Big day!

The last couple days have been just a lot of fun. The days that its easy to be a mom. Georgia is happy (although not sleeping great), she is talking up a storm. She is getting to the age where she is learning so many new words that sometimes I don't even know what she is saying! Her personality just is shining through, and she is so goofy and curious and stubborn all at the same time.

Right before her nap, Dave and Georgia and I were all upstairs, and I was about to change her diaper and put her in bed. She started yelling, "badaba out-ide!, badaba, badaba!" Dave and I were just giving each other inquisitive looks, trying to figure out what she was saying. "Do you want to go outside?" "No." And all of a sudden she just leaves the room and goes downstairs, yelling, "badaba!" and then I remember. Spiders. She usually calls spiders "spadaba". When she comes back upstairs we ask her, "are there spiders outside?" "Yes!" She has inherited her moms hatred of those 8-legged creatures.

I have been preparing her for our move back to California. Pretty much all I've told her is that we're going to go on a plane in a couple weeks and live nearby Grandma, Grandpa and French Fry. I didn't really think she caught on until the last couple of days. She will see an airplane and will immediately shout out, "Fry! Nana! Baba! Plane!" And I reassure her that yes, we will see French Fry in a couple weeks ;)

This morning she was running around naked. She actually does this quite a bit. (don't all kids like to be naked?) I had gone upstairs to change and she was calling me and I went back downstairs to find that she had peed (just a little) on the couch, and now was sitting on her little potty. I reminded her gently that next time she needs to pee in the potty, and I went back upstairs. Well, two minutes later I hear her yelling, "poop!" and I come running downstairs. She is in the kitchen. No poop. Thankfully. She then tells me, "potty!" and I go with her to her potty. And its full! She had actually peed in her potty. This is the first time its happened, although we've had lots of naked time the last month or so. She seems to have the worlds biggest bladder (no joke - will only pee once a day, during her nap). Ok... now that you know way more about her bladder than you need to, isn't it just fun? A little girl that is learning to pee on the potty. We got to call (and wake up) her Aunt Kate to share the good news. I'm sure Kate was thrilled with her 1am wakeup call.

Lastly, a video from last night. In order to get her to eat a little more (short attention span and doesn't want to sit at the table for more than 10 minutes), we read books to her after Dave and I are done eating. She can read her numbers, and knows all her animal names. And her colors. I know I'm her mom, but isn't she just cute?

Answers

A while ago, I posted that we were trying to figure out what comes next after our stint here, in London. Dave had originally signed a 2-year contract. We have honestly been thinking about our options since probably January. We have talked about them. We have turned down opportunities. And we finally know what we are doing next. We still don't know all the details - like where we'll be living a month from now... haha!

We do know that Dave is taking a job at Pomona College in Claremont, overseeing their endowment. He accepted their offer last week and turned in his resignation at World Vision. Please continue to pray for us as this month is going to be absolutely crazy! We have some last minute shenanigans planned with our friends (going to Wales for 4 days), Dave has a week-long trip to the Caribbean (and yes, I am extremely jealous, but one of us has to stay here and do some actual work!), then we have a week to pack/clean and we leave! We have movers coming the second week of October and will fly home to the US sometime around the 14th or 15th of October. Dave will start his new job the following week.

Please pray for us as we begin this new transition - selling and packing items in the UK, saying goodbye to friends, finding a house, figuring out how to furnish the house, waiting for our shipment from the UK (probably won't get all our things until the beginning of December), figuring out cars, staying in hotels and short-term housing until we find a place to live, flights, dealing with jet lag once again and on and on. Now... to take picture and list the items we need to sell!

Adventures of travling with a toddler

Georgia has now been on 8 trans-Atlantic flights (the shortest of which is 8 hours long). She has been on 21 flights altogether (I hope I'm counting right) and has visited 4 countries. She is also an expert train/bus/tube traveler as we live in London and don't have a car.

Honestly, she does pretty good. She does. The hardest thing about traveling with her is the jet lag. When we finally get to where we're going - 17 hours door to door when we fly from London to Los Angeles - then we have an 8 hour time difference, meaning that our little angel wakes up at 3 in the morning for the first few mornings we're in our new time zone. And on the way home, we have just the opposite - a tired toddler who refuses to sleep until 3am.

Some things that make airline flights more do-able:
1) have a seat for Georgia. She is not yet 2, meaning that she does not need her own seat on the plane. We have not yet bought her a seat. Although - when flying internationally, we have to pay taxes for her. It ends up costing about 10% of an adult ticket. We have gotten very lucky when flying though, and often ask when we check in and when we get to the gate if there is an extra seat on the plane and try to rearrange our seats so that we can have three seats for the three of us. This works for us more than half of the time. Other times, the plane is full, so we just have to live with having Georgia on our laps.

2) we take the car seat with us. Part of this is because we will need it when we arrive in our destination. But, it is also nice to have on the plane. Poor Dave lugs it through the airport (it probably weighs 30 pounds), and we can set it up on the plane if we have an extra seat. We bought a car seat that was very narrow so that it fits on the plane seats. We can use it when we need to just have a break. Put her in the carseat, give her a book or the ipod and she is ready to go!

3) We fly economy plus. More legroom is a bonus

4) We try to strategically plan which seats we have. When flying from Chicago to Los Angeles, our flight was supposed to be at 7pm. It left late - around 9 or 10, meaning we didn't get into LA until close to midnight. I was really worried about how that was going to be with Georgia, but it ended up being one of the best flights we've taken with her! The reason for that was we were in the very front of the plane. No one was in front of us. We had a good 3 feet between our seats and the wall. Georgia fell asleep in my arms and I was able to make a bed for her using the pillows and blankets and she slept on the floor for over an hour of the flight.

5) Lots of toys/books/electronics. When flying I bring the biggest bag possible. I have to admit its a pain. But, it makes the flight much easier. I brought little tubs of playdough. Coloring books, crayons, magic markers (the ones that only work on the specific paper), sticker books, books, ipod, ipad, and Georgia's baby doll. And lots of food. Because Georgia doesn't have a seat, they don't give her food. And on an 8+ hour flight, that is a long time to go without eating! So I pack yogurts, cereal, fruit, a cup for milk (flight attendants will give you milk before take off if you ask them!), and lots of snack type things. Pretty much, the more things I have with me, the better! It is sure a hassle to try to take things in and out of the bag, and keep it organized, but having lots of things to play with makes for a happier toddler.

6) Walking the aisles. When all else fails, Dave and I take turns walking up and down the aisles with her. I doubt the other passengers like this - Georgia is so social that she loves tapping on everyone's legs and saying "Hi!" to them, even when they're sleeping. But, you have to admit that people would prefer to have a happy child on the plane with them, rather than one that is crying.

7) Dealing with jet lag: Pretty much nothing I can do about it! It just sucks. There are those miracle children who sleep whenever and wherever. I don't have one of them! Georgia has a very good body clock and it wakes her up at 8am, British time. That means that even if it is 3am in California, and she only slept 6 hours that night and is exhausted from traveling the day before.... well.... she's up anyways! Honestly I don't know how to deal with jet lag other than realizing that it will not last forever. We try to put her down for naps when she is tired, and we try to encourage sleep by keeping the room dark and quiet. We've even tried to drug her (benedryl) which I honestly couldn't tell if it worked or not. The other tip is to sleep when your child is sleeping! When we landed in Chicago and I put Georgia to bed at 6pm, I also went straight to bed because I assumed she would be up bright and early. Well, I was correct, and we all woke up at 4am. The only way I survived those first few days was by going to bed right around the time that Georgia fell asleep.

8) certain ages are easier to deal with than others. When your child is an infant 0-5 months, travel is relatively easy. The child sleeps relatively easily, just drinks milk, and doesn't need any entertaining. We found the most difficult trip with Georgia when she was 11 months old. She was just starting to walk, hated to be confined, and her attention span didn't last more than 1 or 2 minutes. She didn't quite understand TV or ipads yet, so had a lot of trouble entertaining her. This last trip, at 18 months was the easiest one we've had yet. Georgia was easily entertained by the ipad and the TV on the flight. She also understands that she is tired and doesn't fight sleep quite as much. Honestly, I cannot wait until she is 5 or 6! I will be so excited to just sit back and relax while she reads a book or watches a movie on her own. Now that will be the life!

21 months

I have to say that this month has just flown by. Surprising! Coming back from a month of vacations, I expected this month to drag by, but the weather has been nice and warmish, and we have been able to enjoy the Olympics and be outside quite a bit.

I'm smiling just like Georgia... when she does her goofy smile

Weight: 27.2 pounds
Height: Somewhere between 35 and 36 inches. Measured by myself at home.... doesn't work too great with a wiggly toddler!
Shoes: size 7

This month was a little unusual for us - Georgia had a lot of babysitters! Dave and I went to two Olympic events, and we left Georgia one day for 8 hours, and the other day for 5 or so. Another day, Dave and I ventured into the city and left Georgia with another friend for 4 hours. She actually has done amazingly - according to our friends she doesn't cry at all (okay, only when one of them put her in bed.... and that was only for a minute or two!).

Georgia and Annabelle at the park

We also started doing some night weaning. We had a couple nights in a row where I was gone in the evening and Dave put her in bed using a cup of warm milk. She actually did great and started sleeping through the night! We have been putting her in bed now with milk (instead of nursing) for about 3 weeks. She seems to be doing great and actually sleeps a whole lot better (my favorite part about this month!)

Her favorite word this last week has been "NO!" which is usually directed at some unknowing child on the playground. Sharing is not one of her strengths. That "No!" has come in handy though, for example, when an older kid was trying to give her an unwanted hug.

So proud of how full her mouth is (well, it isn't really, in this picture....) 

Georgia had her first sentence this month! She said, "More peach" and I started jumping up and down with joy! Since then she has been using a lot of two words together, and even a couple times has used three words together. Her vocabulary is growing by 5+ words a day and will often try to say any words that Dave or I use. Another phrase she said this morning was, "Bee! hold me!" when she saw a gnat flying around the kitchen. (She is terrified of bugs). I estimate her vocabulary to be at 150 words right now.

Tantrums are right around the corner for us. Georgia is quickly becoming very opinionated (did I mention she is strong-willed?) and will either shout "No" at us when we want her to do something she doesn't want to do, or will break down and cry. Its very difficult for her to sit in her highchair for all of dinner and she had a couple minute cry during the middle of dinner last night when we wouldn't let her get down.

She has been using her own name tons! She uses it when she wants to do something by herself (with no help from mom or dad) or when she wants to play with a toy that someone else is playing with. She will go up to the child and wait for a minute, then say, "Georgia" and then try to take the toy. Its like she's asking if they can share with her. I'm thankful she is nice about it, but most of the time the other child isn't too happy to share with her.

An example of a tantrum. She wanted to go walk to see the ducks and mom wanted to take a picture. 

Georgia knows about four shapes by name (heart, oval, circle and triangle) and more often than not she can name the correct colors of things (she knows yellow things, sometimes gets the other colors right). She also knows probably 4 letters: M, K, T, D. She doesn't know those by name, but rather the M is for Mommy and the K for Kate or Ky, likewise the T for Teresa or Tim.

Singing Songs

Georgia has a love of music, which is really fun for everyone who spends time with her because she will often break out in song.  One of her favorite songs is "The Wheels on the Bus". She inserts people/animals/things into the song. 

For example: "The Matt on the bus goes talk, talk, talk," or she might say "The baby on the bus goes eat, eat, eat". She is very peculiar about what it is we're singing about and the action they're doing. Some of her more unusual ones include, "The neck on the bus goes tickle, tickle, tickle" and "The oatmeal on the bus goes eat, eat, eat" It is a fun song to sing because most of the verses include people: Matt, Kyan, Nana, Baba, Kate, Avery, Annabelle, Nathan, Georgia, Mama, Dada, and the list can go on and on.

She is also getting really good at her ABCs. She has always loved the tune - she started singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star many months ago. Most of the time there weren't words in it.... just the tune. And then she substituted one word in the song: Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, etc (sung to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle). And then she did the same with Daddy. Now she sings the ABCs. Here is a video of that. Its a little noisy. I took it in the car, and I couldn't let her see my phone otherwise she would stop singing. This was taken about a month ago, and you can imagine how much better she is at it now!

Immediate differences

After living in the UK for almost 2 years now, whenever we travel back to the US, I find the differences in culture glaring. Here's a few differences that I noticed this last trip.

1. I was shocked when I paid for something in US dollars and received 10 bills back and hardly any coins. In the UK, most of the time you get coins back when you pay in cash because the smallest bill they have is a 5. Coins in the UK are worth quite a bit, and although they are big, I can use them often. In the US, I had bills filling up my wallet!

2. One of the first things we noticed were how large the people were in the US. There are fewer overweight people in the UK (probably because of lifestyle differences and smaller portion sizes), although I would say most everyone in the UK is "normal". Most people wear little or no makeup and wear normal (yet European) clothing. There are of course the party/youth crowd which is a little different.

3. Wow did we travel.  I know that we don't have a car in the UK, but still I don't think we walked anywhere while we were in the US! We brought Georgia's stroller, but we didn't use it at all the entire time we were in the US. It was really nice to have it for the airports though. Seriously we drove everywhere and everyday several times. Everything is so spread out - church is 10 miles away, the grocery store is 1 mile, the mall is 10 miles, the park is 2 miles. The lifestyle in the US is just completely opposite to the one we have in the UK. In the UK, I rarely go outside of my 1-mile circle. There are 5 grocery stores within a 1-mile radius (although two of them are the size of a 7-11). Our church is literally across the street from our house.

4. Sizes! Sizes of everything are different. We were shocked more than once on the size of drinks, the size of food portions at restaurants, the size of cars, the size of the roads, the size of houses, and on and on. Honestly when we came back to the UK, I felt like a giant living in a small house. I know I've talked about how small our home is here in comparison, but I should do a post on houses sometime ;)

20 months

Sorry this is a couple days late. We have had a month of vacations and only got back home a couple days ago. I have to say that Georgia is a wonderful traveler - she completed her 4th round trip international flight! Honesty, I don't think we could ask any more of her. I will have to have a blog post soon about traveling (especially flights) with her.

Georgia loves dogs!

Weight: 27 pounds
Height: 34.5 or 35 inches (95% still)
Clothing: 24 months or 2T, some 3T (but they're big on her)
Teeth: still waiting on 2-year molars. I think they're beginning to bother her as she's been chewing on her hands, and has seemed to have a bit of trouble sleeping on occasion (although it could be travel-related, too).

Sleep: This one has been all over the place because of traveling. Most nights she was waking up 3-4 times.  I really hate jet lag. Georgia really suffers from it and has trouble sleeping at night when we travel. Naps though are usually quite long.

She loves climbing! Daddy said he didn't help her very much... he only worked as a spotter

Nursing: I am so glad that I am still nursing Georgia. Really, I have no clue what I'd do if I wasn't. We mostly nurse at night, and it helps calm her down and put her back to sleep when she is jet lagged. I mean, what else are you supposed to do when your child is waking up at midnight, 2am, 3am, 5am and you're staying in a hotel in a random city? Once she settles back to the right time zone, I am going to start the process of weaning her.

Her first time wearing a life vest! We went on a boat while in Wisconsin this month

Talking: It is amazing the changes she has made this past month. It is so fun seeing her grow in this area. When she is getting ready for bed, she has started to talk more and more to me (as we nurse). She often says peoples names as if she is remembering her day - who she saw, what she did. She is quite funny and we're starting to have conversations. For example, she'll fart and then say "diaper" (her word to tell us that something is going on down there) and I'll say "that's okay! everyone farts". Then she'll say, "daddy?" and I will reply, "yes, daddy farts." She'll think for a minute then say, "nana?" and I'll say, "yes, nana farts". This goes on and on until she lists everyone she knows.

Georgia kept asking Kyan to jump with her

Memory: I am continually shocked at how good Georgia's memory is. She remembers her friend Avery who used her potty seat way back the beginning of June. In the Wallaces neighborhood, there is a house that has a few goats. There are two different ways to get to the Wallaces house, and she knew when we were on the street with the goats and would ask about them.

We had a lot of pool time in California

Favorite things: Georgia is still a people person. She loves making new friends and now learns names quickly. In the morning when she wakes up she asks about her friends. When she draws pictures, she tells us she is drawing specific people. The other thing she just absolutely loves right now is climbing and jumping. She jumps off stairs, jumps off couches and chairs. She can climb into her highchair. She knows how to use the cargo net at the park.

playing in the water in California