We still can't believe that Elise is 2! She is such a joy and provides endless entertainment in our house. Here is a summary of what she is up to at this age.
Stats: Her 2 year appointment isn't until next week, so I'll update her height and weight then. She wears size 5 diapers, size 8 shoes (STILL!!!! She's worn the same 2 pairs since last summer and they still fit perfectly!), and size 2T/3T clothes.
Eating:Elise continues to be a good eater. We all eat together for lunch and dinner (and Mike eats breakfast with her), which has been wonderful! She is becoming more and more independent with eating. She sits in her booster and gets her lunch and dinner on a plate and/or bowl on her tray. She eats almost exclusively with a fork and spoon. She eats a good variety of healthy foods but aside from breakfast, our meals are rarely identical to hers. She prefers her food to be "a la carte" so that everything is separated (meaning, not baked together). If there are mixed vegetables or fruits in a bowl, she is fine with that. She won't touch soups, casseroles, pizza, macaroni, spaghetti, or anything with a sauce. I try to plan so that parts of our meal is also part of hers, and I've got my system down so that it doesn't take a lot of extra time to fix her food. For example, if I am making soup, salad, or a baked dish, I will set aside ingredients that she likes and start making her plate as I am cooking (like pieces of grilled chicken, beans, chopped vegetables, etc). If we are having a separate vegetable with our meal, I usually pick one that I know she will eat. She loves all fruit (especially berries) and her favorite vegetables include bell peppers, broccoli, peas, corn, sweet potatoes, and cucumbers. She likes grilled chicken and turkey and she will occasionally eat another type of meat (steak, brisket, etc). She will not touch ground meat or peanut butter. She likes all types of cheese and beans. She likes cheese quesadillas and grilled cheese sandwiches. She recently started liking plain pasta as well. She is very good about finishing her meals and will help clean up by putting her dishes and utensils in the dishwasher. Sometimes we have to "bribe" her to finish the last few bites of something by alternating bites of fruit and whatever she still hasn't finished on her plate. She also started taking chewable vitamins this month and LOVES them... I will admit that I've started giving them at the end of either lunch or dinner in case I need to use them to get her to finish the rest of her plate. She takes a multivitamin and vitamin C.
Sleeping:Aside from the crazy sleep fiasco for the 2 days following our return from Texas, she's been sleeping great. We put her crib back together over 2 weeks ago and she's been totally fine. She loves to sleep and often announces to us (while she is finishing up her lunch) that it is nap time. She sleeps 12.5 - 13 hours at night and averages 2.5 hours for her nap.
Schedule:She's been on pretty much the exact same schedule ever since she switched to one nap (around 16 months old).
7:30-8:00ish - Wake up. She wakes up saying "Oh mommy, where are you mommy?" about 20 times over the monitor. She will talk happily in the crib before we get her up. Mike gets her up because most mornings, I'm still at the gym until 8:15.
8:00 - Breakfast. She usually has fruit and either dry cereal, half of a bagel, or a waffle.
Morning activities consist of playing at the house and going to various places: gymnastics on Monday, the commissary (grocery store) on Tuesday, Toddler Time on Wednesday, the CDC (Child Development Center) on Thursday while I go to a Love and Logic class in another building, and going to the library for story time on Friday. These activities are all within a few minutes of our house, so they don't take up the whole morning. If the weather is tolerable, we also like to walk to the park. I find it much easier to run errands in the morning because there is more time between waking up and lunch than there is between waking up from a nap and starting to prepare dinner.
10:00 - Morning snack. We usually eat this on the go so I take something non-messy and non-perishable. Favorites include squeezy packets (the squeezable fruit/vegetable packets), raisins, and dry cereal.
12:00 - Lunch. Mike comes home for lunch and we have really enjoyed eating at home for nearly all of our meals. I have gotten much better about meal planning since we've lived here. She prefers her meals to be "a la carte", and her plate includes 3-4 things... at least one protein thing (cheese, meat, or beans), one vegetable, and one fruit. If we are having bread, she will get a small amount after she has finished the rest of her meal.
12:30 - Nap. She often announces to us at the end of lunch that she is ready for her nap. Regardless of whether she announces it or not, we go straight from the booster to her room to check her diaper, read a few books, and put her to bed. Since Mike comes home for lunch, we are usually both here when she goes down for her nap. I put her to bed for nap time and he puts her to bed at night.
3:00ish - Wake up. She also wakes up from her nap with "Oh mommy, where are you mommy?" and it is so funny. I love having the video monitor so that I can see her rolling around in her crib while she is waking up.
Afternoon activities: We usually just play at the house or at the playground. Mike gets home between 3:30 and 4:30 most of the time (and he is definitely home by 5), so he plays with her while I fix dinner.
4:00 - Afternoon snack. She usually eats this at home in her booster unless we go for a walk to the park, in which case she will eat something non-messy in her stroller. Favorites include yogurt and applesauce (she feeds herself with a spoon).
6:00 - Dinner. Her dinner and lunch meals are very similar in content... usually 3-4 different things with at least one protein, one vegetable, and one fruit.
6:30 - Bath time. We usually go straight from the booster to the bath tub. Mike gives her a bath while I clean up the dinner dishes. Elise still loves playing in her little bathtub and we have no plans to give it up anytime soon. It is way easier than using the regular tub because she is more confined and it fills up faster.
6:45 - Brush teeth and read books with Mike.
7:00 - In bed.
Potty Training:Elise has come a long way in the last week as far as the potty goes! We had an incident 3-4 months ago where she peed on herself without a diaper on and freaked out. Since then, she was terrified if she didn't have a diaper on and would start insisting on a new one as soon as we got her out of the bath tub to dry her off. Our first task was to get her comfortable walking around without a diaper, so we would try to distract her by playing chase or something after her bath. She got a little more comfortable with it but would not sit on the potty without a diaper on. Well, over the last month or so, I've noticed that she has a lot of dry diapers when I go to change her (and she usually wakes up with a dry diaper after her nap). This is supposed to be one of the signs of physical readiness for potty training. She's been telling me for a long time when she needs a new diaper. She'll even tell me where she was when she pooped or peed, haha. This week, we got out her potty and went to the store to get a special "potty treat" that she gets to have when she sits on the potty without a diaper. She picked out a can of Gerber Graduates cheese puff things. So, this week, she's been doing a GREAT job of sitting on the potty before a diaper change, bath time, or when she wants to (usually when I'm in the bathroom too). She has actually ASKED me to go sit on the potty several times. She gets one cheese puff for sitting while we count to 20 (and then we usually sing songs or something afterwards... anything to keep her there as long as possible!). If she pees or poops, she gets another one. She hasn't done that yet, but I think it is coming pretty soon. We picked up some cute panties on clearance at Gap and she likes to play with them. I'm also starting to use cloth diapers again about half of the time. I would love for her to be potty trained before Jack is born, but I am definitely not going to push it if she isn't quite ready.
Independence: She's becoming more and more independent every week. We bought a Pottery Barn Kids two-step stool for the bathroom so that she can wash her hands and brush her teeth "like a big girl". She loves it! She is also getting much better about playing by herself while I cook or clean. She has a lot of fun in her playroom and it is in a perfect location to allow her to be relatively close to me if I am in the kitchen or living room. She rarely goes into her room by herself, but we don't keep toys out in there either.
Talking: Elise continues to be a little chatterbox. She talks and talks and talks all day long and strings sentences and questions together. This month, she has started to ask questions all the time, like:
"Where are we?"
"What are we doing today?"
"What does this say?"
"Where are we going today?"
"Who is that?"
"What is that?"
"Where did ____ go?" (referring to a person or thing that she is looking for)
"How do I do ___?" (some action that she needs help with)
"Are you hungry, mama?"
"Daddy, are you funny?"
"Mommy, please may I have some milk, mommy?", etc.
Sometimes, she even answers her own questions. If she is just randomly talking or singing, she'll say "What are you saying, Elise?" I'm just waiting for the day that she starts asking "Why?" for everything. Won't that be lovely?!
Her manners have also improved a lot in the last month. She now says sentences starting with please and thank you quite often without being prompted (and uses thank you at the appropriate time... she used to use please for both). When asking for things, she'll say "I would like to have a blue fork please mama", "I would like to hold ___ please mama", or "I would like to play with ___ please mama (something that she needs help reaching)". Here are some sample thank you sentences that we hear many times a day. It is so sweet to hear her thank us for something without being prompted!
"Thank you mommy for reading book."
"Thank you mommy for the kiss."
"Thank you mommy for new diaper." (this is usually followed in the morning by "Where are we going today?")
"Thank you mommy for blueberry bagel."
followed by
"Thank you mommy for tearing it into little baby bites."
"Thank you daddy for bagel date." (said as Mike put her in her car seat after the two of them went to get bagels while I was at the doctor).
Here are some other random funny sentences from the month. She still gets "you" and "me" confused sometimes, but sometimes she also corrects herself by saying the sentence again correctly.
Her favorite color is blue, and if I let her pick out her shirt or dress, she always picks one with blue in it. After putting on her blue and green dress, she said "Let's go show Boss how pretty you are" (meaning, how pretty I am). After we walked into the living room, she smiled and said "How do you like it, Boss?"
We've been talking a lot about how proud we are of Elise being a big girl (with brushing her own teeth, sitting on the potty, eating with her fork and spoon, etc). If I say something like "You are such a big girl!", she'll respond with "Mommy, are you proud?" and then ask "Daddy, are you proud?" Sometimes, she'll say "I am a big girl!" or "Elise is a big girl! Good job!" while doing these things.
We were playing on the platform in the kid section at Barnes and Noble and she got to the edge of it and paused. Then I heard, "Be careful, Elise. This is a big step." She stepped down and turned back to look at me and said, "Be careful, mama!"
She is developing an awareness for gender and is pretty accurate! If we are out and she sees other kids, she will refer to other little girls as "she" and other little boys as "he". She will refer to the things that they have (like coats, strollers, shopping carts, etc) with "her" and "his". We were swinging at the park and she was watching three kids playing and correctly identified them with "There are two little boys. And one little girl."
She is also developing an awareness for feelings. If I sigh or make a groaning (this is heard often from a 6 month pregnant mama!) she will say, "Mama is sad!" and follow it with, "It's okay, Mama!" or "Can Mama have a toy to feel better?". I don't know where she got the toy part from, but it was pretty funny! She immediately walked over and handed me one of the tea cups that she was playing with.
There are many other funny things that she has said, but of course I didn't write them all down. I'll have to check with Mike to see which blog-worthy ones I missed!
Playing: Elise loves pretend play and reading books. She likes to pretend to drink tea and eat food, pretend to take care of her baby doll, pretend to go shopping, etc. She always checks to make sure the front door is locked before she "leaves". She'll walk over to it and say "Is the door locked? Yes, it is locked. Bye Mama! I'm going to commissary (or wherever else she decides to go)."
Behavior:She is still behaving well in public, both at a store and in restaurants. She likes to go grocery shopping and run errands and she is happy riding along in a stroller or shopping cart. We can reason with her most of the time if she wants something that she can't have (now or at all). I have used a lot of the Love and Logic strategies with her with good results. I will do a post on that sometime after I've finished the class. I haven't read the book in almost a year so I am sure that I will pick up on some new ideas. She does pretty well in the car. I started keeping car toys in one of her canvas toy buckets and that has worked out really well. It takes us about 40 minutes to get to church on Sundays. Sometimes the return trip is a little rough because we are running late for lunch and nap time (we go to the 9:00 service and then work in the nursery at 11:00, which puts us getting home around 1:00).
Random things:She still sucks her thumb when she is about to take a nap or go to sleep at night. I'm not worried about trying to stop it now since she only does it at those times. She is still pretty clingy to me, especially if she is tired, hungry, or upset. The pre-dinner or pre-lunch time can sometimes be a challenge if she wants to "hold Mommy" while Mommy cooks. Overall, she is getting a lot better with this. I'm glad I have 3 more months with just her before Jack comes along! Hopefully this will continue to improve. She recognizes a lot of lowercase letters. I'm not sure which ones she doesn't know, but I am sure there are probably a few. The concept of "Big A" and "little a" was confusing so we started calling it "Capital A" and "lowercase a" and that has worked really well. She likes to point out words that go with pictures in the word/picture (non-story) books, like "This is the word for 'cat'" or "This says 'airplane'", but she definitely doesn't recognize any words without a picture except her name. I'm thinking that she would probably have a lot of fun with flashcards at this age. She also recognizes things that match. She'll comment if a bow, toy, utensil, etc, matches her outfit. She has also started talking on the phone more instead of just listening. She remembers the most random things. The other day, she asked "Where did the purple box go?" I was very confused and she elaborated by saying "The purple raisin box!" Well, since we've been in Alabama, she's only had red raisin boxes. The ones we used to buy at HEB were purple. I was surprised that she thought to ask about it at least 2.5 months after the last time we had purple raisin boxes. She is very patient if we don't understand what she is talking about and will continue to repeat herself or show us until we get it.
Well, I am very impressed if you made it this far! This post ended up being way longer than I originally intended. We are looking forward to a bunch of visitors this month. Mike's parents are coming on Wednesday and staying for 5 days and then my mom is coming for a week at the end of this month. Elise is really excited about getting to play with her grandparents! Elise is waking up from her nap right on schedule... it is 3:06. I'm going to go ahead and post this since it has taken me a few weeks to finish it. I will try to upload some videos and more pictures soon.
