My baby turned 2 this week and is growing up much faster than I would like (I’m sure every parent thinks that), but it’s amazing to see her develop. Here are some things she’s doing now:
- She transitioned to the early preschool class at daycare a couple of weeks ago. I dislike the lack of a permanent teacher at the moment (and the resulting absence of many photo updates during the day) but the substitutes are very nice and Julia loves having a bigger class to run around in and more friends to play with.
- She loves her independence. Some of her favorite words and phrases (other than “Mine” which is #1) are: “My do it,” and “JuJu hold it!”
- She’s sleeping reasonable well. Yay! She had trouble going to to sleep without being rocked for awhile after we took away the pacifier in January. Finally one night I just couldn’t take the crying for Mommy after I put her down, so I went in and explained that Mommy and Daddy needed to go to sleep by themselves, and she needed to help Elmo (she has this Elmo doll) go to sleep, but that she could read Elmo a book or sing to him. She accepted the logic surprisingly easily and now we put her blanket on and she says something to the effect of “Mommy Daddy sleep self. JuJu sleep self” while she fluffs her pillow.
- She is so loving and sweet. She gives hugs and kisses to all of her friends at daycare, loves to carry around her Dollar Store dolly in a “baby carrier” made out of one of my scarves (she pats it and gives it kisses on the head – so sweet!) and she yells various iterations of “I loo Mommy! I loo Daddy!” at the top of her lungs, while giving us the sweetest hugs and kisses ever.
- She has an impressive memory – I told her about the whale watching trip around December when I booked it, and she remembered every time I asked her what we were doing for her birthday and would say “whale birthday.” She also remembers the location of things really well – we walked by the community center where she was taking swimming lessons on a regular day and she pointed out the pool and said “Juju swimming!”
There was an article on Pregnant Chicken (I love having them on my feed even when I’m not pregnant – so funny!) recently that pretty much summed up my feelings about toddler and babyhood. I’m always torn between wanting Julia to stay my tiny, sweet baby (especially that snuggly, sleepy newborn stage, minus the sleepy mom part), feeling excited and proud of all the new things she’s doing, and needing occasional moments to myself to regroup and recharge. Here’s my favorite line from it:
“I want ten more minutes of snuggles, one more whiff of that sleepy-sweaty-toddler smell, the weight of his arms wrapped around me, the honor of being the only thing that lets him release and rest his strong, soft little body.”
Wishing you all the sweet child snuggles you can get and off to sneak in some of my own!
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