Lately she has been sitting up a lot in her crib - I think this makes it harder for her to get back to sleep. Some nights she still puts up a fuss when I put her to sleep, but most of the time she goes to sleep pretty easily.

Most days she has 2 naps still - one long and one short.  The nice thing is she takes pretty decent naps - up to 2 hours at a time. The tricky party is usually she naps early, and doesn't nap at the same time Ellie does. 

This month Juliet doesn't seem to like purees anymore.  Since she has discovered finger foods it is almost as if she doesn't want the "baby" food anymore.  So instead I have been giving her banana pieces, cheese, baby puffs, etc and she loves trying to pick things up and is getting really good but hasn't quite mastered the pincer grasp yet.

I have noticed when I pump at work that I am getting much less than I used to.  I used to pump about 10-12 oz a day at work from 2 times but now I am down to about 8-9 oz.  Hopefully this is because Juliet has started solids and has dropped a bottle.  Luckily I still have a decent frozen stash to fall back on that should take me until when she weans. 

The Girls
I have been catching Ellie pushing over Juliet recently...not a fun situation.  Not sure why this is starting but I think it is because Juliet is able to get into Ellie's toys.  Any pushing gets and immediate time out in her room so I am hoping to kick this habit quickly.  

Body/Recovery
I did another 5k road race in early June and it went great!  I averaged about 7:20 per mile which is even faster than I used to run pre-kids!  Hopefully as Juliet weans (we are still several months out from that) I will be able to go on longer runs. 

"Look Mom, I'm Driving!"

 Selfies in the park

Father's Day Fun

Peek a Boo!

Ellie is 2 1/2!

I wanted to make sure to get a half year post about Ellie in because it has been all about Juliet lately!

Ellie's first "Big girl" pony tail...I can't get over how much older she looks with her hair this way!

Sleeping
Ellie loves to take forever during the bedtime routine but once she is asleep she usually sleeps like a champ.  We usually start putting her to bed around 7 pm and it takes a while to get her into her crib because she wants to: use the potty, read 349037 books, pick different pajamas, put on a bandaid, get new water, get tucked in with 5 blankets, etc!  And if any of these steps are not obliged then watch out - full freak out!  I need to try to get her on more of a "these are the things and the only things we will do before you go in your crib" because it seems each night she adds another "must do" to her list of things to do before we can put her in her crib.  

And yup she is still in her crib...thank goodness!  Ha she has never tried to climb out so why mess with a good thing?  I have visions of her coming to visit us in our bedroom or running around the house if she was able to come and go.  No current plans to move her to a toddler bed.

Most nights she is asleep by 7:30/7:45pm and up between 6-7 am. She also takes a good midday nap at around 12:30 for 1.5-2.5 hours. Recently she has gotten into a new habit of removing her sleep sack, then her pajama bottoms then taking off her diaper, so when we look at the monitor in the morning she is just laying in her crib bare ass with her top still on.  Most times she has peed the bed too so I have started putting her back in footie pajamas which she can't remove herself! 

Eating 
She has gotten pickier with foods and it can be a bit of a struggle to get her to eat vegetables but she loves fruit, so that is a win.  Fun fact: she still LOVES smoked salmon.  So weird.  I can get her to do about anything for an M&M or a lollipop :)


Activity
Ellie still does the cutest scamper/run to get from one place to another - it is almost like she doesn't want to miss out on anything so she needs to get there as fast as possible.  It is hard to get her to sit in the stroller for walks because she would rather walk herself - which can be a challenge if I am trying to take the two girls and Winnie for a walk! I swear we must be quite a site. 

She loves climbing on things and going to the playground. 

Potty Training
While we haven't started officially potty training we do encourage Ellie to go to the potty several times per day.  She does pretty well and will often request to go on the potty.  

oh just riding on a lion in my Elsa costume at the library!

My silly girl

Preschool
When Ellie turned 2 she started going to a preschool that is literally 10 houses down from us called Poppets.  There is the main teacher who is British (hence the name Poppets) and an assistant teacher and the class is made up of 2 and 3 year olds.  The first few weeks Ellie had a bit of separation anxiety going since she had only been cared for by family up until that point, but now she loves going to school.  She goes 2 mornings a week.  I love seeing all the fun crafts she brings home and when she talks about her friends at school.  


Sister Love
Now that Juliet is more interactive, it is fun to see the two girls together.  They don't really play together but Ellie acknowledges Juliet now and likes to show her things.  Juliet could watch Ellie all day long.  I have seen a lot of the two year old "mine" coming up with her sister a lot so I am trying to squash that as soon as it comes up but right now there is a lot of Ellie grabbing things from Juliet that Ellie had no interest in 2 seconds ago!  Luckily Juliet doesn't care at the moment...but in a few months I think this will be an issue!