2 Years Old!!!

2 years old! Wow! What a blast the last two years have been!! I love the little person you have become over the past two years and so look forward to seeing how you grow and change over the next year. Two years old is my favorite age yet. You are so sweet, incredibly compliant, loving, full of giggles and smiles, and just so much fun! You change every day and your vocabulary has absolutely exploded over the past few weeks. I can't keep up!

Here are all the things that make you YOU at TWO....

You can identify a few different letters - "M for Mommy", "D for Daddy", "H for Hannah", and "E for Emma". IYou now know everyone's name in our family - "Hannah Gace Carro", "Emma Wose Carro", "Beena Carro", and "Bian Carro".  PRECIOUS!  I even managed to capture a video of you saying them all! We are working very hard on learning colors, but very little progress is being made.  Every time I ask you what color something is, you say, "red" (without fail!).  If that's not correct, you say, "Yellow".  This has me a little concerned that you may be color blind.  Which I know is silly, but I can't help but worry when so many of your friends already know all their colors.  It's definitely not for lack of trying!  But I know you'll figure it out eventually. And I do think you know one color - pink! Progress!

At the beginning of this month, your naps were back to being short and filled with tears.  You were napping like a champ for the previous month, but then you were back to your normal 45 minute naps, with the occasional one hour nap thrown in there.  You were once again waking up screaming your head off (still tired!) but refusing to fall back to sleep.  I continued to remain consistent in leaving you in your bed for an hour and a half, no matter what, but you just continued to fuss. After a few days of this, I decided it was time to have a chat with you, and see what happened.  I talked to you several times during the day about what you should do when you wake up from a nap (not cry, but instead play quietly with the toys in your crib).  You seemed to get it and the next day I reminded you several times before I put you down of the new nap time "rule" and then prayed that it would work!  And it did!  You woke up at the one hour mark, fussed for a few seconds, but then SILENCE!  I don't know if you fell back to sleep or not, but you were quiet and I was thrilled.  You then began fussing again at the one and a half hour mark, which was fine by me, as that was the desired nap length.  Yeah!!  This worked well for the first two days, but the third day we were not so lucky.  :-(. By the end of the month you were taking an average of an hour nap, with a few hour and a half and 45 minute naps scattered in there. So overall, a good month of napping.
You are obsessed with the magnadoodle and constantly want someone to draw a picture of our family.  You are sure to have me include Mommy, Daddy, Hannah, and Emma!  I love that you have started having us include Emma in the picture...hopefully this is a sign of good things to come. You loved your little Elmo cd player that grandma got you at the beginning of the month. It had a microphone attached to it and you loved to sing and talk into it. It was so cute! I tried desperately to catch you doing it so I could take a video, but that proved too difficult. Unfortunately, the cd player stopped working since being dropped a few too many times. :-(. It sure was fun while it lasted! You are also obsessed with calico critters, little people and your sesame street figurines. You love to play pretend with them and are getting to that fun age where playing with a dollhouse for hours is entertaining!

You started jumping with both feet (not perfectly, but close) this month and can walk backwards very well. You also love to march and gallop.

You are incredibly shy!  INCREDIBLY!!  We do two different structured activities during the week - Music with Mummy and Sportots.  You cling to me for the majority of the time and rarely participate in the activities.  I don't know where this shyness comes from, but it bothers me a bit.  I hate that you are missing out on certain activities that all the other kids are participating in and I don't like for you to be the odd one out.  But at the same time, I want you to be yourself and be unique.  So it's a hard line to balance on.  I don't want to stifle you in any way but I also don't want to push you too far.  I am hoping that this is just a phase and that you will eventually warm up to other people.  I am also hopeful that once preschool starts in September, that it will help you become more comfortable in group settings.  But even more so, I am praying that it doesn't traumatize you!  YIKES! You are also NOT a fan of crafts!  I attempted a Valentine's craft with you (painting your feet and making a footprint heart), which was a complete disaster.  The second the paint touched your feet, you started screaming bloody murder!  Oh my!  You were hysterical.  When I finally managed to put your painted feet on the paper, you were squirming around so much that they just turned out as big smudges on the paper, not resembling foot prints at all.  Epic FAIL!

Your vocabulary continues to explode and you are speaking in full sentences most of the time now.  We can almost always understand what you are saying and most of your words are pronounced correctly. My favorites lately are - "I'm so happy to see you Mommy" (followed by a great big hug), "Bye bye Mommy. I'll see you in a couple days" (as you walked out of the kitchen into your playroom), "I love you Mommy", "I'm so proud of you Mommy", and "Bye Mommy.  I'll see you soon.". You are so polite, saying "please", "thank you", and "excuse me" all the time!  You also say, "Bless you" when someone sneezes, which is simply precious.  If you get hurt, all it takes is a kiss from mommy and everything is all better.  Mommy's kisses are magic!  And you constantly say, "Love you", which continues to melt my heart!

You have gotten very good at brushing your teeth and are even doing a better job at letting me brush them too.  you love to say, "Mommy do first!"...guess I've said that a few times. Soon it will be time for your first dentist visit, which makes me nervous!  I'm pretty sure you are not going to be a fan!

Your favorite foods right now are blueberries, pasta, chicken, pretzels, raisins, freeze dried fruit, apricots, bunny crackers, smoothies (plain yogurt, fruit, spinach, wheat germ, and almond milk), veggies with parmesan cheese sprinkled on top, prunes, bananas, green beans, raw carrots, steak, and peas.  You are a fairly healthy eater, which I am so thankful for!

You are counting to 10 perfectly now and can even count to 13 outloud.  You have no trouble counting how many objects are in a picture, as long as I point to each one.  Otherwise you get confused about which ones you have already counted and just keep going until you get to 10. :-)

You are finally starting to become more interested in coloring, which makes me so happy.  I have always looked forward to the day where crayons and a piece of paper would occupy you for several minutes and I think we are nearly there.  Right now you still try to eat a crayon from time to time and spend the majority of your time lining the crayons up in a perfectly neat row, but you also spend some of the time scribbling on the paper, so I'm happy! :-) We did have our first two crayon mishaps this month. The first time you called me into the playroom ("Come see Mommy") to show me your artwork. Unfortunately, it wasn't on the paper, but instead was on the window. Oops! The second time I was in the bathroom and you were banging on the door. For the first time I had locked the door for some privacy instead of the typical door wide open approach. I wondered what all the banging was about and when I came out (just a minute later) you had covered the entire door in blue crayon. Oh my! Thankfully the magic eraser took it right off. We have since had lots of talks about where we are supposed to color - "On paper" you say.

You are still obsessed with Barney and Elmo (Sesame Street) and those are the only two shows you will watch on tv.  We still limit your tv time to one or two shows per day, max, but also try to skip a few days from time to time, as I really hate letting you watch any tv.

We have not attempted potty training yet, as I just don't think you are ready.  I do ask you often if you want to sit on the potty, but you almost always reply, "No".  So I don't push it.  However, the other night I asked you before bed (like I always do) and you said, "Yes" and proceeded to sit down and peed, like it was no big deal!  I stayed very unemotional about the whole thing, as I know how you do not like loud noises or a big fuss, but I can't even tell you how proud I was!  I was sure to tell you that, but in a very calm manner.  We then poured the pee in the toilet and waved bye bye as we flushed it down the toilet (with the lid closed of coure, because I am a freak about that!)  You still disappear into another room while pooping and when you are done you come to me and say, "Mommy, I pooped". So at least you know when it's happening....a step in the right direction.

You are obsessed with your baby sister, Emma, and ask to see my belly several times during the day.  Everytime I pull up my shirt to show you, you say, "Hi Emma" and proceed to play with my belly button. :-)  You love to show her your toys and tell her you love her.  Sometimes you will randomly say, "I love Emma", which makes me SO happy to hear!  I hope your love continues once she arrives.  You are going to be a wonderful big sister!

You love to fasten your seatbelt buckle on your own (the top one) and often fight me when it's time to get in the carseat.  But as long as I say, "Will you buckle the buckle?" you almost always calm down immediately.  It's the little things...

The other night at dinner, we were saying a prayer before we ate.  We always hold hands and as we did, you said, "I pray".  So we said, "Ok, what do you want to say?"  You bowed your little head and said, "Amen".  So precious!!  Throughout the rest of the meal you continued to ask to pray and would repeat the same scene...."Amen". Then you started mumbling before saying "Amen". What a precious moment.  I can't wait for the day that you say your first prayer.  What a precious thing it must be to hear your child pray! Since then we have started asking you every night before bedtime prayers what you want to thank God for. Your favorite answers are food, Mommy, Daddy, Emma, MeMaw ("MooMoo"), PaPaw, Grandma ("Gama"), Grandpa ("Gapa"), and Uncle Chris ("Kiss"). Sorry to everyone she hasn't included yet, but it's simply based on who she has seen that day. ;)

You have one "official" chore....feeding our dog, Bubbles.  You take out the container of food, then ask for help opening it ("Mommy help"), scoop several scoops of food until I realize that you have given her way too much and tell you to stop, then attempt to close the container ("Mommy help"), and proceed to put it back into the cabinet.  Then you sit next to the bowl and wait for Bubbles to eat.  If she doesn't start right away you get very frustrated. 

You love to sing and it always surprises me when you start singing a song that I had no idea you knew.  One of my favorites is when you sing the clean up song..."Clean up, Clean up, everybody go". You can sing the majority of the alphabet song in the correct order now! The best part is when you get to "wxyz"...you say, "dubabubba x y and z". Love!  You also know, "Twinkle, Twinkle", "Happy Birthday to You" (which you sing at the most random times and you usually say, "Happy birthday to me" or "Happy birthday to Hannah"), "I love you, You love me" (Barney theme song), "Baby bop hop" (from Barney), "I like my yellow blankie in the day and night" (another Barney hit), and "Lullaby and Goodnight".

Other 2 Year Stats:
-You wear mostly 2T and 3T clothes, but some 24 month stuff still fits.
-You weigh at least 30 pounds
-I'm not sure how tLl you are, but we I'll find out next week at your 2 year appointment.
-Continue to wear size 5 diapers, day and night
-Continue to wear size 7 shoes, but some 8's fit ok too.

Wow! That's a lot in just one short month. I can hardly believe that two years have gone by so quick. We waited for 2 years just to conceive you, which felt like a lifetime. But now you have been here for two years and it seems to have flown by. Weird how that works. You are so special and we are forever thankful that the Lord chose us to be your parents! We love you unconditionally!