I knew the monthly updates would end at some point, but I think I figured it would be when Cocalynn was born and I had a better excuse to not stay on top of that. They conveniently ended at a rough "terrible two" stage where the meltdowns and stubborn battles might've been all I wrote about for a few months. I'd like to say that on most days we're beyond the worst of that stage and thankfully we've all stayed in one piece, under the same roof, and still love each other. Despite the battles, Willow continues to be a very sweet girl.
It's amazing how much her vocabulary has expanded in the last few months. She picks up on words like a sponge! It's fun to have actual conversations with her as she speaks in complete sentences. She loves to talk on the phone to family members lately although it's sometimes tricky for the person on the other end to keep up with her train of thought =)
She still loves to read books. We get 5 books at the library each week and those are usually the ones she picks from when she chooses her 3 books before naps and bedtime. They each, therefore, get read numerous times by the end of the week. Last Saturday I was getting the last few things ready before heading to storytime and she read through each of her books before we left. I'm completely disappointed with how poor the audio is on this video, but this is her reading "Max's Dragon Shirt." It's amazing how close her version is to what it really says...down to the smallest details on each page. I love how she'll say "Max said" or "Ruby said."
Imaginative play is her favorite thing these days. She loves her doll house, babies, and kitchen. Before she fell alseep today at naptime I could hear her on the monitor pretending to be Mary, a teacher at storytime, telling the kids that she was going to read them stories. She thought it was hysterical pretending that her doll house people were at "Inflatable Palace" on her beach ball.
Willow loves her teachers and friends at school. She especially loves Tuesdays because that's the day the Fun Bus comes. She's turned into quite a gymnast - often balancing on one foot or twirling around just for fun. She can fully jump and has become more adventurous with jumping off of things. She's quite a monkey and good climber. Today at the park she climbed up a rock-climbing wall that was at least 8 feet tall!
She's pretty close to being potty trained. She's in underwear all day and will stay dry most days. We're working on having her tell us when she needs to go, rather than taking her every couple hours - and we're having mixed success. Despite accidents some evenings, she's told us quite a few times and even held it once while she dashed across the playroom to the potty.
Willow got a few new games for Christmas and has amazed us with her attention span while playing. We've successfully made it through both long and short games of Candy Land. She can validly beat us at Memory. We've also played a slightly altered version of "Swap" (more Uno-like, without swapping) successfully - she'll even deal the cards!
For the most part Willow speaks clearly. The only sounds she's not as clear on yet are s-blends (sp, st, sc, sn, etc.) at the beginning of words. Story becomes "tory." Snowman becomes "nowman." There are a few words that are tricky for her to say or she's come up with her own version of the word. Some of my favorites right now are "adacavo" (avocado), "puter" (computer), "candiler" (calendar), and "hangaber" (hamburger).
She used to eat anything in sight but has become slightly pickier these days. She'll either chow down at dinner time or we can barely get her to eat two bites. Regardless though, she's sleeping through the night and not waking up hungry. Her naps are typically only 1 1/2 hours long but she's sleeping longer at night the last couple months. Often she won't be awake when I leave for school (waking up closer to 7:00 or 7:15 - just shy of 12 hours of sleep).
Here are a couple random pictures, just around the house:
Our church had this slide in the 2-3 yr old nursery and they were trying to get rid of it and find a new home since the kids weren't going down like this:
They were doing silly things like this:
Jumping off the front
Jumping off the back
Willow's glad it found it's new home in our backyard!
As parents, you don't expect too much appreciation from your children for many years...definitely not when they're 2! Tonight, completely unprovoked, Chris and I received these sweet words of appreciation from Ms. Willow Libby:
To Daddy: "Thank you for finding my pink water bottle with hearts on it." (Chris had merely brought it in from the car, where it was left this morning).
To Mommy: "Thank you for saying 'please.'" (when I asked Chris at dinner to please pass me a piece of bread)
To Daddy: "Thank you for cleaning Alli's poop." (as he emptied her litter box)
Willow has really enjoyed oral storytelling lately. She's asked me to tell her the "Three Little Pigs story," "The Three Bears story," and the "Cinderella story" many times, often saying "Read it again please" although I'm saying it from memory, not a book. It's amazing how still she'll sit through my brief 4 minute version of the fairy tales. She's recently asked for me to tell her the "Cat story." I guess I'll have to spice up my creative story telling in creating one on my own.
Willow has started telling us stories from her day. She relived making Christmas cookies with her friends and her story was told in order with good detail! She's also told the story MANY times of when our power went out one night. It goes something like this... "A big storm blew in...and the lights went out...and daddy came in my room.. and it went 'beep beep beep'...and daddy fixed it...and daddy went back to bed with mommy...and I went back to sleep...The End." I grabbed my camera after her 3rd retelling of the story that day, so of course she was maxed out on telling the story (the "green medicine" part is about a bad dream she had the other night):
Her other favorite story lately was when she was napping and the house alarm went off (must've gotten set when my dad sat on the alarm remote on the keychain in his pocket, then the door was opened) and the police came. Looks like we're in need of some quiet rest times in our near future!
