2 years and 4 months

I have not written about only L since she turned two, so here is an update. A lot of the pictures in this post show her at 27 months old, during our September 22nd professional family photo shoot. In the others (not taken at the park) she was closer to 28 months old.

The biggest accomplishment is that she is potty trained! I decided that starting June 6th she would not wear any diapers (and no Pull-ups, but we do have her sleep in cloth training pants that I made, just in case). It was a don't-do-anything-but-focus-on-your-child program for three days. She was still having accidents after the three days. It took probably two months for the idea to fully sink in so that she tells me every time she needs to go potty, but it's been a very long time since she had a #2 accident. She stays dry during naps and is dry in the morning about 95% of the time.

Her speech has really improved in the last four months.

• When she wants to get on my lap she says "On lap. On lap."
• Whenever I do something that her dad has done with her, she says "Daddy does that."
• She asks me to "Ope dat, Mommy," or if it's a door she says, "Ope doy."
• When she is done eating she says, "Bib off me."
• She had her Ken doll on my leg, then made him fall off and said, "Help my Bawbie, mommy!"
• When she wants a light on but can't reach it she says, "On light. Too high." 
• When she wants to go in our room she says, "In Daddy Mommy's room." 
• When someone is asleep, she whispers, "Not too loud."
• She can pray at bedtime, with her dad helping her one word at a time.

One day we were looking at some pictures and I told her that I had been pregnant with her then. She pointed to a picture and asked, "Me in the belly?" She's good at giving her baby sister a kiss by touching her lips to my belly (without the kiss sound). In a higher-than-normal tone she says, "nine-y nine-y toes," meaning that the baby will have tiny toes. It's pretty funny when she touches my belly and says "lellow baby" or "blue baby" -- whatever color of shirt I am wearing. This was very sweet yesterday: "Me love baby. Meet meet meet her. Me meet her."

She does that a lot: repeats the first word in a sentence. This week she was holding a soft toy chipmunk and said, "Love love my pet" and "pet pet him." She also said, "Wah-duh wah-duh [water] in."

L opens my small wallet and pretends it is her laptop computer. The side that has clear plastic to let the driver license show is the monitor. "My pudduh [computer]! Nine-y pudduh . . . Wall ut [wallet]."
    

She still sucks her left thumb, often accompanied by her right hand stroking her hair. It's not just when she is about to go to sleep. About half the time when I pull her thumb out of her mouth she leaves it out. She has also started to put several fingers in her mouth at a time. I will be happy when she breaks these habits.
 

She loves it when we read books to her, and sometimes she comes to me with a book and demands that I read it. One time she said, "Read that monkey book!" She's great at paying attention during story and craft time at the library.

She likes to say, "Your bed up dere, [her sister's name]." She follows her sister's lead when they pretend together. Usually they take care of "pets" or "babies" or pretend that they themselves are puppies or that Shboogoo is L's mom. They have their house be one of our walk-in-closets or just the space underneath our desk or coffee table. Maybe I've mentioned this before, but I love that L recognizes many of the letters of the alphabet, and it's probably due to her big sister teaching her.

She has started being picky with her clothes. These pink Airwalk shoes are definitely her favorite pair of shoes. "Want pink woos." If I mention socks, she almost always doesn't want them: "Out yocks [without socks]!"

Some days I get her ready for a nap, put her in bed and then she tells me, "No leep." Most days she does nap -- if it's not in bed, she falls asleep on the couch or we go for a drive. One day she was in my room with me and actually grabbed my robe from my bed, laid down on the floor and went to sleep (that's the second photo above).

She has said that she loves both red and pink, but apparently purple is still her favorite color. She frequently says "Me love purple. You love blue" (I'm not sure why she thinks I love blue). She randomly talks about purple. For example: L, do you want that kind of cereal? "Me purple Grape Nuts." Somebody mentions an animal, let's say a giraffe, and she says, "Me purple toy raffe." I asked her if I should put the purple sheet on her bed and she got excited: "Yeah, match my purple nightgown!"

She likes to build towers. It was cute seeing her arrange the cans I had just bought.

Why not end with a silly smile. Her molars came in, so she has all 20 baby teeth now.