Dear Peeper:
You are twenty-eight months old today.
At least, I think you are. For a second there, I thought I'd gypped you of a month and had been calling you the wrong age. And then I remembered that there are twenty-four months in a year, not twenty-five, so I was right after all.
I think Mama might need to start getting more sleep.
Once again, the big news for you is your language development. You talk now. Totally. I mean, not in grammatically correct sentences, and not so most people who don't live in our house can understand much of what you're saying, but you are totally speaking in complete (for at two-year-old) sentences now.
I can't believe that just two months ago you were still only using single words!
I wish I had a little tape recorder or video camera on you at all times, so I could remember all the cute and amazing things you say and do. I try to tell Mommy about them when she gets home, but I know I'm forgetting so much!
We're still doing our letter of the week "curriculum" and we're starting on F today. You've caught on to the concept of a new letter each week, and how that works. Last night, I told you that we would have a new letter today, and asked what you thought it might be. I said, "We've already done A, B, C, D, E - what do you think might be next?" and you guessed that it would be F!
Probably because you know your alphabet. There are some letters that you still struggle with, but I would say that there aren't any that you just flat-out don't know. You can usually identify them - upper and lower-case, and you know the sounds that most of them make, and can tell us a word that starts with many of them.
And, just this week, you've started singing the whole alphabet song!
It still sometimes goes something like "Ay-seeeees, double-ex, why, ZEEE!" but more and more often, you're getting all those other letters in there, too, although you still leave out one or more "groups" of letters from time.
My favorite part (in addition to "double-ex") is "ommy-ommy-PEEE!" - sometimes there are even more "ommy" in there, if you get stuck.
Just a few minutes ago, you were playing in your car and talking, and Mommy and I suddenly realized that you were holding up your left hand and saying "Left hand!"
So, I quizzed you on your left and right parts, and you got probably about 80% of the questions right.
Mommy asked if I've been working with you on that, but I really haven't. I try to remember to refer to your parts as right and left, but I'm not as good about it as I think I should be. If I'm telling you where something is, I don't hesistate to say that it's "on your left" or "to the right of the . . . " but I had no idea that you were picking it up!
You love to sing these days, although you're still at that point where you actually only say about every third word. In addition to "A-Cs" you like "Itsy Pider" and "C-Cookie" and "One Fine Face" and often burst into any of them spontaneously.
When I play your music in the car, you sing along, whether it's a song that you've heard very much or not.
Actually, it doesn't have to be "your" music - just before the left/right incident today, I would swear you were trying to sing along to "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" on the radio!
Lately, you've been very into throwing your various balls. You hold them up and say "Readyyyyy, catch!" Some of your commentary, which I'm sure you've picked up from us, cracks me up. "Oh nooooo! So close! Good one!"
Right now, as I'm typing, you're lying on the floor, tossing your "Little People" doggy back and forth with Mommy, and I'm hearing "Ready, catch!" and "Sank you, Mommy!" when she hands it back to you.
Somehow, "ready catch" has evolved into another game, called "Ready, hug!" which involves Mama or Mommy sitting in the middle of the sunroom, and you "hiding" by the window, until we say "Ready, hug!" Then you ruuuuuun across the room into our arms for a big hug. Then we do it all over again. And over and over and over. It's my favorite game ever.
You're also very into "family hugs" and sometime request them yourself, which is just the sweetest thing ever.
Even if it happens when Mommy and I are hugging, and you decided to get in the middle. After a few times of me saying, "Oh, do you want in here?" you've started coming over and saying "In dere. Family hug!"
You're starting to do more and more sophisticated pretend play. You move your Little People and their animals all over the farm and house and narrate everything that they're doing. I love that, but favorite part is when you are actually talking to them, and telling them to "yook" at something, or moving one out of your way and you saying "Foof me, Santa."
Yes, your Santas are still around, and you still love them, but you do call them "Santa" now. I don't think we've heard "Humhummuh" in a while. That makes me a little bit sad.
You can bet that every Christmas, for the rest of our lives, we will tell you about how "You know, the Christmas that you'd just turned two, you called Santa Claus 'Humhummuh.' It was the cutest thing ever."
You also like to pretend to be animals. For quite a while, you've enjoyed crawling around and roaring like tigers (we have to play along, of course) and during D week, we started waddling and quacking like ducks. I just realized that I "missed my chance" to be elephants for E week, but I guess there's nothing stopping us from doing it now. I guess we can swim like fish, too?
On your own, you've also started "hopping" like a bunny. I say "hopping" in quotes, because you don't actually leave the ground, when you hop or jump. You'll get there eventually, though, I'm sure.
Your newest physical skill is taking off your clothes. Well, you really want to take them off, and sometimes you can actually do it. You usually need some help getting your shirt over your head and your pants over your diaper, but you're doing really well with it, considering that you just suddenly decided that it would be your job, and not ours, about a week ago.
You also like to zip up your footy pajamas, and you can unzip them, too. The other day, I walked in the living room to find that you were unzipped and almost completely out of them! That pair doesn't have the little snap-tab at the collar, so you had your arms out and you were struggling with the feet. You wanted me to help, but I just talked you through it and you got them off!
You're also able to pull your diaper down and off, like pants, without unsnapping it, but that usually takes a lot of work, so I'm not too worried about it.
Speaking of diapers, you are getting very consistent about letting us know when you have poopy pants, and you're very cooperative for a diaper change if it's one that you've requested. (Not so much when it was our idea.)
You loooooove to run nakey after your bath, but you're also getting pretty consistent about pee-peeing in the floor while doing it. We try to watch you really closely, and scoop you up to the potty when we see you grab yourself, but it doesn't always work.
You always do the crotch-grab, so I know you feel it coming, but I don't think you have a lot of warning yet, and you're not tranlating it into warning us, and I suspect you're at the point of no return by then anyway. So, you pee on the floor.
After you peed all over your Eric Carle animal alphabet flashcards last night, I made a new rule, which will go into effect this evening. At bathtime, we will actually take a clean diaper into the bathroom with us. If you pee-pee in the potty after your bath, you can run nakey for a while, but if you don't, you have to put on a diaper.
I'm hoping that will a> cut down on the amount of pee-pee on the floor and b> serve as an incentive to get you on the potty for a try.
We'll see.
We have caught a couple of pees lately, when I dumped the first one into the toilet, I realized it had been so long since you'd peed in the potty, that the bowl was dusty!
I thought that might have renewed your interest in the potty, but not so much.
Oh well, it will come.
And right now, we're going to try to get some clothes on you, so we can go walk the doggies. It's beautiful outside and you've got no interest in going out. Of course, yesterday, you splashed in the mud and slush for an hour when it was 40 degrees out, but today, nope.
I'm sure you'll enjoy it once we get you out there though, so I'm going to go help Mommy before she gets any more frustrated, and leaves without us.
(Update - We got you dressed, and you had a great time on the walk, then asked to play in the backyard when we got home. Told ya.)
We love you, ya little knot-head.
Love,
Mama
