I said just recently to Page, “I’m not sure when it happened exactly, but she’s really not a baby anymore.”
Breaking out in song, counting to eleven (it gets sketchy after that…), obsessed with the ABCs. Constantly swinging between wanting to be carried and coddled…and being fiercely independent.
Officially a preschooler and loving every minute – we never saw a tear, just excited to emulate her big bro and simply said, “bye mom love you!” before the car even came to a complete stop.
“Mom” has become “mommy”, potty trained, yelling “Scuse you!!” at anyone who is in her way. Loves purses, wallets, jewelry, and makeup. Cuddling dogs as much as possible, but still zero interest in babies, much preferring older kids.
Yells “I’m super!!” Whenever tackling a big physical challenge, often role playing two sides of a make believe conversation, and finally drama free to stay with a sitter!
Playing 2yo soccer and watching all the Daniel Tiger, Sesame Street, Pixar movies and Blippi. Picky as ever with eating, but still gracing our lives with a 3+ hour nap.
What a busy first quarter of two it has been! It began with Easter, wrapped with the 4th, and spanned lots of fun in between!
You seemed to love your Easter dress this year 🙂 It was our first time back in church for this holiday and it felt so lovely and normal! You checked yourself out in the mirror an awful lot before we left and loved coming into the service at the end to hear the music.
With the nicer weather becoming more consistent, there was a whole new world of getting outside for more adventures. Aside from a sudden and intense fear of bugs that thankfully mellowed after a couple weeks, you’ve loved the go-go-go of adventuring outside, park-hopping, and playing in all the water.
Before the school year wrapped for Crew, we did another round of swim lessons, this time with your friend, GiGi and her mom. It was fun to have a friend, and helpful to curb your fearlessness in the water just a tad 😉 I had hoped it could be a “mom stays out of the water” scenario and you’d go to the teacher, but you just weren’t having that. You are, without a doubt, my clingier kid!
It’s been a fun season of “firsts” as the world sincerely feels “normal” again. You (and Crew!) attended your first wedding. You’ve always been of the mindset that if you are dancing, no one else can, and instead we just have to watch and cheer ha! This wedding changed your perspective and now you LOVE when everyone is dancing together.
Another first was the farmer’s market for you! It was particularly special to me to have this outing with you after we made it so many times with Crew at this age. You LOVED seeing the dogs of course!
You continue to love a task, and you are particularly focused when it comes to drawing/painting and anything with small details. You hate to be “messy” and will ask for a wipe to clean up your hand or a spot where you drip, so it’s pretty low-stress to give you free reign with these activities – you can more or less be trusted! 😉
You’re starting to understand real phone calls versus FaceTime – “hello! What doin?” is heard on repeat as you turn everything in the house into a pretend phone. You’re very into pretend now in general and your favorite toys are Little People, your peg dolls, and little animals that you can have converse, eat pretend food, and tuck into bed.
You are talking so much more than three months ago, and yet I still laugh outright sometimes at how different your verbal development is from any toddler I’ve heard. You will articulate a full sentence of clear words…and then go back to rambling in your own language for the next few thoughts. “Oh no, Mom — baby sad!” if you hear a baby crying, and then back to your own jargon and we just nod and smile along. You are LOVING having Crew home this summer and with that much more convo in the house, your language continues to expand – it’s already foreign to think of the time I kept a list of words you know hoping to clear 100…I would guess you are up to a thousand-plus now and adding more every day.
Speaking of Crew, the bond is the strongest we’ve seen yet — he’s just enough older now to read you better, and you’re just enough more communicative to meet him halfway. You think everything he does is hilarious, and you often copy his every move. Thankfully he’s incredibly tolerant, and I think he secretly loves being idolized. 🙂
And in other tight-bond news, you have definitely hit that bell curve where you truly remember Papa and Mimi between visits and no longer have to “warm up” every time you see them. Visits are that much more fun now!
Two is so busy and so full of emotions…lots of focus and frustration and big excitement and intense love and all. the. things. all at once. It’s so helpful that the communication is booming lately and our understanding of each other continues to strengthen each day. You can voice more opinions without meltdowns, or decline things before we waste them offering them up to you. You’ve gotten pickier about food choices lately…but we also suspect some molar movement has to do with this one.
You’re game for most of what the rest of us want to do, hate to be left out of anything, and want your “own” of whatever we are doing – case in point with the golf club you had to carry but barely used at our round of mini golf.
The firsts continued this quarter with a first official (read: not clumsy Mom-snipped) haircut. You were immediately fine after but in true form didn’t like doing something that wasn’t 1000% your idea.
You can answer when asked what your name is or how old you are, but often won’t do it unless – again – it’s your idea 🙂 You count “one two five two!” but will keep going in random order depending on how many objects you need to cover. You love to sing Happy Birthday (“to me!”) and you exclaim at any animal that it is “awww! so CUTE!”
Between Dad’s frequent work from home days and Crew being home for the summer, you are loving all the face time you get with everyone around. Fall is going to seem so quiet — and yet, you love furniture that is your size, predictable routines, fresh toys, and other kids — so I think you are going to LOVE the two mornings a week of preschool in store for you come September.
This first quarter of two wrapped just after Independence Day. It was insanely hot and we spent the weekend in the pool for the most part, you rode in your first neighborhood parade, and you stayed up late to experience a few fireworks. You liked them from far away or even down the driveway, but after a while your exhaustion caught up with you and we finished them with you sound asleep in your crib. 🙂
Definitely our firecracker child. We can’t wait to see what this next portion of age two brings for you, Greer Girl. Xs and Os.
When our son was a toddler, it was ALL. ABOUT. garbage trucks. So much so that I had to share a round up of our favorite garbage books and toys. Now that this little lady has proven rather dog obsessed (we must stop and “awww” at every one we see), she has amassed quite a little canine collection between Christmas, her second birthday paw-ty this month, and Easter.
We have quite the little collection of stuffed dogs, and a handful of battery-operated barkers as well. But I tried to keep this list to items that didn’t seem quite so obvious. Happy gifting your favorite puppy fanatic!
Puffy Sticker Book — instant hit. The puffiness makes these stickers easy for little hands to grab, there are a TON to choose from, and the book is several pages of scenes in which to place them. Would be great for travel/restaurant busy time, too.
Dog Hopper toy — I wouldn’t have considered this but Girlfriend LOVES the farm animal versions of these at our local children’s museum. The price was very reasonable and I’m all for something small-ish we can stash and bring out when we need some energy burning.
DOG book — We were introduced to this author by a friend and have been through two copies of Alphabet it was so well-loved, and also Heads. This book is rhyming and funny and interactive with pulls and flaps.
Good Dog, Carl — I grew up with this book and loved being able to get it in a board book size that’s easy to keep in the carseat or stroller, since the book has very little text and a child can simply look at the illustrations to follow the adventure of a baby and her dog.
Nail Stickers — I really wanted these to work on barely-two toes, but little miss has very shallow/wide toenails for now ha! I’m holding on to these because they are well made and so darling and she’ll grow into them…and I don’t see the nail painting or dog obsession going away for Greer any time soon. (Also, bookmark this site — the best party supplies and a great to way to shop small!)
Dog Suitcase — This sweet little latching bag is perfectly sized for a toddler/preschooler and Greer LOVES tucking in the little dog with his pillow and blanket. Sometimes it’s the simplest pieces that bring on the most play, and this is one of them!
Dog Tattoos — There are a lot of ugly temp tattoos out there haha – I love the simple and sweet illustration style of these, and they last much longer than a sticker or a stamp. Crew and Greer both got one for her party last week and it was days before they began to disappear.
Good Boy, Fergus! — A friend gifted this funny book by the author of the popular No, David! I laughed out loud the first time we read it, it’s the perfect length for a quick bedtime read, and Greer LOVES this and laughs at it regularly.
Handmade Dog Print Bow — I love the versatility of this black/white print, it can go with anything, and I love knowing something is handmade from a small business.
Scribble Scrubbies Dogs — I might not introduce this to a child who hasn’t learned where and where not to color, but Greer has always been very good about sticking to the canvas I give her, so I was willing to give these a try. They’d work for even early grade school though for a child who loves to doodle and design. The markers are (obviously) washable, and Greer loves every step of this activity that keeps her busy for half hours at a time…doodle, scrub, repeat.
Barking Dog on Leash — if one noisy/battery toy is going to make the list, it’s this favorite. The price is right, and what toddler doesn’t love a button to push?
Sort-Em-Up Pups — lots of possibilities based on your child’s readiness level. Sort by color, size, number of spots, and so on. I love that all the pieces pack up neatly inside a dog house and I have yet to purchase a Learning Resources product I’m not thrilled with.
And of course there’s the gift idea of the “real thing”… but for us, we’re just sticking to the above list for now 🙂
Busy. Busy. Busy. But still napping for three hours and (mostly) sleeping through the night with the occasional hiccup, so I can’t complain.
22 Months:
You’ve made the leap to really try and use words to communicate rather than gesturing or crying. You’ve had lots of words but none of the “key” ones to get your needs met until more recently, and now you’re adding more short phrases and continued thoughts. Just tonight you said “up…bed!” Asking me to pick you up and place you on my bed so you could snuggle. We hear a lot of “where go?!” and you’re stringing together “up above the world” and “eyes and ears and mouth and nose” when singing. If we asked you who we are and point to each family member you will name us (you’ve been saying our names for a long time but would never name us when we showed you pictures or pointed at each other until recently) and when we ask you who you are you’ve started to say Greer! “Gear” 🙂 Mimi still comes out like “may” but you are trying!
Part of the bedtime routine is to say “mom is going night night” and then repeat listing each member of our family. If we skip this you will immediately start asking, “mom? crew?” until we recite it. When you’re ready for a meal or snack you don’t really ask for food — you simply climb into your booster and pat the kitchen table! You comprehend zillions more than you can articulate which is frustrating for everyone at times, and yet we can feel that we are so close to some breakthroughs in this next season.
You fought your first cold in quite a while this month, might be working on some molars?? but are thankfully still rocking that three hour nap and sleeping most nights for about 12 hours. The dog obsession is still going strong and you’ve amassed a little collection. Just like Crew with his garbage trucks, each seems to be special to and equally adored by you.
New words: “yes” (instead of “k”); help, moon; hi/bye moon, downstairs, upstairs, bed, blocks, car, heart, and working hard on “please” and “iPad”. You’ve shortened our names to just “mom” and “dad” already — I’m sure because that’s what Crew calls us.
23 Months:
You LOVE TO HELP with any and all tasks. I’m trying to give you busy work as much as real “chores” because you are noticeably happier when you have something to do. You’ve developed an intense love for Playdoh and really any pouring/sensory play will keep you occupied for some time. It’s amazing how you can have little patience for some tasks, but infinite amounts for others.
New words: “again” (instead of saying more for everything) “this” (pointing at anything you want but don’t have a name for) “pop” (bubbles/ poke a dot books), your own version of “toothbrush/toothpaste” (complete with brushing motion), “cup”, “blue” (identified correctly), spelling our names out loud while scribbling (with a couple correct letters) “d….d….d…dad! C…d…crew!” You will spend minutes at a time studying printed text (magazines, a bible, etc ha!) You are CERTAIN you are reading.
24 Months:
More short sentences. “Open door” “bye guys” “up bed” “it’s COLD!” when going outside (where is Spring?!) and trying to count to three “one, two, five”. Still TONS of rambling but more and more real words sprinkled in – it’s like you can’t slow down to just speak simple first sentences — you have too many thoughts to get out all the time. “House”, “tree”, “cold” and “bow” are some of your newest words and your favorite song to sing is “head SHOES knees and toes” 🙂
You are trying hard to jump and like to walk on balance things – like a curb or a path of magnatiles. You love going to the park and are so ready for more outside time. In the meantime, we’ve started some swim lessons with your friend, Gigi — after several months off you are picking up some new skills a bit older this time – your favorite is to blow bubbles, and you are much calmer backfloating this time around. You are suddenly very clingy this month and also expressing dislike for being dirty when you need your diaper changed. (I’m hoping this means potty training will be easy!) You are either very happy or very unhappy – the mood swings come and go in a flash. Look out, two 😅
You love Frozen, drawing, all jewelry, yelling at Alexa to play music, yelling over everyone when we’re in a conversation, snuggling, being included in everything, putting on everyone’s shoes, and eating shredded cheese by the fistful. Happy TWO to my tiny best friend, you are a whole personality right now, but we can’t imagine this house without you in it.<3
Maybe it’s that a lot of our friends are past the baby stage these past couple years. Maybe it’s that she’s a stay home, non-daycare kid. And maybe it’s that dang Cooties era we’ve been living in the past couple years since she was born. Whatever the reason…these pandemic babies just don’t have as many friends 🙂 So we invited….the dogs.
Greer loooooves herself some puppy dogs, so we ran with the theme. And while we were at it, I invited our many neighbor dogs to stop by for a pat and a treat…and to our delight, they showed UP!
She may have been a little overwhlemed to see so many at ONCE just outside her door, but she asked to go out for “more dogs” multiple times the rest of the day!
We handed out Bocce Bakery birthday cake treats to the dogs, along with various sizes of tennis balls as party favors.
Back inside, we had the table spread with some leftover turf (courtesy of her dad, and fitting giving it was also Masters Sunday!), some fire hydrant cups for her and her brother, Scooby snacks, and dog and bone and paw print sugar cookies.
I topped her chocolate cake with the sweetest pup candles that turned out to be worth every cent, because after she exploded with happiness when we sang and she blew them out…we proceed to do so again. Six more times, to her delight.
I found my paper through Rifle, but Mimi also had the cutest puppy party hat paper, and I’m kicking myself I didn’t get a picture of it. The puppy-themed gifts from friends and family were all so thoughtful — and could (likely will!) be a whole other post. She is already obsessed with a sweet little puppy suitcase and a miniature dog, pillow, and blanket that fit inside. And in a one of a kind gift, our neighbor dog, Eddie, who sends selfies to Greer on the regular, created a book just for her. I know — are you tearing up!?
Happy *SECOND* birthday to our girl. There’s no one on the planet we’d rather paw-ty with.
I may not get a lot blogged anymore, but Easter baskets are one thing I always love to stop and take the time to share! I find the best gift and gear recommendations from other parents sharing things they’ve found and loved, and I like to put some of that back out into the blogosphere. Bring on Spring and all the bunny business!
First things first…our egg hunt!
We definitely include candy but our kids are surprisingly particular, so we don’t do THAT much. The bunny usually leaves a note that tells us how many eggs we are looking for (so we don’t go crazy for hours searching for eggs that don’t exist!) and it usually just happens to mention which colors are for which kiddo. 😉 Our almost 2yo girl eggs will be filled with these magnetic letters and these light up rings along with some playdoh and bunny grahams. Our 7yo boy eggs will contain these waterproof soccer stickers to cover his water bottles, notebooks, iPad case, etc. and these punch balloons along with some favorite treats.
Greer’s Basket (age 2):
Our dog-obsessed gal is getting a puffy pet store sticker book (the puffy stickers are easy for little hands to handle in our experience) and this Learning Resources Puppy Sorting Toy; some Little Sleepies Spring pajamas (print no longer available); the Usborne Little Children’s Sticker Book; a monogrammed hat from Rey to Z; some WikkiStix; a Frozen projector light (WalMart – not linkable) and some Target dollar spot goodies.
Crew’s Basket (age 7):
Always curious about what WE did as kids, I thought it would be fun to add this Tamagotchi; a magnetic word guessing game (major Wheel of Fortune vibes); a couple pairs of new sleep shorts for Spring; a monogrammed hat from Rey to Z; Kinetic Sand surprise; WiikiStix; a Looper marble spinner (I grabbed the Hoop version), a Who Would Win title (this series is a hit with him right now) and an assortment of snacks and sweets.
Counting down the days over here to Easter, Spring, our gal’s second(!) birthday, and allll the warm weather!
Year two, quarter three. Frozen ❄️ and Moana on repeat, complete with closed eyes and outstretched arms pose😂 Yelling at Alexa 🔊 chuckling “aww” whenever you see anything remotely adorable 🐶 Pretending everything is a phone 📱 and obsessing over all lip and nail products 💄 💅. Chattering constantly and adding new real words all the time. 💬 identifying more colors 🎨 specific body parts, and loving activities that have included swim lessons, story time, and music class 🎶 You love drawing, climbing, playing in water, snuggling, napping and most recently, only eating off “real” dishes. 21 months with you…in the home stretch to TWO!✌🏻We love you Greer Girl 👧🏼
This quarter brought your first “real” trick or treating experience — the weather was perfect and you LOVED being able to be out and about trodding along behind random kids. You could have cared less about the candy or collecting, you just wanted to be where the action was.
We squeezed in as many last outdoor outings as we could as the temps started to drop. Lots of patch time for you!
While Crew would focus for hours on trucks, you are thrilled with all the detail-heavy tasks. You already love to draw and will keep at it intently for minutes at a time. You don’t have any interest in baby dolls, but stuffed animals, specifically dogs (along with real ones!) will ALWAYS get your attention and an enthusiastic “awww!”
Our Thanksgiving was a quiet one just the four of us this year, but you LOVED that we ditched the high chair and you could sit in a booster seat around the table with us. You get SO chatty and enthusiastic when you know you’re one of the gang!
You more or less left the Christmas gifts alone this year, although you were very into the ornaments. Some of your hit gifts were a Little People dollhouse with lots of buttons to push, a walking/barking dog (more buttons to push), and a water painting mat you can use over and over again.
You loved the snow this year — we haven’t had many snowfalls this winter, and the second one was so deep you just sunk into it (not a fan of being stuck). But you have yet to complain about this cold wet white stuff!
Our winter days are slower right now, but we do get out for trips to the childrens museum, a music class, some storytime at the library, and of course our regular errands. We are already looking ahead to Spring and some warmer weather to be back outside!
It’s official — seven is it. It’s when you stop being little and are a full. blown. KID.
You have matured in all kinds of ways this year – physically, emotionally, socially, academically, I could go on and on. You’ve had a lot of growth opportunities as you’ve left kindergarten for the big leagues of first grade, and the expectations have been a great challenge you’ve (mostly) risen to. 😉 You are excelling in school, continue to be a fantastic reader, but your love of math has taken over. You love that there’s a single concrete answer and constantly ask to be quizzed on math facts, and you’re highly motivated by the idea of doing something other first graders “aren’t doing yet”– which has propelled you into learning multiplication and division concepts. Competition and the idea of being first will be the key to your success, I believe 😉
You have a passion for soccer and while you prefer Dad, you’ll beg either of us to practice on evenings it’s warm enough, and you play every day at recess as well. You participated in both spring and fall rec leagues and are in the middle of your second year of indoor winter training. Soccer, too, comes with all the lessons and growth opportunities, but the joy and determination we see rises above everything else. When you’re truly motivated by something, you have a dedication and a work ethic that can’t be denied.
Honorable mentions in the “favorites” category also include Dad and hot tubbing. 🙂
The remainder of your school year as a kindergartner still had its interruptions — you were exposed at a lunch table and I got the call to come pick you up and quarantine for the following week. I can’t share this story without noting your amazing teacher — after 1/3 of her class was suddenly whisked home, she did an incredible job of keeping you all in the loop from home as she continued to teach in the classroom.
We got that last Covid related school interruption out of the way and took a bit of a Hail Mary vacation to Arizona. It was the first time in months we’d been able to go do activities without masks and the warm temps and sunshine were just what we needed after a lonnnnng winter. One of my favorite quotes of yours this past year was on our last day. “Guys! We have to come back but visit new places, too. There is so much life to see!” All the motivation we need to keep making adventures happen.
You wrapped up kindergarten and we could not have been more proud of you, your teacher, and your peers for completing such a crazy year with tenacity and enthusiasm. (It felt more than fitting that you won the classroom award for biggest vocabulary!) The school year coincided with the rollout of vaccines for adults, warmer weather/more outside time, and consequently dropping case numbers which led to the removal of the mask requirement in your final days of the school year. We looked forward eagerly to a NORMAL summer.
We probably overcommitted in our excitement, but you participated in numerous camps and sports that kept us going all June, July, and August. I regret nothing about our go-go-go summer…it was pure bliss to have so many great experiences after a year-plus of not much going on! Per usual, I subjected you to your annual half birthday shoot — this was a particularly fun memory of the two of us exploring around downtown and you coming up with all kinds of poses 😉
One little lady in particular loved having you around more during those warm months. 🙂 It’s so fun to watch your bond continue to grow and while there are times you can all but ignore her, you are also fiercely protective and you always manage to have your eye on her when it counts.
And just like that, it was on to the next school year, one that was blissfully free of most of the previous year’s rules around distancing and masks. Unlike the previous year, all of the same grade classrooms are allowed to intermingle this year, so it’s been fun to watch your friend circle grow significantly.
The fall seemed to fly and, fueled by a movie marathon with Dad and a correlating love of magic, you opted to be Harry Potter for Halloween.
We rolled into the magic of the holiday season and another year of elf shenanigans was one of the highlights. You finally, FINALLY, were able to join your many friends who’d lost some teeth, shedding two just before Christmas.
We welcomed the new year and pivoted to birthday time. We celebrated with a PAR-TAY. You wanted boys and girls on your invite list, and thoughtfully chose magic as your theme because you decided that was something everyone would like. We opened gifts and sang with Papa and Mimi at home, then they hung back with Greer so we could go bounce and party at SkyZone with nine of your school friends. It happened to be the last day of winter break, so it was especially fun for you to all see each other after the time off, and burn some energy after several single digit temperature days at home!
(This shirt was too perfect for your theme this year!)
(And even Greer got in on the “magic” with a sparkly dress!)
Happy birthday, seven-year-old. You are kind, funny, emotionally intelligent beyond your years, and I couldn’t ask for anything better of you. I can’t wait to see what *magic* you have in store for us this coming year. <3
