Celia is now a quintessential two year old. From the “I can do it myself” to the “I want A”, give her A, “NOOOOO I DONT WANT A!!!!”. She’s a non-stop talking and moving machine. She’s a big girl now and she wants to do it herself and her own way. She rejects her high chair, and her bibs mostly. She has fallen to the floor a few times off the regular chairs but she seems to be getting the hang of it a bit better. She believes she can do anything that Josie can do and she’ll go right for it. She also reminds me on an almost daily basis that she’s getting bigger and going to be tall like me. It’s nice that someone thinks of me as tall. She loves her toys, loves the cats, loves Josie and all around has big big feelings and emotions towards everything.

She’s very energetic and always wants to keep up. We got her a pair of double blade clamp-on ice skates and she’s been enjoying chasing after everyone at the ice skating rink  and being able to do it herself. She rides her balance bike like a pro, and with the warm winter we’ve had we have had a few chances to use it recently. She loves her gymnastics class and insists on doing more challenging moves that she watches Josie do at her class, like wall hand-stands and rolls on the balance beam.

She likes to take off her clothes, put on her clothes and now uses the toilet when she feels like it. Although she has not stopped using her diaper in any way shape or form, nor does she keep underwear dry when she wears it, so we’re not holding our breath for this to happen particularly soon.

Other than gymnastics she spends her days with me doing the things we have to do, picking up and dropping off Josie, shopping for food and whatever else we happen to need. We play, we read and she likes to snuggle. She’s still taking about an hour nap most days, usually missing a day or two a week when she just won’t fall asleep. She’s gotten a lot pickier with eating and won’t eat eggs anymore or a number of other foods that she used to inhale. Often times she’ll change her mind on things from day to day which is particularly frustrating for this short order chef.

Her ability to communicate is such a joy though, she is quite polite and thoughtful about asking for things and permission. She’s not always one to listen to the answer though, that still requires quite a bit of physical reinforcement of my words. She’s very loud and can’t control her volume yet although she can whisper at times but it’s more of a fluke.

She loves to do self-directed art, she has no interest in what I might have had planned. She just prefers to have a pile of supplies and generally use lots of glue, glitter if available. She will try to copy Josie some, but she draws a lot of straight lines and some circles. The colors aren’t totally mushed together anymore either. She’s just started to get into library storytime and sing-a-longs which she hasn’t had as much exposure to thus far. This winter I’m definitely trying to take advantage of the free opportunities like that available to us for some easy out of the house enrichment.

She’s still sleeping right next to me, can’t convince her yet to go move out next to Josie. She loves her early morning cuddles and hopefully once her teeth are finished coming in (only 1.5 left to go!) she’ll sleep through the night more reliably. She doesn’t need anything at night, but sometimes she comes to cuddle and isn’t very subtle and wakes me up.

Celia loves to cook, measure, scoop and pour. Sand and snow are big hits right now for those activities and she’ll always come running to see what I’m doing in the kitchen.

She has recently learned her colors, has the shapes down pat and can count to twenty only missing a number or two. She’ll go higher as well but they get sketchier. I’m going to start working on letter identification with her soon.

• Size/weight: 3T, dunno about the rest right now, sorry
• Favorite foods: breastmilk, sour cream, avocado, cheese
• Favorite toy: anything with lots of parts to leave all over the house and play pretend with
• Favorite book: The umbrella, Maisy
• Favorite activity: riding her bike, playing with Josie
• Sleeping: bedtime ~8; one nap 1 hr at 1:30; gets up between 6 and 7
• New skill: proclaiming her awesomeness
• Teeth: at least 18 and more coming
• Vocalizations: explaining her feelings and problems, loudly

Haven’t seen too much snow yet this winter, but we got a few inches this morning and the girls jumped right in.  Plus I watched some videos on how to appropriately use my ExpoDisc last night and wow did it make shooting these snow shots easier with color and exposure.

Didn’t we just have Christmas? Oh yes that’s why there are such big boxes around, like the ones from our new suitcases.

Right after I took these pictures, Celia insisted I get her her camera and that I get in the box to have my picture taken. She doesn’t yet understand how to aim the camera though yet. Then Josie got on my lap for more Celia-taken pictures. Mostly she takes pictures of her feet so far.

Yesterday on our last day of winter break we had this intense light coming in through our front windows right only my nicely playing children. Celia was working on the puzzle. Josie was helping her. Josie offered to show her how it was done, and then take it apart so Celia could do it herself. It is a three layer wooden puzzle that tells the story of building a house. Celia has now found it easy enough that she does it upside-down so you can’t even see the pictures to help figure out where things go.

Celia and Josie celebrating the new year

We went out to dinner with the girls before they crashed after a busy day of playing and sledding and Jordi and I got to sit down and watch a whole movie!

Have a great one! Here’s some of our photos that didn’t make the card.

On Wednesday we went to the Miami Seaquarium which has three different shows featuring dolphins! It was so much fun getting to watch them flip and dive and do all sorts of cool tricks. We were the first ones in the gate and got to the main tank first. The dolphins found us quickly and were so excited to stare back at us through the windows and play around. The girls were thrilled and so amused. Celia played it cool at all the shows, not seeming too interested or happy, but she was concentrating highly as when we got home and in the days that followed she showed us her versions of the dolphins tricks and told us all about them. “Dolphins walk!” “Look at me like dolphin!” We also got to see the killer whale which was really intimidating for me, having read about all the incidents involving killer whales over the years with their trainers. Seeing her jump was awe inspiring and just a moment that feels like it was in slow-motion as she was so massive and jumped so far. Lots of fun pictures from this day.

 

Clean fresh drinking water. Fun blue pool water. Rain quenching the grounds thirst. Ok so I didn’t take many pictures on the 20th, but this was apparently the highlight of Josie’s entire trip to Florida. I asked her what she liked most (and stay tuned for what we did on the 21st!) and she says go swimming. Which was for about half an hour when it was in the 70’s and the pool unheated. I didn’t go in except for my ankles to play lifeguard and they played in the little steps area right there and had a great time.

We do a lot of art around our house, painting, drawing, stamping, stickering and general mess making. Both of the girls art has progressed recently to new levels.

Josie has moved onto making some more realistic drawings, especially of people. She likes to draw in circles for joints and for other parts too. Everyone has eyes, nose and a face. She will listen to my direction for making an art project and follow the instructions before taking off in her own direction after she’s done what I ask. She has taken to making up her own projects giving me the directions and requirements. She likes to start off on an idea because she’s excited about a certain material, but sometimes has trouble coming up with the actual idea of a finished result or what part she can contribute, rather than just making me do the whole thing.  Josie loves doing art at school, and when they had two days in a row last week without any art because they had special events, she was seriously upset all afternoon. Celia probably doesn’t get to do as much art since Josie started at school since we just don’t have as much free time.

Celia has now moved on from making all circular motions and mixing all colors and things together to making up and down motions with her hands. Lots of stripes and single color paintings. She pretty much ignores the ‘project’ at hand unless I physically guide her hands and remove the art when it is ‘done’ according to my standards. So long as I’m fast she’ll tolerate my bossiness and is happier when she gets her own free play with the materials.

Here’s some of the stuff we’ve made in the last few months. Handprints are always a huge hit.

Torn pieces of tissue paper on contact paper to make a see-through dinosaur.

Both girls love to do body prints.

Celia’s general art these days, this one with markers. Lots of circles still with some back and forth lines.

A mixing primary colors project with finger painting. These last few are all from school, she brings home a few things each day, she likes to choose art projects at free play time.

These final pictures are Josie and Celia, with ‘angry faces’, to scare the witch.

Music is always such a wonderful part of our days. From the early days when I’d take Josie to sing-a-longs where she’d spend the entire time nursing, seemingly not paying attention, to our 5:30 dance parties when we all just need to get it out before we can finally settle down at the end of the day. Here’s to my two music makers, who made the cats run around the house with their ears in alert by playing dueling harmonicas today.