May 12, 2019
This girl! She has been growing up so much lately. She is still very focused and can zone-in on an activity and play for a surprisingly long time. Last week I picked up some free legos from a friend who was getting rid of stuff and she has played with them all day every day for three days. I will often hear her babbling to herself and she is talking so much MORE every day. The linguist in me just loves to hear the progression of her language. I recorded a few things she has said in the past two days:
"Daddy put wood in back of his truck!" (that was the longest sentence I have heard so far)
"Mommy get a booger out." (I was picking my nose, HAHA)
"Peas cold. Peas not hot anymore."
"Daddy going work. Mommy stay home with you!"
"I have red pepper with Charlie. I have yellow pepper. I have orange pepper."
"Milk spill on table. Mommy clean up with burp rag."
"Mommy eat it...That's Annie's pepper. Annie's bread."
She is so adorable and I love having little conversations with her where I'm fully present and focused on her (unfortunately that's not very often with her little sis around!) I realized today while just listening to her how much she has grown up and how fast she has.
She has done a pretty good job with the transition to having a little sister around. She is good about not sitting on top of her, etc so I feel more at ease. Heidi is more robust, too, so I'm not as concerned. She does have a hard time sharing her toys with her (and her friends who come over for that matter) and today I noticed that she would vi for attention when Samuel and I started talking about how cute Heidi is or focusing a lot on her, etc. I'm really proud of Annie for getting through the past few months and loving her baby sister so fully. I've only seen her hit her a couple of times and she usually showers her with kisses and hugs. She is always so excited to come see Heidi when she wakes up in the morning.
Annie is VERY particular lately about what she wears. She absolutely will not wear anything she doesn't want to. The few times I've forced her to wear THE PURPLE SWEATER instead of the WHITE sweater (because I'm so dang sick of her wearing that dirty old white sweater, let's be honest!) she brings it up multiple times during the day about how she STILL wants to take the sweater off...and now that she has discovered how to take her pants off...well, let's just say I can't force her to wear anything anymore. And that creates a real problem when it's freezing outside and she wants to wear her cute summer shorts (me too, Annie...me too...but it's still 40 degrees baby girl).
Annie has also become a VERY picky eater. It's amazing how a baby that I feed pureed kale and salmon too for almost a year of her life will ONLY eat carbs. I'm talking pancakes, crackers, bread, raisins, and grapes. That is it. Oh and chocolate chips and ice cream, if I gave her that option every meal. The girl will not touch anything green. I tell myself that me eating green salads every day and offering her a small portion every meal will get her to eat it eventually, but in the meantime, I think I have tossed an entire 10 acres of salad produce in the process...
She is still very organized. Today while putting away the blocks, she didn't toss them in the bucket haphazardly like her mom does, she decided she wants to put the blocks into the bucket according to size (big ones on the bottom, middle-size ones on top of that, and then putting all the shapes in like a puzzle like how daddy does). She either has her dad's attention to insane detail or she was trying to delay bed time...
She still LOVES books and would have me read books to her all day if I would. And she'd spend all her spare time pretending to read books to herself, summarizing out loud what I read to her from the book. Sometimes she memorizes an entire sentence after I've read it to her a couple of times.
Today we went on a "toddler hike" with her friend Charlotte (Charlie) in Ponderosa. I was impressed that Annie hiked by herself up a HUGE rocky hill. I think she will be a good hiker. I'm judging this by comparing her to her other two-year-old friends. She seems to be able to walk pretty far and be pretty focused on getting to a destination. She is still cautious physically and very shy. She will often hide behind my legs when new people walk past us on the trail or at the post office, saying "Carry you!" (for me to carry her). Even when my hands are FULL of a 30 lb car seat, packages from the mail, etc...sometimes I still oblige and pick her up on my other hip because I know someday she won't look up at me with those big ol' blue eyes and long eyelashes and ask me to "CARRY YOU."
I love this girl more than I could possibly imagine and it is such a delight to watch her budding personality blossom and grow. What special girl she is to me!!
