Sprout is Twenty-Three Months Old

Today Sprout is twenty-three months old.

This little bug is only a month away from her second birthday!  Only days away from being the same age The Bean was when she was born.  It's unbelievable to me how quickly the time is passing.  One of my students asked how old she was and I said, "She'll be two in December."  My student responded, "So, she's one?"  It took me a beat, but I told her, yes, Sprout is one.  She said, "I thought she was a kid."  I said, "Well, she kind of is a kid." because at almost-two she is certainly not a baby anymore, though she will always be our baby.

So, this kid...

She is a very sweet little one.  She likes to cuddle and be held, but only on her own terms.  She's taken to telling me "Go away, Mama!" when I'm lying beside her at night but usually as soon as move into the chair across the room she runs over to me.  She still loves to nurse.  At times she demands it.  Other times she sweetly asks "Nurse please." She sometimes unlatches to say "thank you, Mama" or "milk good" or just "happy" all of which I think are incredibly sweet.  She is a true co-sleeper and cries when she wakes up and I am not in the bed with her.

Sleep continues to be an issue.  Maybe it's because she nurses.  Maybe it's because we co-sleep most nights.  I don't know.  She takes a long time to settle in the evenings.  She wakes up several times through the night.  I feel like it's gotten better, but it's more likely that we've just be that we've resigned ourselves to the situation.  She usually is down between 8 and 9pm (after a 7:30pm "bedtime") and wakes up between 5:30am (weekends) and 7:00am (weekdays).  Naturally.  Naps are mid-day and seem to last about 1-2 hours.  I'm usually at work.  On the weekends she'll sometimes go longer since I'm around to settle her back down.

Food is about the same as it has been.  She eats a fair balance of things, but not a super-wide variety.  Sometimes she'll surprise us by gobbling up something she's refused before (e.g. broccoli stems) , only to refuse it again the next time we serve it.  She loves hot dogs and sausages.  Usually likes fish.  Won't touch chicken or most other meats unless they're somehow mixed in to other food.  Soft veggies are the way to go with her.  She likes a good variety of fruits, but not usually berries.  She just started eating pears, so we'll see if that lasts.  Vanilla yogurt and she LOVES cheese... but who doesn't?  ;)

Her top left and bottom right canines came through late into her 22nd month or early into her 23rd
the top right and bottom left ones just broke last week.  She seems to be working on molars as she is constantly chomping on her fingers.  I'll be very happy to have a bit of a reprieve from teething once they come in.  I'm sure she will too.

Her hair is getting long.  No plans to cut it anytime soon.

She is mostly in 2T clothing now.  2T pants are still a bit long and need to be cinched at the waist, but they work.  She loves wearing dresses and calls herself "Anna" (from Frozen) when she wears one and will spin around.  Actually, we can convince her to wear many things by telling her they're "Anna" things... Anna socks, Anna shirts, etc.  She is in a size 6 shoe and size 5 diapers.

She loves music.  The Wheels on the Bus is still a favourite and often-requested song.  She also likes all the songs from Frozen.  She likes to dance and will do crazy downward dog-type moves, somersaults, etc.

She enjoys other gross-motor activities.  She's a good climber.  She's also pretty decent kicking a ball.  Swim class is over now, but she did enjoy it as long as her head didn't get wet.

Maybe I'm seeing this through a Mama's eyes, but I think she's got quite amazing fine motor skills.  She loves to draw and paint and will happily do so for extended periods of time.  She blew me away earlier this week by putting glue dots on Xs I'd drawn on a paper for a cutting/pasting activity  I didn't think she'd be able to do it, but she did it really well.

She's starting to say the names of more and more colours.  Actual recognition of colours seems to be getting better, but is still sort of hit or miss.  Most colours are "green" though occassionally they are "blue."

If you ask her how old she is going to be she will say "Two!"  But then again, if you ask her anything where she recognizes that there should be a number answer she says two.  (She can count to two and has counted all the way to ten alternating with me i.e. I say one, she says two etc.)

Word count, in general, is increasing.  Lots of short sentences now.  She regularly tells me "Love nurse" but hasn't yet said an unprompted "Love you."  Sigh.

She still loves being read to and will also look at books independently.  She definitely knows bits and pieces of books we read often and will "read" them to herself.  Just yesterday she read me bits of Farmyard Beat.  It was pretty cute.

We did a bit of a reorganization of our living room and she's started to use the play kitchen and play food a lot more.  She loves putting on the oven mitts and chef's hat and feeding us things.

I love spending time with this girl and seeing her personality continue to develop.  She is such a character.  I look forward to seeing what she's like as a two year old and all the other ages after that.