Two Years

Dear Peeper:
You are two years old today.

Wow. Just wow.

I realized a few days ago that you'e now been here for longer than we were planning for you. (Planning seriously, in the sense of "we are actually going to do this" and then "we are trying" and finally "we are pregnant.")

That's just crazy, because it seemed like forever from when we made that decision until you were actually born, and it seems like that happened just yesterday.

I know I've been saying for several months now that you've been seeming more and more like "two" but over the past couple of weeks, I think that the "twoness" may have actually hit, in that you're starting to be alot more, um, vocal, shall we say, about your desires and, more specifically, your desire-nots.

You do not desire to turn off Elmo.

You do not desire to have your diaper changed.

You do not desire to have your teeth brushed.

You do not desire to have your hair put up in pigtails.



You do not desire to sit down in your carseat and buckle up.

Actually, Mommy had a stroke of genius the other day and has made the tooth brushing situation much, much better.

First, I was finally smart enough to put a sewing thimble under the finger brush, so that when you bite me, you don't actually bite me, which was a huge improvement, and then she turned it into a "hippo-tooth-bird" who was soooo hungry and needed to get a snack from your teeth, Little Hippo.

And, for the first time in months, instead of crying and fighting, you opened your mouth and laughed, as the birdy feasted on bits of leftover cheese and goldfish and tortellinis and, yes, dogfood.

And then it worked again, and again, for about the past four night, so far.

I hope I'm not jinxing it by saying it out loud.

Now, we just need a similar strategy for the diapers and the carseat.

But, enough of that. Yeah, yeah, you're two, and you're gonna act like a two-year-old. We just gotta deal with that.

Instead, let's talk about how amazingly amazing you are.

You know like a million of your body parts. You can point to just about anything I can think of to ask about, even weird things like ankles and wrists (usually), and you can name most of them - which I just found out a couple of nights ago. Evidently, we'd never asked you about your ahums or your bap before.

You (mostly) know your colors. When asked to point to a given color, you usual can, and when asked to name a color, you often can. Your first answer is usually "bwooo" (unless it's actually yellow; that one you usually get) but you can often get it on the second try.

You can (sort of) count to ten. Well, okay, you "count" things yourself "Taaaah, taaahhh, siss!" but when I count slowly and let you fill in the next number, you can usually do five, six, eight, nine and ten.

(Although you want "six" to come after one, two, three and sometimes four, and "nine" often comes after six and seven. But "eight, nine, ten" you've got down, for sure.)

You know a handful of letters, either by the sounds they make (S, F) or the name (O, B, D, P, A, E) or a word that starts with them (P for Papa, G for Goody - well, you don't say that one, so much as stick the letter magnet on my goody and sign it).

And words, on my goodness, the words. Two months ago, you had (counting "animal" sounds) 35 - 40 words. You now have at least (and I should stress "at least" because I know there are many that I've not recorded) 180 - 185. Probably closer to 200.

In that time, I think you've added maybe five new signs, mostly using signs that you already knew (bird, cookie, stinky, frog) for Sesame Street characters (Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Oscar, Kermit), for a total of around 110. Yep, as of a couple of weeks ago, you now have more words than signs!

You can now repeat (after a fashion) most words that we ask you to, although a whole lot of them still sound a lot alike. And even more of them sound nothing like what you mean by them, but we know what they mean. It's like a whole 'nother language that only the three of us speak.

Eena and Papa know enough to order dinner and ask for the bathroom, but only you, Mommy and I are actually fluent in Peeplish.

Now that we've reached your birthday, I've given myself permission to stop recording your new words, which is quite a relief, because I've really been having trouble keeping up the past few weeks. Even right now, I'm wracking my brain, trying to remember what it was you were saying earlier this evening that I was thinking I needed to write down. Well, dammit.

But I do have a list of everything that I've managed to remember to record up until now, and I'm going to share that in a separate post, and then I'm off the hook on that.

We've not heard any two-word sentences yet, but I figure that, since the doctor is likely to ask about that at your appointment on Monday, we'll probably start hearing them by, oh, next Friday or so. Because that's how you roll.

Your play is also getting more and more sophisticated. You love, love, love "peekaboo" and spend much of the day "hiding" behind your hands or other objects. Then, when you "reappear" you always say "Whew!" (shhu) because that's what we do. ("Oh whew, she's back! I was worried!") You also like to hide other people (or animals) and objects. In the bathtub, you are particularly fond of using a washcloth to hide your knee.

You like to put a bag (or just about anything) over your shoulder and tell us, "bye bye!" (dah dah!) and you leave the room. Today, I asked where you were going, and I'm pretty sure you told me, "Texas."

You love to play with your "hair basket," dumping out all the tiny little bands onto the floor and sorting through them. What you always do is pick out all the shiny ones (some have metallic threads in them). This is not an easy task, as several are the exact same colors as non-shiny ones, just with the shiny added. You occassionally pick up a regular one and then toss it aside, but mostly you go right to the shiny ones.

I realized tonight that I never actually put the shiny ones on you, which is kind of mean, I guess, since you seem to like them so much. I now have a pair of shiny pink ones set aside tp wear tomorrow (oops, I mean today), because it's your birthday.

Maybe you'll be more agreeable about putting them in if they're shiny?

(Hey, I can dream, can't I?)

You are currently obsessed with pumpkins (puhpah), Singing Santa (hum-hummuh) and Sesame Street (Ahmoh! Uhnnee! Dit! Babby-Babby!).

We're a little worried about how you're going to handle it next week when all the pumpkins suddenly disappear, but you did surprisingly well last night at Target, when we discovered that your witch and ghost friend were gone.

We're hoping that there will be enough HumHummuhs around to distract you from the missing pumpkins.

Elmo is another matter altogether. We were doing pretty well for a while with only watching it (videos on SesamesStreet.org) two or three times a day, for shortish periods, but then when Mommy was home all last week, we kind of let it get out of hand, so I'm trying to rein you back in this week.

It's going pretty well, but we're still considering doing away with it completely at home and just letting you watch at Eena and Papa's house, because it can be such a damn scene to tell you that it's time to turn it off.

We have no problem with the concept of Sesame Street, and love that you are learning things, but it's the obsessive watching that's a problem. We don't even mind that you love the characters, and in fact, we bought you several books starring them, in hope of being able to use those to distract you away from the videos.

We'll see how that goes.

One of the aspects of this whole birthday-milestone-thing that I'm especially happy about is the fact that we've made it to the WHO-recommended minimum of two years of breastfeeding. Especially given the start that we had, I'm pretty damn proud of that.

(As soon as I post this, I'll be adding my two years "ribbon" to the sidebar.)

I could go on and on, talking about every little thing you are doing these days, but, oh, I just can't even describe what it's like watching you as you change and grow and learn.

You are more and more you every day, and it's just the most amazing thing I've ever witnessed, and I can't believe that your Mommy and I are lucky enough to be the ones who get to see it all, and to guide you along the way.

It is most terrifying responsibility and the greatest honor I could ever imagine.

I don't know if you somehow chose us for this job, or if we somehow chose you, or if someone, something, somewhatever chose us for each other, but I couldn't be more grateful.

I love you more than you could ever imagine, my little two-year-old.

love,
Mama