My little girl is TWO

Here we are...Olive is two years old. Before I go on and on (and on) about her, let me give you the stats from this afternoon's two-year check-up:

• Weight: 27 lbs., 7 oz. (75th percentile)
• Height: 35 inches (75th percentile)
• Head circumference: 19 1/4 inches (80th percentile)

Our doctor said that Olive looks like she's going to be a tall girl. Kinda like her momma, eh? The doctor's visit was thankfully uneventful. Olive is healthy and developmentally right on track or even ahead. The doc asked me if Olive was talking much, and I was like, uh, yeah. Like a lot. But Olive was completely silent for most of the visit. I kept asking her questions, trying to get her to say something, anything. But she just gave me a look, like "As if, Mother. As if." Olive gave us just one nugget of speech. She was looking at a Sesame Street book, and said something like "Dat's Big Bird righ dere by Oscar da Grouch too." And the doctor said, "Yep, she can talk all right--like a four year old!" I was proud.

Olive is hilarious. Just before getting in the bath, when she's stripped down to her diaper, she does a naked dance. She bobs and sways and tips her head back and forth, saying, "I'm naked, I'm naked, I'm naked!" I really really want to get it on video. But every time she sees a camera, she says "I see me?" and comes over to see the picture. So I have a lot of video of her saying that and no video of the naked dance.

Olive has officially quit using her booster seat. She sits at a regular grown-up chair. Mostly on her knees, but sometimes just on her bottom. And when she stands up, I threaten her with going back to the booster. She does still use/need a bib. She drips a lot of food and tends to be a little messy. She doesn't like being messy. Frequently while eating she'll pick up her non-finger-food food, and then get upset that her hands are messy. She insists on us wiping them midway through the meal. Then she gets them dirty again, and the cycle continues.

Her hair is getting longer (obviously) but not so long that she's had a real haircut. I've trimmed her bangs a few times, and today my hairstylist trimmed her bangs (does that count as a first haircut? I say no, because I didn't take any pictures), but that is just to keep her hair out of her eyes. Now that she's more okay with hair ties and clips, I might quit cutting bangs. Not sure.

Olive is still missing her incisor teeth. I think they're on their way in, though, and then she'll have everything. I think. I'm no tooth expert.

Olive is still into the things Milo is into, though her interests have begun to develop individually as well. When it's TV time, she requests Chuggington (Milo's train preference du jour). When she picked out a sticker at the doctor's office, she choice a Thomas sticker. They both love Fancy Nancy and books of all kinds. As for her own interests, she has gotten into Winnie the Pooh and friends. Her pronunciation is sweet: "Winnie Pooh, Plig-a-let, Kangaroo & Kangaroo, Lowl, Tigger (okay, that one's pretty normal)." She's more into baby dolls than Milo, but he's getting into pretend play and wants the babies too ("I'm the daddy and you're da mudder, Olive. And this is our baby.").

Olive likes to be carried. She loves her paci, and lately has been sneaking it out of its place in her room when we're not looking. (Contraband soothing.) She likes music in the car. She always wants to wash her hands. She likes dancing. She repeats things until we acknowledge that she has spoken.

She's not great a cleaning up. Takes a lot of urging before she joins in. It's usually the threat of losing her dance party privileges that does it.

She's getting better at letting me comb her hair. "Tangles in my hair," she says. But where she used to scrunch away from me and not let me comb, she now sits still while I work out the tangles. Sorry, sweetie, that just comes with the girl territory (at least until you're old enough to decide differently).

Olive has recently starting telling me that she loves me. Swoon. Sometimes it's after I tell her I love her. "I love you too, Mommy!" Sometimes it's out of the blue, like as she leaves in the morning to go to daycare. "Byebye Mommy, I love you." Oh em gee, it is adorable. She gives random attack-hugs and kisses too. I soak them up.

My Olive is still a snuggler. When she is sleepy or overwhelmed by people, she wants me to pick her up, and she lays her head down on my shoulder. She wraps her arms around me, holding on as tight as she can. Then she pops her head up, brushing my hair away from my shoulders. She likes no hair to be in her way.

Likes: candy, monkey game on the tablet, ABCmouse, eating Mommy and Daddy's food, Chuggington, reading books, her grandparents, ice cream, taking naps, yogurt, being tickled by Daddy, her paci.

Dislikes: feeling scared (like when being chased stops being fun), being cold (after bath time, on the way to daycare, in the car, etc. etc. etc.), zippers that aren't zipped all the way up, not getting to do it herself, sharing the stool in the bathroom while brushing teeth, sleeping past 6:00am.

She's my girl, my baby, my amazing wonderful fantastic brilliant little person. I do love her so. Happy birthday, Olive.

Three weeks ago...

...Milo had his 2nd birthday party. And despite the unexpected heat, it was a great success.

When I started planning an outdoor party, I worried that it would be too cold. The weather in late March is incredibly unpredictable around here. (To demonstrate this point: my wedding anniversary is April 14, and it SNOWED the day before we got married.) However, it turned out to be almost too hot. The temperature pushed 90 degrees, and since few trees had any leaves, the shade was minimal. Thankfully, the guests were all good-natured and got friendly under the shade of the single umbrella without complaint. And aside from the frosting melting off the cupcakes, the party was just as I hoped it would be.

Milo had a trucks/construction theme, complete with orange traffic cones, a couple traffic signs, and a construction site cake. The tables were covered with brown paper; hand-drawn roads were dotted with toy cars. The kids played with bubbles and a couple of Milo's ride-on toys. Presents were abundant, and in the weeks since the party, Milo has really enjoyed playing with his new toys.

Perhaps the highlight of the party for me was the expression on Milo's face as everybody sang to him. We had tried to tell him about the singing/candle tradition so he wouldn't be startled by the attention. I don't know if the prep helped, but he seemed to love having everyone sing to him. He even tried to blow out his candles, with help from Daddy of course.

I imagine this is the last year that Milo won't know his birthday was coming up. The last year he wouldn't want a say in the theme or flavor of the dessert. The time really flies, doesn't it?

My baby is not a baby anymore

My little man is two years old today. Part of me wonders where the time has gone; how could these last two years have flown by so quickly? But a bigger part of me thinks, how can Milo only be two? He's been part of my life forever, hasn't he?

I'm so lucky to have this guy. He's amazing, so sweet, so funny, so cute. Let me tell you what he's been up to lately.

He has started quoting lines from the books we read, when we're not actually reading them. "Ohhh, call captain," he says (which translates to "'Hello,' calls the captain." from 10 Little Rubber Ducks.) "One Fish (pause) Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, Dr. Seuss!" he says. "Stuck in mud!" refers to the dump truck from Little Blue Truck. "Stan back, everybody," he quotes from a fire engine pop-up book. And he knows immediately when I start quoting a book. "What's this?" I say to him as I hold up a strawberry. "Sawberry," he replies. "Is it a red, ripe strawberry?" I ask him, and he begins to smile slyly, like he knows he's in on the secret. "Better watch out," I say, "or the big, hungry bear will get it!" (From The Little Mouse, the Red, Ripe Strawberry, and the Big, Hungry Bear)

Milo also has been singing more songs lately. He adores "Wheels on the Bus" and the Hot dog song from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. He's into "Itsy Bitsy Spider," always starting with the line "wash sider out."

Milo is getting really good with his letters and numbers. He can almost spell his name, though he typically leaves off M and starts with I-L-O. He "writes" the letters as he spells them, though they're really just marks on the paper. He can recognize nearly all the letters, but doesn't know them in order. He can count to ten and beyond (we've heard him go as high as thirteen, I think), but often gets the numbers in the wrong order. He is convinced he has eleven fingers, so thank you, Dr. Seuss, for that.

He has finally figured out most of his colors. Occasionally he still calls red things orange, and sometimes gets in a funk where everything is black. But mostly you can ask him what color something is and he gets it right, or, even more awesome, he just names things with a color descriptor. Like, "Thassa my yellow screwdriver." or "Essa blue hammer."

He's pretty good with pronouns, except when it comes to "you" and "me" when referring to Milo. We point at a picture of him and say "That's you!" and he points at the picture and says, "That's you!" And there's just no good way to correct him to say no, "that's me" because that is like telling him the picture is not of Milo but of Mommy. Sometimes he also says "my" when he means "I," like "My brush my teef!" or "My eat it!" Frankly, it's adorable.

Milo loves to do things by himself, but he gives up pretty easily on some tasks. Taking his socks off or pulling his pants up and down, for instance. We encourage him to try, and he does, but very quickly cries "Help me!" and gets frustrated. He can pull his shirt off over his head and he's getting better at brushing his own teeth. All in good time, I suppose.

Milo can be very polite and very impolite. "Hi, Oliff, how are you?" he asks. Then at dinner: "My need more water!" he demands. He fairly readily gives hugs and kisses, though he's quick to tell you no if he's not in the mood. When he burps, he says "Buuurrrp!" Charming, no?

Milo adores bathtime and would stay in the tub all night if we let him. Andrew taught him how to blow bubbles in the water, so Milo is always sticking his face in the water and blowing bubbles. Makes me kind of nervous, but I guess it's a good thing for him not to be afraid of getting his face wet. Milo does not like getting lotioned up after a bath, and his only motivation for holding still for lotion is that he will get a paci when it's all over.

Yes, Milo still loves his paci. He only gets it at bedtime, naptime, and diaper changes. Now that Olive is here and has her own set of pacis, Milo is extra tempted. But so far he's been great about giving Olive her paci and not sticking it in his own mouth. I've only seen him do that a couple times.

Other skills: he is learning to drink from a cup, has pretty much mastered the straw, is learning to walk on a balance beam, is getting faster at running and better at climbing stairs, is excellent at identifying animals and animal sounds and learns new words after only hearing them once or twice, and he has excellent dance moves.

Words can't describe my love for this child. Truly, he has my heart forever.