26 and 27 Months

Dear R,

The last two months have been a whirlwind. You are getting more independent at every moment and this is probably the greatest change we have seen in you as summer has turned into fall. You put on your own shoes, and you insist on choosing the shoes you want to wear (usually a flower pair that Grandma got for you that you love). You also love to take your socks and shoes off, especially in the car when we are on our way somewhere. You're working on being able to pull your pants up and down yourself.

You play independently much more than before. One of the remarkable changes we've seen is that you now read books--aloud--to yourself. The first time I saw you doing this, you chose We're Going on a Bear Hunt from your shelf (this has been a favorite book since we've moved to this new house) and you sat on your little chair from Great-Grandma H. and flipped the pages and read:

"Going on a bear hunt. (flip flip) Gonna get a big one. (flip flip) Swishy swashy. (flip flip) WHATS THAT! (flip flip) it's a BEAR! (flip flip) all done!"

You're also acting out characters from books. We've gone on a bear hunt plenty of times around the house and on the way to the park (Mommy is usually the bear), but you also love to pretend to be the Pigeon from the Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus and The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog and Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late. You have Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus nearly memorized and you love to quote random lines from it throughout your day. Your favorite page is when Daddy reads "LET ME DRIVE THE BUS!!!!" and shakes the book while he reads it. You demand that the book be shaken every time that page shows up, and often, you quote the line before we even get a chance to read it to you.

One of your favorite phrases this month has been "I did it ALLL-READY!" most often said in response to "let's go sit on the potty" but also said when you don't want to eat something that we're asking you to, when we want you to put some clothes on that you don't feel like putting on, or when there is something needing done that you just plain don't feel like doing. Unfortunately for you, we can usually see through the ruse and are rarely fooled. But I'm sure you'll come up with something else very soon.

You've also been busy helping us get ready for the new baby to arrive. Your biggest contribution so far has been testing out all the old baby toys-- you know, the ones that used to be yours but now are really too small to hold your interest for too long-- and ensuring that they all still work. You loved spending time with me in the baby's room while I worked on organizing and getting all the little newborn baby gear ready, and your favorite thing to do was to turn on the CD player and dance around while getting out every single baby toy. It's been so interesting to see how differently you manipulate the toys and use them now that you're so much older than the last time these toys were out.

You have about five different dolls and you alternate carrying one around and calling it your baby. You love putting blankets on them, laying them down for naps, holding them on your shoulder and patting their backs, rocking them in your arms, wheeling them around the house in your stroller, and giving the babies baby toys to play with. You frequently hand me and Daddy one of the dolls and insist that we hold it a particular way or rock it or pat its back while you handle a different one. I'm so curious and excited to see how you do with your real live little baby brother or sister.

Love,
Mama

Stool Antics

R is lucky to have a particularly crafty and talented Grammie. She painted this stepstool for her, and boy does R love carrying this thing around the house. She loves to climb on it to wash her hands at the bathroom sink, and anytime she can't reach something she runs to the bathroom, pulls out the stool, and uses it to get at things. Yikes!! It took her no time at all to figure this out-- I was simultaneously swelling with pride at my child's ability to problem-solve and panicking about all the extra childproofing we need to do.

Baby in Daddy's Arm?

We had another class at the birth center today: a mother-infant assessment class. Because you are discharged from the birth center shortly after the birth (between 4-6 hours after mom and baby are both stable), they go over a lot of information about what vital signs you need to track and things to keep an eye on, and so on and so forth.

We brought R with us because we weren't able to find a sitter to stay with her at home. At one point the instructor was talking about taking Mom's pulse. J, who was holding R at the time, asked her if she wanted to feel Daddy's pulse. They found it, and R felt it for a bit and then said, with some astonishment, "There's a baby in Daddy's arm!"

Baby Pandas

Did you know that baby pandas are only 6 inches and 3.5-4 oz at birth? Amazing. I learned this from a book we checked out of the library called How Many Baby Pandas?

The first pictures in the book are of just-born baby pandas, which are tiny and look nothing like full-grown pandas.
In one of the pictures, the mother panda is carrying her baby--looking like the ones in the picture above--in her mouth.

R's first reaction was, "Mommy panda eating the baby!"

We explained that no, the mama panda wasn't eating the baby, but carrying the baby, and that the mother was, in fact, being verrrry nice to the baby.

A little later, J was talking to R about the book and the baby pandas and he said, "Do you want Mommy to carry you in her mouth?"

and R added, "with no clothes on!"

Longwood Gardens

We'd been meaning to visit Longwood Gardens for ages. We finally went a couple weekends ago. It was totally awesome and exceeded all of our expectations. We didn't even explore half of it during this visit--we are definitely planning on going back, and hopefully soon!

R especially loved the topiaries
the trainsand the indoor children's garden.

We can't wait to take her again. If you live anywhere in the vicinity, this is an amazing place to take children and just to be outside, walk around, and enjoy a beautiful day.

Eating a Pear

R is often very demanding at meal time, shouting out random requests when she feels dissatisfied with what is in front of her.

"I want CE-EAL!"

"I want CAN-TA-LOPE!"

"I want MILK!"

And so on. Often we tell her she can't have X because we don't have any. (This is usually, but not always, true). Sometimes we tell her she can't have X because it's "all gone." (This is often what we say about milk, since if she had her choice, she would drink a gallon of the stuff at every meal).

This morning we played a particularly competitive game of "I WANT!" and I finally got her to "WANT" some pears.

Then, J started eating his cereal, some frosted mini-wheats.

This prompted a new round, starting with "I want SOME OF DAT!"

"Some of what?"

"DAT!" (pointing in J's general direction)

"What is 'DAT'?"

"Ummmm... Daddy ce-eal"

"No, that's Daddy's cereal. R already had enough cereal for breakfast."

(incredibly loud whining and fussing commences)

"How about this piece of pear with your name written all over it?"

(whining immediately stops, and R looks interested in the pear.)

(S hands R the piece of pear.)

(R looks at pear and starts crying all over again.)

"I want NAME ON IT!"

(S and J laugh. A lot. Then S carves R's name into pear with paring knife and hands it back to R.)

Belly Pictures--beginning of month 9

36 weeks (just starting month 9)

and, for comparison, 36 weeks (starting month 9) with baby #1.
(The picture below was taken 2 days before R was born)

Where's My Slipper?

J: (holding up one blue slipper) I can't find my other slipper anywhere.

S: Oh, it's in R's vanity.

Rectangle

R: Mommy, Mommy, I want a dinosaur!

S: You want a dinosaur?

R: Yes.

S: Okay, I think I know where we can find a dinosaur. Come with me.

(R runs and S walks to the living room. S sits in front of a basket with a bunch of stuffed animals in it. Pulls out a dog.)

S: Is this a dinosaur?

R: No! That's a dog!

(S pulls out another stuffed animal, Linny the Guinea Pig)

S: Is this a dinosaur?

R: No! That's a pig!

J: Guinea pig.

R: GUI-NEE pig.

(S pulls out a dragon)

S: Is this a dinosaur?

R: No! That's a .... rectangle!

S: No! That's a dragon.

R: Dragon!

(S pulls out a camel)

S: Is this a dinosaur?

R: No! That's a CAMEL.

(S pulls out a rhino)

S: Is this a dinosaur?

R: No! That's a .... rectangle!

(S and J bust out laughing.)

S: I love you, R!!

(A little later in the evening. R is picking out bedtime stories and brings over Peter Pan for S to read to her.)

S: Oh, Peter Pan! How fun! Who is that on the cover?

R: Tinkerbell.

S: And who else? Who's that? (pointing to Peter Pan's picture).

R: Ummmmm.... Rectangle!

J: We've trained her well, haven't we?

Photography Skills: A Comparison-- S

Yesterday I put R in this special outfit that GiGi and PopPop gave her for her first Christmas. It fits her really really well right now, and of course I think she looks adorable in it.

J and I both took some shots at getting photos of her in it. Whose portfolio would you choose?

Mine:

Photography Skills: A Comparison--J

His:

Best Friends

Tonight, totally out of the blue, R told J that he is her best friend.

Division of Labor

Happy Labor Day everybody!

I was planning on cleaning off the grill, having a labor day barbecue feast, take lots of pictures with food, and put them all up on here. Alas, none of these things came to pass. Since moving to the new place I have yet to stock up on the charcoal for our Weber kettle grill. I fully intended to pick some up at the grocery store, but. . . we ended up walking there. I decided against carrying the 5 bags of groceries, a 2 year-old, and a 20 lb. bag of charcoal briquettes across a busy street up a couple of blocks to the house. So instead, S and R enjoyed some good old pizza.

A while back, S and I got into the habit of after dinner one of us would bring R up to get her bath while the other cleaned up from dinner. After the move, this was less of a ritual, but the last couple of days, when I gave R her bath, S did the clean-up. R must have been paying attention, as you shall see. I think R has gotten tired of the baths I give her, so when S volunteered to give her a shower, she nodded enthusiastically, turned to me and said, "Daddy, wash the dishes."

Whether or not she appreciates it, at least she recognizes when we're doing work around the house.

edit: I'd better go get those dishes done!

First Dentist Visit

I knew I was going to like this guy when we drove up and the first thing I noticed was a huge Ohio State banner hanging from the porch.

We'd gotten a recommendation from one of my colleagues who has 2 1/2 year-old twins for a good dentist and finally gotten around to making an appointment for R, and for us. We both went to R's appointment, not quite sure what to expect. We'd prepared her a little bit by talking about the dentist and brushing teeth and opening wide, but we didn't make a big deal out of it, either, thinking that if we did it would make her more nervous about it rather than less so.

The appointment went swimmingly. The hygenist was terrific. She let R touch all the instruments (the mirror and the electric toothbrush) before using them in her mouth, and R was excellent about opening her mouth when asked. The cleaning went well. The only real hiccup was that R isn't great about rinsing and spitting out the water--she swallows it instead. The dentist said that until she's good about spitting, we should keep using flouride-free toothpaste, but to have her drink the flouridated city water to get flouride on her teeth.

When it was time for the dentist to check her out, she all of a sudden got really shy, but it was okay since the dentist said there isn't much to do with a 2-year-old other than get them used to the dentist's office, etc. He said we were actually a little ahead of schedule, since we could have waited until 3 to bring her in.

Potty Training

So, yeah. We're kind of trying to potty-train R. So far it's going... oooo.kaaay.

We bought her her first underpants last week, and Grandma sent some training underpants, which are excellent because they are more absorbent than her underpants.

At school, R's teachers report that she's great about using the potty and doesn't seem to have a lot of accidents. She has both pull-ups and underpants at school, and I think, wears them both (pull-ups or diapers for naptime) throughout the day.

At home, she's been awesome about using the potty in the morning (although not the last couple of mornings) as well as before/after bathtime (although not the last couple of days).

I'm not sure how strongly we're going to push the potty training right now though because everything I've read suggests that there will be regression once the baby is born (I'm less than 6 weeks away from my due date, yikes!). Mostly we're trying to take advantage of what seemed to be her own interest in potty training, and let her practice using the potty and recognizing potty cues.

All I'll say is that this weekend has been kind of a bust. I feel like we're cloth-diapering again-- with a slew of peed-in underpants and two pairs of poopy underpants in the wash right now. This isn't a huge deal at all, just labor-intensive and somewhat confusing, because sometimes she's great about saying, "I need to use the potty" and other times she, well, isn't.

New Keyboard

Among the things R loves to do with our laptops:

--Look at pictures. This is by far her number one request whenever she sees one of us on the computer. She loves looking at pictures of her cousins, who she does not get to see NEARLY enough, and we sometimes google pictures of different animals or things we have been talking about with her to show her.

--Watch videos. Again, sometimes these are videos of her cousins doing cute-as-all-get-out things, but other times these are YouTube videos of Elmo or Sesame Street or other things J and I think to look up. We've let her watch Weird Al Yankovic a few times.

--Play games. This one is tricky though because she really can't use our keyboards or our mouse very well, and we're pretty leery of letting her push the buttons since the last thing we want is broken laptop keyboards (I dealt with a laptop that didn't have a space bar for awhile and it was not pretty).

So when we found this little kids' keyboard on sale we got one for R. It's totally awesome. I love that the keys are so large and easy for her to identify. It's also fairly indestructible (according to the advertising and some of the reviews we found online) and the mouse is a nice size for her little hand.
This lets her play games a little bit better. Some that we've let her play over the last few months (and by "play" I really mean we've broken this keyboard out about 3 times):

FreeRealms (kind of like a cutesy fantasy online world that's totally free-- the bonus about this game is that R likes trying to move her little fairy character around with the mouse and watching the world kind of take shape around her).

Fisher Price Alphabet Game (which is fun for getting her to identify letters--and another reason why the big keys on this keyboard are great). This is the game she is playing in the pictures on this post.

and all the games on Mo Willems's website, including Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed, Elephant and Piggie Dance, and Hot Dog Dress Up. These games are cute and mostly just involve practicing clicking rather than any real educational content, but R had a kick out of them today.