27 Months!

What an amazing, marvelous and maddening age this is!

I don't know whether to laugh at her antics, be amazed by her intelligence or pull my hair out with the drama!

It been three months since I posted her milestones so this may be a really long post...bear with me while I just sit in awe and write about her.

Language development is amazing and she now converses very well. The past month or so she has made the leap to asking questions, as in "what is that sound?", "who is that?", "mamma - what is this?". It is so cute because on one hand she seems such a little "know it all" and then she will surprise me by asking a sweet innocent questions and I realize she is still a baby!!! 

She is really smart and know a lot of songs and nursery rhymes. Here are few she can say entirely on her own without prompting, in tune and are about 80-90% understandable which I think is pretty cool.
- Itsy bitsy spider
- Jack and Jill
- Hey Diddle diddle
- Twinkle Twinkle
- Wheels on the bus
- ABC
- Humpty Dumpety (sp?)
- Little Miss Muffet
- Little Jack Horner
- and many monkey songs which I don't know myself so don't know the titles.

The BEST is she knows and sings "Edelweiss" with me. I have always sung it to her since she was an infant and now when I sing it, she sings with me. Many nights before we sleep we will sing a duet...she has such a sweet voice and I am amazed how well she holds the tune and can say most of the words.

She continues to love books and is now at the age when she likes to follow the story. I am really enjoying this because rather than pointing to pictures I can read the text. We have books all over the house, including a mini-library near the bed.  Each night she picks two books for us to read. They vary based on her mood, but its fun to see what she will pick each night.

Food wise she is now eating pretty much anything and everything. She had a good appetite and enjoys her food. She continues to love fruit and cheese but will eat her veggies without much fuss.

Sleep is a whole other post - but mainly she is doing well. She can go many nights without asking for "more milky please".  I do think the longer daylight hours are causing her to sleep much later at night.  Last night she was up until almost 10pm...not tired or anything:-(  But that is rare, its more usual for her to sleep by 8:30pm and wake at 6:00am. Sometimes she will wake around 5am for milk and go back to sleep for a couple of hours. She does wake a couple of times for her binky or just talk in her sleep, last night it was hilarious she was saying "I want my make up!"....LOL, yes, you read that right!

She is still sleeping in my bed which is challenging because she kicks. So now I have a pillow between her and me. A few nights ago she asked me to bring her crib (now daybed) alongside my bed because she wanted to sleep there. I could not believe my luck!  She slept there for abut 2 hours and then woke up wanting to climb back in with me....oh well. It was worth a try!

She loves play acting.

She currently enjoys putting diapers on her stuffed toys and dolls/babies. In fact the moment she wakes she jumps off the bed and declares "puppy has done pee pee". She will run off to get toilet paper to wipe his "body" as she calls that part of the anatomy (so sweet!) and get a new diaper. I have a bag of left over newborn diapers which fit her dolls and animals perfectly. She can put a diaper on her toys by herself.

Other times she will be the doctor and check out her toys with her stethoscope, or put band aids on them. Or she will "have a party" or cook eggs. She loves to sit on the bed and put on make up. My Mom gave her an old purse with a small make up brush and an empty lipstick and she will brush her face and say "I am putting on make up" :-)

She is doing a lot of painting and artwork in school and its so nice to see how she can now draw circles etc. I even have her artwork on the fridge - how cool is that!  We love playing outside when the weather allows - we do bubbles, sidewalk chalk, water plans and yard work.

She loves her independence and pushing boundaries is part of our every day. It can get exhausting and exasperating for me...but I know its her way of becoming her own person.

She can put on and take off her shoes. Its amazing how she gets the correct shoe on the correct foot. The past few days she has started trying to put on her shorts and pajamas and is making good progress.

On the potty training front, we are moving slowly. She sits on the baby potty before we take a bath every evening and goes pee pee, and gets excited about throwing it into the big potty. She knows when she needs a diaper change after potty. I need to start encouraging her to sit on the potty at more defined times, maybe before we get dressed for school etc so it becomes a habit.

Gosh...so much more...her hair is really long and she allows me to make her hair into pony tails. She looks like a doll!

We are STILL on binkies - gosh I hate those things especially when she wakes at night wanting "more binkies please" ( lol -- at least she is super polite!!). I hope to break the habit off soon. Any ideas will be appreciated!

I could go on and on.....I adore her sweet face and cannot believe how big she is now. No longer a baby but a toddler! Sometimes when I pick her up and school and see her running to me I do a  double take - is that my Beanie looking like a little girl now!

Last night she was trying to snap her fingers, I do that to songs sometimes and she could not do it obviously. She looks at my hand and says I want to be big. I hugged and kissed her and said " all in good time baby - not too fast, okay!".

I love you sweet girl....you are my world!