It’s kind of unbelievable that we’re just a few weeks away from having a 2-year-old. On the other hand, she’s been acting like the stereotypical 2-year-old for quite a while now, so it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise. She is just so happily INTO EVERYTHING these days. From one thing she shouldn’t be doing/eating/touching/ to the next to the next to the next… My goodness.

She’s continuing to do more of all the things she likes – singing, climbing, making up bizarre funny things to say – and Jonah keeps finding her to be more and more entertaining, too. They’ve started actually playing together for longer stretches of time, and Nora’s getting the hang of cooperating with building roads and making pretend stories, which helps Jonah be more patient in explaining what they’re trying to do. It seems like they may be approaching the point where playing with each other is usually more fun than playing by themselves. Phew.

Another change in her talking is that she’s started asking a lot more questions. Last month, she was full of “What is?” and now she’s all about “Why???” And she’s asking Jonah lots of questions too, which he’s been really great about answering over and over.

Oh, and the new phrases of the week: “I don’t want to,”  “I don’t like it,” and “Go away.”

Yeah. She’s turning two. ;)

What a funny kid!  It’s been a couple of months since I wrote about this little girl, and she’s just growing up faster and faster.  A huge change is the “Nora do it!!” that I hear at least two hundred times a day.  I am no longer allowed to put on her pants, lift her down off of the stool, turn faucets on and off, close doors, take off jackets, or buckle her chest buckle in the car seat.  (She actually says, “No Mama!  Close the door!  Nora buckle!!” if I stand around too long making sure she gets it…) “Do it!!” “DO! IT!!…”

The other phrase that’s been getting a lot of use is “Me first!” which is kind of funny because Jonah has never really cared about doing something first UNTIL Nora started to care.   But now washing hands, brushing teeth, going to the bathroom, even picking up toys is a race/battle.  My goodness.

Oh, and we hear a lot of “What is?” when she wants to know what to call something.  In most cases, the object in question is some kind of gross trash that she’s found who-knows-where, or she’s trying to pry open my mouth because I have not been sneaky enough in my snacking and she must know what I’m trying to hide.

Another big change for Nora has been that Jonah heads off to school four mornings a week.  For the first week or so, she would kind of wander around the house, saying “Jonah… school… Pick up Jonah.” in a sad little voice.  But now she’s used to the new routines and enjoys the special things we get to do together, namely baby gym and the library story time.  We’ve even had a few playtimes with little friends her age instead of her always tagging along with Jonah and the big kids.

The other huge news of the past month has been the potty training.  After the first two days, she really had the hang of things and has only had a small number of accidents since then (hooray!)  She is so good about telling us when she needs to go (at home and when we’re out) and quickly decided that she only wanted to use the big potty like Jonah.

She’s getting the hang of the ‘taking turns’ idea, which is really sweet.  In the rare cases when Jonah remembers to ask her if he can use something she’s playing with before just trying to take it, she almost always hands it over within 30 seconds, happily saying “Jonah’s turn!”  It’s starting to work the other way, too, when she knows that her turn is coming.  Some small amounts of angst are avoided.  And there are plenty of opportunities to practice turns, since all she wants during her waking hours is to see what Jonah is up to and copy how he’s playing.  She is becoming quite the little pitcher…  :)

Nora’s taken more of an interest in playing with her dolls lately too.  She likes taking them for walks, taking off their clothes and pretending to change diapers, and making ‘guys’ do funny things in the dollhouse.  Playdough is another recent favorite activity (until she starts trying to eat it), and she’s figured out the sweetest way to ask for things she wants to do, standing there looking up with her big eyes and hands behind her back.  “Please, a-playdough.  Just one time.  A quick a-playdough. Peeeease.” (and you can substitute any number of things for ‘playdough’.)

She continues to add tons of words to her vocabulary and is putting long strings of words together to make her point and tell us what’s going on.  Every day she surprises me with something that comes out of her mouth.  She also loves to make up funny songs, based on songs she knows, but substituting other words to make them totally silly.  Jonah likes this, too, and she loves to make him laugh.

So I never actually posted a Nora update last month, but I did take a picture. Here’s Nora at 19 months.

And here she is now, at twenty months.

It’s hard to believe how much Nora’s grown up in the past two months. One of the most noticeable things is her communication. At 18 months, I could have made a list of the words she knew how to say, but now there’s no way I could begin to count. She says a bunch of new words every day and is always repeating something that she hears one of us say (especially Jonah). Just recently, she’s also started saying words for the first time without directly copying someone, like when she came out from naptime and saw one of Jonah’s new construction worker guys and said, “Shovel!” which I had never heard her say before. She obviously has a lot of words in her head and is pulling them out all the time. She’s also putting two and three words together frequently, too, like “Mom help chair!” when she needs help getting down…

… because she’s started climbing on EVERYTHING! All the time!! When we were on our east coast trip, we visited so so so many homes and new spaces that Nora had a lot of opportunities to find her way around different kinds of furniture. A few early successes gave her great confidence to try even harder, and pretty soon she was getting up on just about anything she put her mind to.

Her hair has also had a tiny growth spurt, and she even occasionally needs a little hair dryer action after her bath so she doesn’t go to bed with wet hair.  She loves to climb up the stool in the bathroom to wash her own hands, brush her own teeth, and copy my face washing technique.  She is all about copying everything she sees.

It should also be mentioned that during these last couple of months, Nora has really cranked up the drama when she feels slighted or doesn’t get her way.  The arm-flailing, stomp-running, and wailing with her head thrown back is really something.  Oh my.

Nora continues to love seeing babies everywhere, and seeing her cousin, Phoebe, a few weeks ago has only strengthened this. She’s always wanting to see pictures of her on the computer and excitedly yells, ‘Phoebe!’ when something reminds her of her cousin. This has been interesting, too, because even though it’s been a few weeks since we saw her, Nora remembers little things like a book or song that Phoebe had, or a certain kind of pajamas and gets all excited. It’s fun to see how her memories are lasting longer now.

On our trip, Nora was a really super traveler. There were, of course, times where she really didn’t want to be held on the plane or strapped in her carseat for the fifth hour, but overall, she did did amazingly well. (And having an older brother who happily reads and draws for hours in the car gives her something to try to copy. :) ) She handled all the new houses and eating and sleeping arrangements wonderfully. We weren’t sure how it would go having her and Jonah falling asleep in the same room, but even that wasn’t a problem. Good little traveler.

She was also a really good sport about meeting tons of new people. She can sometimes be a little bit shy, but will also usually give people waves, hi’s, and show off some of the funny little things she does. It was really fun to have so many people get to see her for the first time.

Nora has really become quite the cute little copycat this month. She mimics EVERYTHING she sees us do, from facial expressions, to sounds, to actions. I’ve caught her fake yawning after I yawn, pretending to pull her hair into a ponytail, singing Jonah’s excavator song, and even tipping over while trying to balance on one leg to pitch a baseball like her brother. She continues to copy Jonah’s truck noises as she plays, and she squeals with excitement about the weather page in the newspaper (because it’s Jonah’s favorite thing to look at). She even copies hiccups and burps. If she hears us tell Jonah to stop doing something, she starts doing it. Nice.

She loves swinging in the backyard, and it’s not unusual for her to go straight to the back door right after she wakes up in the morning, signing ‘swing’. And luckily, the weather seems to have turned a corner and we’re getting more hours of nice sunshine for swinging and being outdoors, which she just loves. If she hears Sean and Jonah heading out to play and she’s not ready, she yells, “Uh oh!” and runs to get her shoes or jacket. The little sandtub has become a favorite of hers, too, and she likes to scoop and pour sand right along with Jonah. She also likes the slide and when I sit her up top, she’ll slide down all by herself and ask for more!

Nora’s also becoming quite the jokester, and her favorite one is to point at me and say “Mama… baby!” And then she and Jonah break into huge laughter about Nora saying that I’m a baby. But I guess that’s good because Nora loves babies. She also can’t get enough of playing her sneaky games where someone is popping out to surprise her.

She’s learning how to go down stairs safely, give kisses, ‘pretend eat’ play food, brush her teeth, and how to play baseball. She will put a ball on top of the tee, knock it off with the bat, and then run in circles. Sometimes she’ll even get one arm into her jacket by herself when she’s ready to go outside and she can usually take it off and try to hang it up when we come back in. She’s definitely our ‘neat’ kid who likes to put things back where they belong – laundry, toys, shoes, etc.

In terms of personality, Nora’s getting pretty adventuresome with her exploring.  She has no problem taking off on her own to check out parks, playgrounds, sidewalks, animals, etc.  She’ll climb and crawl through all kinds of stuff without caring.  It’s actually pretty sweet because Jonah will run after her and grab her shoulders to stop her if he thinks she’s going too far for comfort.  She also has some pretty good perseverance when she’s working hard to do something and keeps trying when she doesn’t get something on the first, second, or even third try.

This has also been the month of “Mama!”  When Nora wakes up in the morning, Sean usually goes in to get her, and I can hear in the monitor, “Mama!”  The few times I’ve run out to the store in the evenings (or take a shower), she has not been happy at all, apparently looking all around the house, calling for me while I’m gone.  But it’s not as if she doesn’t love the rest of her family, too, and she’s very generous with her hugs and snuggles these days.  What a sweetie!

So funny.

Thanks, Jonah. :)