Two!

It’s been a bit since the last post, but in that time our teeny tiny girl turned two! So far, this is the most fun age – even with the tantrums and mood swings and frustrating attempts at independence. Ellie loves to laugh and play and explore and she’s so darn smart and sweet – not to mention adorable. She also continues to understand and speak more every day. Her current phrase of the week is ‘I hold it’ – which pretty much refers to anything you’re trying to help her do, she’d prefer to do on her own.

Anyway – back to her birthday. Her actual birthday fell on a Monday this year, so we dressed her up for school and made funfetti cupcakes with whip cream frosting for her class at daycare. They were apparently a hit as none came home. We did a small family dinner of pizza (one of her current favorites).

With her finger in her mouth to help reiterate how much those darn two year molars hurt:

Her big party was the next weekend, where her family came and spoiled her with presents. She had a great time playing with everyone and really got into the present opening. She also liked me to sing happy birthday to her for a few weeks afterwards. She’d start by just saying ‘happy’ and look at me like ‘finish singing it Mom.’

Ellie’s big present this year was her new swing set – which she immediately started referring to as ‘my swing set’ and talks about it constantly. She is nice enough to let her neighbor friend come play on it too. The cute thing is every time she gets on the swing she starts singing ‘row row row your boat’ (which is usually just row row row and sometimes she’ll help you finish singing it.)

She’s starting to enter the terrible phase of the terrible twos. A lot of whining, screeching, melt downs when you tell her no, intentional disobedience as well as willful independence. It just makes everything take a little longer. She’s also into the ‘my’ everything and is starting to really dislike sharing with her friends and cousins. I know it’s a phase, but it’s an interesting one. Here she is, melting down (she stopped crying when I pulled the camera out)

That said she is still sweet and kind and likes to kiss things better and demands kisses – usually two – before anyone leaves or I drop her off at daycare. She also will say ‘I love you’ unprompted at times and ask for hugs. She likes to tickle, and be tickled, and likes to make you laugh. She’s also starting to pretend things – which is a new concept I have to get used to. Her current thing is she smashes imaginary bees and spiders – usually while saying ‘go away bee, go away spider.’ I swear that didn’t come from me, it’s something she learned at school.