Almost 2 years old!

Annelise is quickly approaching 2 years old.

She is so much fun to be with, and has her very own distinct personality. Likes and dislikes, attitudes both positive and negative, and is just constantly learning, as any 2 year old should be!

I wish I could hold on to the way she says things right now. The way she says "Unky Don", "Wessy", or "No no kitty!" (when the neighbor kitty gets on our patio!). But she's constantly repeating what we say and is enunciating so well lately. Well, relative to how she was talking 2 months ago. :) She uses full sentences occasionally, and we can almost understand each other, when she's not freaking out and crying, which she does a lot when she really wants something. The life of a 2-year-old is oh-so-traumatic sometimes.

I feel like this week has been busier than most, but my favorite part of my day with Annelise lately has been our bedtime routine. Brushing, flossing, getting pj's on, and reading bedtime stories. LOTS of stories. I'm still not totally sure whether Annelise genuinely loves reading, or if she just brings me more and more books to read so she doesn't have to go to bed. But either way, it's really fun to cuddle up with her and read these cute little stories.

We have a bed with a little shelf in the back of it to hold her cardboard blocks and a pile of books, most are from the library right now. Her current favorite, or at least, the one she usually picks out to read first, is "The Lord's Prayer: Explained for Little Ones". It's so cute the way she interacts with the books, making comments about the pictures similar to what I said the night before, or noticing a kitty or lightning images that she recognizes from real life! Other books she really likes are "The Foot Book" by Dr. Seuss, "Pajama Time", "Thumper's Shapes", and her collection of the Little Einstein board books she got from our Portland friends last October. Those are some of my favorites, too, because they're a quick read and we can talk a bunch about the different images and thoughts from the books.

Her imagination has been thriving lately, too. She likes to pretend that Pooh Bear and any of her other stuffed friends get thirsty, hungry, or want to dance with her. She's such a goofball, she gave all her stuff animals hugs and kisses before setting them down before lunch one day. :) And we've been playing piano more! I'm trying to teach her to isolate a few keys at a time- the sets of two and three black keys. Now that I've been doing it with her for a couple weeks, she'll go up to the piano and say "Back keys, back keys!". She doesn't really hit the two and three sets, but at least she's kind of got the idea of hitting the different color keys.

She loves to look for the moon at night. When it's dark out and we're driving, sometimes she'll say "I see da moon! I see it! It's right dere!" And sometimes it is there, and sometimes she's just excited and hoping to see the moon. :) And then she'll reeeeach for the moon really hard! But we can never reach it. It's just too high!

The other day, daddy put Annelise down for a nap and didn't put the crib gate* all the way back up. Well, she decided she didn't want nap time, and about 20 minutes later, daddy heard her crying on our main floor! She had climbed out of the crib (don't worry, no owies, bruises, or scrapes), opened her bedroom door, and then opened our bedroom door to try and find daddy, but he wasn't there. She turned on the light in the stairs, and climbed all the way down, looking for somebody! I think she was probably scared she was all alone, but daddy found her pretty quick after that. But really! She's so big, turning on lights, opening doors, and climbing out of her crib all by herself!

And finally, her favorite word for when she wants anything is "mommy". "Mooommy! mommy! mommy!" over and over and over and over. It's especially repetitive and sad sounding when she hasn't seen me for awhile and just wants to hang out with me, or when daddy didn't let her have or do something that mommy might let her do instead. Mommy's definitely the softy parent in this whole parenting thing. I should probably work on that. ;)

Mayhaps I'll upload a current picture of her later over the weekend. But for now, these are my updates. Hope to be back soon...

*Yeah yeah, I know, drop-side cribs are evil and outlawed or something. But I like them because I can give kisses at night without falling over into the crib, and it's a nice crib! So tough. I'm keeping my drop-side crib. :)