Dear Clara,
You are 2! Whenever I think about it, I just shake my head in disbelief. When you were first born everyone reminded me (what felt like constantly) about how fast it goes. I was so tired of hearing that. All I could think was that it felt like I was never going to get a full night of sleep again—or any sleep for that matter! But in hindsight, time does fly by. You have gone from a baby to a little girl this year. While part of me misses you being a baby, I am really enjoying getting to know your personality, teaching you, learning from you, and playing with you.
At two years old, you are 24.6 pounds and measure 31.5 inches. You are wearing mostly 18-24 month clothes, size 5 shoes, and size 4 diapers. You continue to be petite. The doctor told us you are barely on the chart—but hey, you are on there in the 10th percentile for both your height and weight. You are sleeping 11-12 hours at night and take one 2-3 hour nap during the day. You use a binky only to sleep and are very attached to it. I’m not looking forward to the day that we wean you from that.
Despite being small, you eat like a champ. You went through a phase recently where some nights you wouldn’t eat much dinner. At the moment, you are a very consistent eater. You like a wide range of foods with your favorites being mac & cheese, grilled cheese, sliced turkey or ham, sweet potatoes, carrots, pears, and kiwi. You love to dip your food. Chips and salsa keep you entertained when we go out for Mexican food. Ketchup is also a big hit, but we have to watch you because you will eat the ketchup with your fingers. You also really like applesauce, and you say it very well. When we show you applesauce, you say “applesauce” and when we show you the toy octopus you say, “applesauce.” The two words sound exactly the same when you say them.
You are a talker! It’s common for you to use 3 to 4 word sentences when you are telling us or asking us something. Christmas morning you asked me, “Is Gamma here yet?” That was followed by, “Is PawPaw here yet?” then “Is Debbie here yet?” When your Daddy is gone you say, “Daddy bye-bye work.” You jabber a lot when you play by yourself, but most of the time when you are telling us something, we are able to understand what you are saying. We’re amazed at how quickly your vocab is expanding, and your Daddy and I often ask each other, “Did she just say…?” We think you are very smart.
You love to sing. Learning songs is a recent thing for you. You’ve learned certain phrase of songs including the Barney song, and you sing it “I love you, my Mommy” (instead of “you love me”)—I eat that up. Other favorites are Jingle Bells, Twinkle Twinkle, the B-I-B-L-E song, and of course, the Rock Chalk Chant. Your very favorite song right now is “We are the Dinosaurs.” You love the Laurie Berkner Band DVD that we got you for Christmas. You sing along and do the dinosaur march with the video. You will ask us, “Watch something?” when you want to watch a show, and you will ask for the dinosaur march by name.
You play really hard, and you run everywhere you go. Puzzles are your favorite activity right now. You also enjoy coloring, playing with your babies, and reading your books. You insist on holding the books and turning the pages. Some books Mommy has memorized so it doesn’t matter that you turn pages out of order. We’ve been working on having you help pick up your toys. I know you’ve done this all along at daycare, but it’s been a challenge to get you to help at home. In the last couple of weeks, we’ve made a lot of progress. You have even started putting one toy away before getting another out.
You are starting to show interest in the “potty.” You randomly announce “potty!” then run into the bathroom and sit on your potty chair fully clothed. We have had one successful potty, but other than that, you have no patience to sit and wait. Usually by the time we get in there to help you, you have already announced, “I done!” and are running out of the room.
You sometimes throw toddler fits when you don’t get your way. The fits usually come when you are tired or hungry so we try to keep a consistent schedule with meal and bed times. We’re challenged with knowing the best form of discipline for your age, but our goal is to remain consistent and work as a team. Yesterday you put one of your lego people in time out. You picked him up, told him “Time out!” and put him in the time-out corner.
We continue to count our blessings that we have you in our lives. You are such a joy to be around, and our families just love you! You remind us to enjoy the small things in life and to slow down and smell the roses (and notice the moon). I know this next year is going to have many fun and new experiences in store for us, and I’m looking forward to seeing you grow and develop!
Lots of Love,
Your Mommy
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