Our baby turns two

Anna turned two years old on the 22nd of October. Wow, has she (and we) ever come a long way from when she was born in hot, hot Santa Cruz. Those first two months of her life were pretty rough, as we struggled with thrush, feeding, sleeping, and generally how to do life with two little ones. That makes it sound so negative, but the reason I remember it is to point out how very, very grateful we are to have her and to be at such a happier point in life!

Here she is on her second birthday and a year ago on her first. She doesn't speak much yet, but she can say "two!" when asked how old she is. Demonstrating it with fingers is...not quite so convincing yet.

This lucky girl got to have a birthday party with both sets of grandparents for the second year in a row!

Here she eats super efficiently with new toy dishes and cutlery.

And the highlight: blowing out those two candles!

Anna is quite the spunky, opinionated and creative two year old. A few vitals include:

Height/weight: she'll probably be about 5'4" when she's fully grown, probably weigh about 60 pounds at that point. But they will be enough to propel her full-force through life.

Eating: still lots of cheese and yogurt, as well as craisins, grapes, chili, ice cream, dry noodles, corn, granola bars, and ice cream.

Sleeping: this really goes in cycles. About a month ago she was doing great - easy to fall asleep, solid nap after lunch for about 2-2.5 hours, and a night from about 7.30pm-6.00am. Then Daylight Savings Time - that foe of little toddlers - hit, and we've been struggling ever since. The latest, latest she'll sleep is until 5.30am, but 4.30 is much more common. From then on it's a steady chorus of "mommy, mommy, mommy, daddy, daddy, daaaaddy." Her afternoon nap is now maybe 1-1.5 hours long, and putting her to sleep is much harder; and then there are the frequent night wakings. The compounding factor is that she's been more or less sickly for the last two weeks. Ugh.

What is nice is what a chipper force she is from the moment she wakes up, particularly in the mornings. She attacks life in those early hours, and when I have enough mate in my stomach, I can begin to appreciate how really well and creatively she plays, even in Jonathan's absence.

Talking: I'm pretty sure Anna is not up to 50 words yet. She is, however, pretty creative about using the 20 or so (of both languages) that she does know - though it takes some patience to try to understand her. It's pretty clear to us that she's not "slow," but rather stubborn about what she will and will not do - including speak in our words!

Drawing: Anna is way more into drawing with pens and markers than J. ever was. Any paper gets covered with her doodles, and alas, also doll faces, coffee table, and one little patch of wall (hidden behind the curtain, luckily).

[One year ago]

The fate of any not-first child is to be compared to, or at least evaluated in light of, their sibling(s). It really is hard to imagine what Anna would be like without the (strong) influence of her older brother. He decides what they will do and how, directs the imaginary play, and generally dictates her life. [I grew up the same way, thank you Willmar]. Sure they fight and intentionally irk each other, but we're very happy with how well they get on together and look out for each other.

Anna has been going to "school" (ECFE) with Jonathan every Monday morning, and she loves it! It's mainly doing creative projects and playing (with a gazillion toys) with the moms and other kids, and then some only-kid time when the moms meet apart. At first she was pretty hesitant for me to leave (per her usual), but now it's no problem at all. She claps her hands when we talk at home about going to ECFE.

We're working on potty training. So far she does pretty well - as long as I put her on the toilet. Problem is she has to pee every 10 minutes or so, and we tend to forget to go. So lots of accidents, but no real pressure either.

Physically Anna seems to resemble Grandma Schrock (and her cousin Sophie) more than anyone else. She's extremely agile and coordinated - loves trikes, jumping off the couch, (almost) doing somersaults, dancing to music, running across the yard, gathering eggs, saying good-bye to Susie and Sally and to every human, too.

One of the things we say most often about this little girl is "Anna is such a character." Hard to put her into words. But we are so very thankful to have her.