2 Years Old

You turned 2 years old today.

During the month I scratch down funny things you say so that I can recount them in your monthly letters. This month, I found the following sentences on a scrap of paper, but I can't remember the context in which you said any of them:

"I'm making my coffee in there. It's very hot, I can't drink it."

"I scared a little mouse in the kitchen."

"Do a potty dance. POTTY! DANCE!"

You make up the funniest stuff these days. At least half of everything you say is completely fabricated. Over dinner tonight Dad asked you what we did today and you said we went to The Fair (untrue). He then asked you what you saw there and you answered, "Bunnies. And a hog." (??)

For the most part, your pronunciation is actually really great, but there are a few words that you mispronounce and it's so cute that I want to make sure it's documented:

Flowers is pronounced "Fwalers"

Sunscreen is "Scun Screen"

Gross is "Gorse"

Your Salt Water Sandals are "Hot Water Sandals"

I'm so thankful that you're as funny as you are because it makes the times that you are horrible so much more bearable. We had a stretch last month of 3 or 4 days in which you were a nightmare of tantrums and generally bratty, whiny behavior but it passed and while things are never perfect, we were doing pretty well for a couple of weeks. Until last week. A friend suggested it was maybe knowing that your birthday was coming, but the 3 days leading up to your birthday party Sunday night were NOT FUN. For you or us. Nothing was right. One morning after flipping out about wanting the pink cup instead of the one I gave you, then flipping out about wanting to go in the backyard while it was raining and cold, you begged for Sesame Street and I eventually relented because, well, because it was 7:15 and I was still wiping the sleep out of my eyes after a night of you waking over and over to ask for ridiculous things like to "Talk about my day Mom?!" at 3am (something we've started doing before bed). After the Sesame Street Begging reached a fever pitch, I just shut down and turned on Sesame Street. At which point you melted onto the floor and wailed, "That's NOT Sesame Street Mama!! It's NOT!" I mean seriously Edie. What can I possibly say to that? Because DUDE, it totally WAS Sesame Street. I try to remind myself that it must be very hard to be you right now and while you are incredibly verbal for your age, you still have a hard time expressing exactly what you want. Especially because I'm pretty sure you don't actually know what you want some of the time.

On a brighter note, you were a rockstar at your birthday party - no flip outs or bullying of other kids (at least that I witnessed) and aside from the occasional "that's MY present" comments (we can thank daycare for you finally learning the concept "mine"), you did a great job - occasionally even remembering to say thank you unprompted. Your party was really fun, but I will say that this is probably the last year we will have a gigantic party for your birthday. The next few years will be family only, maybe 2-3 close friends. We had pizza and cake in the backyard and the weather, much like your actual Birth Day was fabulous. I still remember walking around the hospital block in the sunshine, wearing my flip flops and elastic waist skirt while holding onto your Dad's arm for support during contractions. It actually does feel like a very long time ago to me now. It's impossible for me to remember what it was like to have a grunting baby unable to communicate her needs. Let alone remember our lives pre-Edie.

You now know your left from your right, can sing the entire alphabet without mistakes, and can identify all your letters and many numbers (although 8 is always "2 zeros"). Your favorite foods are popsicles, eggs, toast with peanut butter or cream cheese, broccoli (for real!), and pizza (although you mostly just pick the kalamata olives off, eat them and then beg for more. We've started buying olives at Costco.)


You know your colors, but can get tripped up sometimes. The other day you were pointing to the colors in one of your books and when you got to the picture of the brown teddy bear, you hesitated and finally ventured, "Teddy bear?" I tried to help and said, "What color is the teddy bear? He's the same color as Mom's hair" (you had been talking about my brown hair just that day). You then confidently said, "Gray!" Burn, Edie, burn. Although it's becoming more true these days - I swear you are literally giving me gray hairs.

One new change this month is that you are trying new pronouns on for size. You no longer speak about yourself in the third person, saying "I" and "my" correctly. You like to say "hers" instead of "she" - for example: "Hers is going potty" and will sometimes notice that it sounds wrong and try to correct yourself. Speaking of the potty, I'd say we are maybe 10% potty trained right now? That may be an overstatement. But you ask to use the potty most days at least once, sometimes as many as 4 times and these days you often don't expect a gummy bear (your original reward) after a successful potty trip. The other day you even asked to sit on the potty while in the bathtub. I plopped you onto the mini toilet all soaking wet and you promptly peed and then asked to get back in the tub. Considering how tempting it must have been to pee in the bath, I was pretty impressed. I never ask you to sit on it, so it only gets any play when you request it. I think I'll push in a few months for more of a bootcamp training week - maybe once the weather turns and we're stuck inside anyways.

Random photo of you and Reid enjoying the sunshine, while it lasts.

Jen at daycare reports that you are finally settling into a routine there; participating in preschool activities like painting, volunteering for "helper" duties at snack and lunch time (passing out cups, etc), and singing the "line up" song before going outside to play - which I sometimes hear you singing by yourself at home. You are clearly having a much better time during the day, but I will say that until TODAY, you were still ridiculously desperate for me when I picked you up at the end of the day, squealing, "It's my Mommy!" over and over and immediately climbing my leg begging to go home. When I wrote the first draft of this post on Monday night, I said that I was hoping this behavior would fade over the next month, but just today I went to pick you up and you had absolutely no interest in leaving daycare - it was SO EXCITING! Jen said you had a fun birthday - we baked mini cupcakes for the kids, they made you a birthday crown and Jen took pictures.

I'm thinking this is probably your last formal "monthly letter" from me. Moving forward I will probably just post updates more organically. For now, please know that I adore you totally and completely. Yes, you drive me bananas, but isn't that the whole point? Nothing great ever comes easy. After 3 days of tantrums we had the BEST day yesterday. The weather dropped about 20 degrees from Sunday so we stayed home - carried blankets and pillows to your new tent in the backyard (a gift from Javi and Kathleen) where we read your new books, we baked strawberry cupcakes for you to bring to daycare today, had a dance party to your new Caspar Babypants CD while wearing your new mermaid skirt and fairy wings. You spent time reading books in your pop up castle and when I tried to come in, you said, "No Mama, yours too big." At bedtime you came in from playing soccer in the backyard with Dad and said to me, "I'm very tired Mommy, go upstairs and read a story?" I mean, seriously - you about broke my heart with cuteness.

Happy Birthday Bubsies,

Mom