Big girl

Where did my baby go?

I'ts official, my baby is gone and despite the fact that she still refers to herself as "baby" has transformed into a big girl.  While a part of me is mourning the loss of the helpless baby most of me is reveling in the fun that is toddlerdom.  A song that keeps coming on E's pandora station has a lyric "How did you grow so big over night, how did you get so strong and bright, yesterday you were asleep in my arms, today you're growing off the charts, I'm so proud of you"  and every time I hear it I tear up a little bit (still going to blame the hormones)

This age is so much fun!  E is becoming more playful every day, she plays with her toys using her imagination.  Her favorites are her animals and her people and anything having to do with the potty.  Today she put her baby doll on it's potty in front of her alphabet toy and proceeded to show him alphabet letters while making peeing noises.

She "reads" her favorite books and sings along to more songs that I can remember.  Her favorite song is "Wheels on the Bus"  she will sing that song all day.  Her favorite book is her Star Wars Colors book, which requires me singing the Imperial march and the cantina song when I read it.  She loves, loves, loves Sesame Street (especially Count, Elmo and Cookie Monster) despite never seeing a full episode. She knows them from her books. She calls Count "Ah, ah!" which makes me laugh every time.  She sleeps on a nap mat at daycare.  She uses her potty fairly regularly.  She hates clothes, diapers, and car seats.  She has her security items (Ellie, her musical elephant, LinLin her stuffed panda, babypada, and Rexy her t-rex pillow pet that goes to day care with her).  She threw a fit when I washed her daycare blankie over the weekend.

She gets sad when people go away, even complete strangers like waiters and such; and likes to call for people or things "reesa? weh are ooo reesa?"  (she really likes our neighbor Ms. Teresa, and calls for her when we go check the mail, but she'll also call for inanimate objects the same way)

She's curious about the world. Her favorite things to say seem to be "isit?" (what is it) and "do?" (what is he doing) and "eredidhego?" (where did he go?)

fearless!

She loves to tell us what color things are and "count"  For a long time everything was yellow and there were always 3 of everything.  But she's getting better about her colors, there are still usually 3 of everything though.  She loves to climb, swing and tries to jump.  She's a very physical kiddo, but also can be very focused and still.

We went on vacation to California (eventually I'll post about that, I swear) and it was such a different trip than a year ago.  

She's starting to assert her independence more (ie. more temper tantrums).  Her most common tantrum currently is about going to school.  If I even mention school she starts whimpering or crying.  She's also starting to be picky about her food.  Tonight she had a full meltdown about eating, all she wanted was grapes and she made a huge show of spitting out her bite of quinoa.  Between that and kicking dada earlier in the evening, she ended up going straight to bed after dinner for the first time ever.  To be fair she was REALLY tired because she didn't nap at daycare so her behavior had an explanation, but there is still no excuse.  I know it's important to be firm and fair about these things but it's still hard.  Thankfully she went almost straight to sleep with only a few minutes of crying once she was put to bed.

 Thankfully the good days still outnumber the bad, and hopefully that trend will continue as we delve down the path of the terrible twos.

She's my big girl, and she lets me know in her own funny way.  Tonight at dinner she asked for my fork "mama fork?" so I got her, her own adult fork to which she proudly declared "baby big girl!"

Yes baby, you are a big girl; but you're still my baby.