In case you haven't realized yet, this will probably be a sappy and braggy post about Brooke. But she just turned two and deserves a little recognition and it makes me happy to write about. It will probably get long-winded and boring for those that don't share a deep connection with her, so consider yourself warned.
Brooke continues to grow healthy and strong. She had another great doctor visit and passed with flying colors. She panicked a little when the nurse came in to give her the flu shot but I told her what was going to happen and she handled it like a champ. Her two year stats are almost exavtly the same percentiles as her 18 month ones. I guess she found a curve and it sticking to it.
Height: 34.5 inches (75%tile)
Weight: 30.4 lbs (94%tile)
Head: 95%tile
An update post wouldn't be complete without a mention of the standard eating and sleeping. Luckily for us, she is great at both. She happily eats her meals with us and will try everything once. Sometimes she gets bored of eating but I can coax her into taking more bites by making games out of it. The exception to the rule is if she is full, she says no and that's that. Because she is such a good eater most of the time I am able to trust her and very rarely do we get into battles over food. I know that is the exception to the rule for most toddlers so I am indeed grateful! It can be hard to cook a meal for her and I knowing that Brett won't be home to eat for a few more hours. But she usually gets so excited about the food on her plate that it makes it worth it. Tonight she climbed up to her chair and practicially yelled "Mmmmmm!!! Brocolli! Carrots! Strawberries! Water! Yummy!" She also often insists on listing off the food on her plate during the prayer instead of just blessing "the food". It is pretty adorable. She still eats a banana and 2 scrambled eggs with cheese most mornings for breakfast. Then simple foods (grapes, carrots, yogurt) for lunch; only occasionally agreeing to eat a sandwich. And then whatever we are having for dinner. And of course a few snacks throughout the day. We cut her beloved milk out of her diet at 18 months to see if it solved some digestive issues and when we tried to reintroduce it a few months later she decided she didn't like it anymore. She will only eat it on cereal but we work on getting her the dairy and vitamins thru other sources. Instead she drinks gallons and gallons of water each day.
Sleeping has also continued pretty smoothly since her 18 month post. She is typically in bed from 7:30pm to 8:15 am and then naps from 1-3. We had a rough week or two while she was potty training and she wasn't settling down for naps but we are back to our old routine and it feels so good! She is still in her crib and we have no plans to shake that up. Brooke has recently become attached to her teddy blanket that she sleeps with and her puppy pillow. Sometimes teddy blankie has to come with us in the morning but it is rare that she insists on it. Mostly we use it as motivation to go to bed "teddy is waiting for you!" works most nights when she is not interested in stopping playtime. She also still sleeps with her white noise on, but we have turned it down significantly and mostly I think it is just there for habit. Brooke is definitely a girl who loves routines and often will tell me what is next in our bedtime routine. Or if we are driving home late and headed straight to bed she will tell me what we have to do before going "night night". Toothbrush, toothpaste, potty, jammies, diaper, scriptures, song, kneel, prayer, noise button, lights, night night teddy blankie. We don't usually have reason to skip any steps but I doubt she would let us if we tried.
Speaking telling us everything, Brooke is a TALKER. She strings words together to make sentences and even spouts off two or more sentences at a time. She also likes to list things (colors, routines, etc) and point out everything she sees. She is big on pointing out similarities and differences lately. Ex: "one, two plates... pink one brooke. purple one mom." She sings parts of songs all on her own her current favorites include the happy birthday song and once there was a snowman. It is great to be able to communicate with her and have her express her wants and needs verbally. Sometimes we run into troubles when I can't understand what she is saying, like her word for "grapes" doesn't sound like grapes, its more like "chapes". And for a few weeks we would run into the problem on almost a daily basis where she would ask for grapes and I would try a half a dozen other options before figuring out what she wanted. I guess I'm a slow learner. But we finally got it figured out. Brooke excelled on all the verbal benchmarks at her doctors appointment with the exception of using pronouns (I, me, mine) instead of names (Brooke, mom) regularly. She will do it occasionally, but resorts to using her name most of the time when talking about herself. And that is clearly because I haven't modeled it. I still say mom and Brooke often when talking to her so I now know what to focus on next.
One of the things I've found most interesting while watching Brooke learn language skills is realizing how much I must say certain words. It started with "all right" and now included "bummer" and "yea yea!" She will use bummer randomly and it always makes me giggle. It is also fun to get a glimpse of how she sees the world. She notices everything, things I often overlook. Like the moon in the early evening sky or the animal on the poster at the store. She also will occasional tell stories about things that happened before she was super verbal, which really surprises me. For example, at easter time the librarian at story time dressed up like a bunny and Brooke didn't like it. Just this week I mentioned to Brooke it was time for story time (something we've done almost weekly since then) and she said matter of factly, "no bunnies." I confirmed there would be no bunnies and then she told me about how the lady was a bunny one time and she didn't like it. Now if that is not a good memory, I don't know what is.
Brooke loves to do puzzles and learn new songs. She can recognize all of her ABC's and likes to point them out. She is learning how to jump and gets so excited whenever we are somewhere with a trampoline. Brooke still loves going to story time and has started getting really interested in the craft they have available. Using a glue stick is the best thing ever some days.
The one thing we are still working on with Brooke is making choices. I have always thought that giving toddlers a choice between 2 things was supposed to help avoid tantrums. Instead, for us, it creates them. If I offer two outfits she will go back and forth unable to decide until I finally have to pick one. This makes her upset because part of her still wanted the other one. It is not good. So we are practicing that and avoiding it at the same time. I'm sure she will become more opinionated as she gets older. But for now I just try to enjoy the fact that she literally loves just about everything.
Brooke is very social and loves her friends. So for her birthday we had everyone over for a playdate. It was pretty informal and we just played in the backyard for the most part. She loved having everyone over and was so sad when she realized they had to leave. I think she will love having a little sister who is always around. Most of her friends have siblings and she is always confused with they get to go home together and she has to get into the car all alone. She also really enjoyed the balloons and I could tell she knew they were for her. It was fun to be able to do a little extra to help her celebrate her birthday even if she didn't fully understand why.
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