Woo-hoo!  Guess who’s TWO!?!?!?!

We celebrated Peanut’s second birthday yesterday and wow, how time flies.  In some ways I’m amazed that it’s already been two whole years since we welcomed our tiny preemie princess into the world (two months early).  But in other ways, it feels like she’s been with us forever.

Peanut at two is packing a ton of personality into a tiny package.  She’s incredibly verbal (well, what do you expect with two lawyers for parents?) and can tell you exactly what she’s thinking and what she wants.  Oh, and she does.  It makes for some pretty hilarious conversations, because she can carry on a conversation now and she’s quite the chatterbox.  And if she tells you what she wants and doesn’t get it… well, we hear about that, too.  Such is life with a two-year-old.

Really, though, Peanut is an incredibly good kid.  She’s full of energy and fun and sweetness and silliness.  She’s starting to develop a sense of humor, and it’s pretty juvenile… even for a toddler.  Recently, at Stroller Strides, one of the moms was sharing a story about potty-training her little guy.  He was asking to go inside and use the bathroom, but she had her hands full with his little sister, so she told little dude to “pee in the grass.”  Well, Peanut got a huge kick out of the idea of peeing in the grass.  She started laughing hysterically and repeating, “I pee in the grass!  I pee in the grass!”  Twenty minutes into the workout she was still spontaneously bursting into laughter and shouting “I pee in the grass!”  That was weeks ago and she still cracks up every now and again at the idea.  It completely shocked Aunt Grace and Grandma while they were feeding her lunch one day.  (Aunt Grace, sorry we didn’t warn you ahead of time.  And sorry that Grandma blamed you for Peanut’s crude sense of humor.)

Peanut is very much an outdoor girl and loves her time spent playing in the fresh air.  Most evenings when I come home from work, Nana and Peanut are outside enjoying some water play or tossing a beach ball around in the driveway.  (Another reason I’m so excited to move.  Peanut needs a real backyard!)

She’s also still Mommy’s Little Bookworm.  She’ll now hand us books and say “Read book, please!”  Melts my heart every time.  And of course she knows that Mommy will always be happy to read a book to her.  Always, little girl.

 

As far as looks are concerned, we still hear most frequently that she looks just like me.  I take that as a compliment, because I think Peanut is the most beautiful kid on the planet!  I’m honored to resemble her even a little bit.  In reality, Daddy is definitely in there too, as are Auntie Em and Aunt Grace.  I can actually see her aunts come out more and more every day.  But more than anyone else, she looks like herself.

I still can’t believe she’s a bona fide two-year-old.  She seems so big – walking and talking and having opinions – yet she’s still such a baby.  I’ll always see my tiny little baby girl in her, never more so than when she’s sleeping on her tummy with her thumb in her mouth.  Pure sweetness.  I could watch her snuggle like this for hours.

Peanut at TWO!

Likes: BOOKS, of course!  Especially Fancy Nancy and anything by Dr. Seuss.  Also enjoys the playground; running around in the park; wearing her bathing suit (“Ballerina!  Dance like ballerina!”); splashing in the bathtub; eating fruit, cheese and olives; watching “Winnie Pooh” videos on YouTube; going to the aquarium to visit the sea lions; seeing her friends at Stroller Strides; bathroom humor; pushing stuffed animals around in her play stroller; singing along with the Sound of Music soundtrack (she can do the entire “Do Re Mi” song – not kidding – even “So Do La Fa Mi Do Re”) and Broadway show tunes (favorites include “Jesus Christ Superstar” and “Defying Gravity”); anything to do with Disney’s “Frozen” but especially “Let it Go” and the scenes with Olaf the snowman; when Mommy and Daddy come home from work; and so much more… she’s just such a happy, spirited kid.

Dislikes: Men, with the exception of Daddy and her grandfathers, and our realtor, funnily enough – but all other guys are persona non grata until she gets used to them; sitting in her high chair and eating when she’d rather be running around; going out to eat (same issue); and Mo Willems books, oddly.

Milestones:  So much has happened this year, I don’t know that I can begin to recap all of Peanut’s milestones.  She said her first word at twelve months and is now talking up a storm, in full sentences.  (At her eighteen-month well child visit, the pediatrician said he’d like her to be able to say five or six words.  We pulled out our list of Peanut’s words, which – at the time – was in the seventies and included several sentences.)  She walked a little late but is now running all over the place and climbing on the furniture.  Other fun milestones this year included a move to Buffalo, her first trip to Canada, her first two Adirondack high peaks, and her first time visiting our family’s lake house.

Quirks:  As I said above, she’s got a pretty crude sense of humor, even for a toddler.  She also loves other people’s cell phones.  I got her a cell phone of her own, but it’s not a real phone – it’s a V-tech toy phone.  So, obviously, she prefers anyone else’s phone to hers… although she will use her phone to take selfies.  That’s right.  She takes selfies.

Mommy and Daddy have NAMES?  When Peanut talks on the phone, more often than not she starts out her “conversation” by announcing, “Hello!  Jaclyn and Steve!”  We think she picked this up during a stretch of a few weeks in which we conducted a lot of speaker-phone conversations with our realtor.  But she doesn’t actually know who “Jaclyn and Steve” are, or even necessarily that they are people.  If we ask her to point to Mommy or Daddy, she points right to the correct parent.  If we ask her to point to Jaclyn or Steve, she stares at us blankly.  We’re pretty sure she thinks “Jaclyn and Steve!” is some kind of telephone greeting.

The Night-Night Posse:  We finally caved in and started letting her take a toy to bed.  It’s a suffocation risk for babies, but when she turned about eighteen months we decided she was old enough and she started taking Pup to bed.  Orange Kitty joined them soon, and was soon followed by Peter Rabbit.  Now the Night-Night Posse, as we call them, has grown to include – in addition to the original three – Diamond the Sea Lion, Zoey the Harbor Seal, Izzie Lizzie Alligator, Goodnight Moon Bunny, Winnie the Pooh, and a bunny lovie that doesn’t have a formal name yet but seems to answer to both “Easter Bunny” and “Steve.”

Not to sound like a broken record, and I know I’m her mom and all so I’m biased, but this kid. is. amazing.  She’s smart and funny, affectionate, curious, sweet, and so very loving.  Recently she started giving kisses, as if she wasn’t melting our hearts enough just by existing.  Oh, she has her moments – all toddlers do.  We’ve had the occasional tantrum episode (who teaches kids to lay down on the floor and kick? it seems to be some sort of innate toddler instinct) but most of the time she’s pure sunshine.  I think I got pretty much the greatest kid in the world.  And now I’ll stop gushing (even though Nana is probably the only person who made it to the end of this long post, hi Nana!).

Happy second birthday, little Peanut.  Mommy and Daddy love you more than words can say.