Juliette at Two

Juliette (a.k.a. Squishy) is baseline happy. She's just a little slice of sunshine, always toddling around describing her life and world to us ("Mom, I'm climbed up! I'm on the brown couch!") with excitement and enthusiasm. Her little voice is in constant narrative mode (lest we miss out on one of her thoughts--all precious), and she's learned quickly that if she doesn't repeat herself until she gets past the noise of her older siblings, she won't be heard. So she will repeat herself ("Mom, I see the Walmart! Mom, I see the Walmart! MOM! I SEE THE WALMART!") until somebody acknowledges her observations. :)

Juliette at two is a lot of fun. Here's what life is like in her world:

Eating

Whenever some new adult walks into the kitchen (Mom returning from errands, Dad arriving home from work) Juliette requests a banana. It seems only right, from her perspective, that she get a banana when something so monumental happens. The greeting of any parental figure warrants a banana. Other occasions that warrant bananas include: waking up, snack time, lunch, getting up from a nap, getting home, getting hurt, feeling sad (we often gather her up in tears only to hear her whimper, "I need a banana."), and anytime Mom is cooking something. This girl loves bananas. (But, interestingly, she will only eat a whole one if you present it to her one half at a time. When presented with two halves, she'll eat the first half and then one bite of the second half.)

Aside from being a bananaholic, she's also into a lot of other foods. She's not too picky, though she knows and avoids suspicious food when she sees one (most recently: chili). But she'll eat things like cucumbers and carrots on purpose, and is very fond of Goldfish crackers/Cheez-its, birthday cake (we recently sang "happy birthday" to her aunt over the phone, and when we finished Jules went to the fridge and started asking for her cake), bread, applesauce, sandwiches, thin-sliced turkey, cheese sticks, and, most especially: Daddy's cereal.

The only thing we can't figure out is how she can have our DNA and be so vehemently opposed to strawberries, which, obviously, are one of the best foods one the planets. She thinks they are disgusting and does not trust them at all.

Music

Juliette is a connoisseur of several different genres. She is a big fan of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star ("Tinkow Yittow Sahw?") and I am Like a Star ("Shining Brightly song!") which are both common requests at bedtime. She also likes My Heavenly Father Loves Me ("Song of a bird!") and I am a Child of God ("Child of God!").

Other songs she enjoys (and frequently requests/demands in the car)? The Star Wars Main Theme, as well as a techno remix version of the main theme by DJ Snare that I got in college, Everything is Awesome from the Lego Movie, and XFire by The Bens (Ben Kweller, Ben Lee, and Ben Folds).

She can sing most of these. (And it's cute.) :)

Literature and Media

One thing I love about this age with Squish is that she's gotten very comfortable demanding that we read to her. Since she's the third kid and thus doesn't naturally get as much parental attention as Grace did at her age, I'm so glad that she will ask for it when she needs it. She loves to sit on our laps and listen to stories.

She's got a few favorite books that are always in the rotation. These ones get read and often taken to bed for naps and nighttime, too. Her absolute favorite is "The Lady Book," which she named herself. It's actually a collection of Little Golden Books illustrated by Eloise Wilkin, who illustrated a couple of my favorite books as a child. Her favorite stories in it are Baby Listens, Baby Looks, and Baby Dear. We read these frequently, and this book is another of the things (secondary to bananas) she might beg for in tears if she is feeling generally sick/sad or if she gets hurt.

She also really likes Bear Sees Colors, and "The Family Book," which is just a Shutterfly book I made for her filled with pictures of our immediate & extended family.

And as far as TV goes, she loves to snuggle up with her blanket (her lovey) and watch an episode or two of Daniel Tiger. She also loves The Lego Movie and, perhaps most especially, Star Wars.

Playtime

Though she has a few toys she loves (a Little People playground, some Star Wars tub toys that get carried around to church/Costco, and some Daniel Tiger figurines), Juliette also really likes non-toy imaginative play. She (and sometimes Charlie) like to push these baskets around the downstairs, sliding them across the carpet. She calls them her "mailman" and will sometimes deliver mail (random toys) from it, or put new "mail" into it.

She also likes to do things Mommy does. She swipes the broom whenever I finish sweeping so she can tidy up after me. She likes to brush her hair (and tell me, "Juliette's so pretty!") after I do Gracie's hair in the morning. And she sometimes sternly demands that I give her the Swiffer ("I need a dusty!") when she needs to clean things off. She likes to do a once-over of our kid-sized play table with the "dusty" at least once a week.

She and Charlie ("Chah-yee Bah-yee" for Charlie Barley) have finally hit a gotten a better rapport between them. They've always liked each other, but in the past few months they've been playing together, and he will finally let her come in his room sometimes. They play a game called "shells" where they go into a room and shut the door and play, and then go to "another shell" which just means another room. They shut the door, play, and repeat. It makes me so happy that they have a game that is just theirs. Sibling bonding = good. :)

Juliette has also figured out that the most fun things (besides her beloved Wyldstyles--now referred to as "Wyldstyle and Big Wyldstyle") are usually in cupboards she's not supposed to be in, so we have to make sure to keep the master bathroom door closed if we're not upstairs. When she comes in with me while I get dressed she likes to open my cupboard and go through all my jewelry and pull it out to inspect. When she sneaks in there on her own, she steals our toothbrushes and goes through our other stuff. The other day I found her playing music on by banging two toothbrushes against our tub faucet. She looked at me with wide eyes and then ran over to put them away, totally pretending that she'd been just about to clean up all along.

She also likes to do whatever the big sibs are doing: playing outside, putting together Legos, running circles around the couch to the rhythm of the closing credits of movies. You know. The usual stuff. :)

Language

Like her siblings before her, Jules has a crazy grasp on language. She didn't care to walk until she was 16 months, but she's been talking up a storm for over a year now, and she can carry on great conversations and can even pinpoint and tell me when she's feeling happy or sad or hurt.

She likes to tell me everything she sees, and everything that makes her happy. When we dressed her up for Halloween she admired herself in the mirror and then walked around for the rest of the evening saying, "Mommy, I'm a cute costume!" She makes sure I'm always apprised of her status when I need to be, and its not uncommon for me to hear a crash from the next room followed by her shout of, "I'm okay, Mommy!" or a tiny voice pipe up from the back seat, "I'm buckled, too, Mommy!" And sometimes she'll come up to me and just say, "Hi, Mommy! It's me, Juliette!"

Other things I love?

She things the lion on the Food Lion sign is a dog, and starts exclaiming "DOG! DOGGY SAYS WOOF!" whenever we drive past it. She loves the BB8 at the Star Wars section of Target, and she recently named a stuffed dog from her grandparents "Yoda." And whenever we are on megacouch (clearly that's what its called when we shove the ottoman up against the sectional to make a megacouch) she squeezes in between Steve and I no matter how close together we're sitting. She nestles between us and pulls her blanket up to her chin and sucks her thumb, and, well, that is just the best.

And so is she. :)