Life with a Two Year Old

I totally dropped the ball with finishing out Shelby's monthly blog posts. :(  My goal was to do a monthly update on Shelby through her 2nd birthday, but I only made it 22 months. My Type A self is still trying to get over the fact that I don't have pictures or posts for months 23 & 24, but somehow life has gone on. ;)  In an effort to make up for the lack of those posts, I figured I'd do a little update on what life is like at our house right now with a two year old. :)

 --At Shelby's 2 year appointment, she weighed in at 31.2 pounds (92nd percentile) & measured 36.2in tall (96th percentile).
 --No more paci! Shelby stopped taking a pacifier during the day on her own at mabye 9ish months? But she has always napped/gone to bed with her pacifier, wubbanub, and bear. Looking back, I have no idea why but we were so worried about taking them away from her! We decided we would take them away in stages. At the end of September, we just told Shelby "paci all gone." Much to our surprise, it was a complete & total non-issue. For a couple of days she would just tell us "paci all gone" before nap & bedtime, and that was it. She was still sleeping with her wubbanub & bear though. We thought she might start sucking on her Wubbanub after paci went away, but that didn't happen. She just continued to do her weird little comfort thing--sticking the pacifier part of her wubbanub into the corner of her eye. ;)  We had planned to cut the pacifier part off of her Wubby after a week or so of being without paci, but we never had to...it ended up falling off! Again, it was a total non-issue. And the funniest part is there's a little edge of the pacifier part that didn't come off entirely so she's constantly reminding us that it's "Wubby's big tooth." :)
--You know all of your letters (uppercase & lowercase), letter sounds, basic colors, & basic shapes. You can count to 29 on your own. You can count with one-to-one correspondence most of the time. ;) You can spell Mommy, Daddy, Shelby, cat, dog, pig, and fish.
--We switched you from whole milk to 2% milk shortly after your birthday, and you didn't seem to notice any difference! You drink 8oz in the morning when you wake up & 8oz before you go to bed at night. You are a stubborn girl and refuse to drink milk from anything other than a bottle. At some point, we'll eventually get rid of the bottles but that hasn't been a battle we've deemed worthy of fighting just yet. :)
--You have a little potty chair in our downstairs bathroom, and every time Mommy goes potty you go and sit on your potty, too. But we haven't started potty training just yet..we talk about it & read books to you about it all the time, but that's it for now. Hopefully after we're done with all of our traveling, we can get started with that!
--Your vocabulary & verbal skills are amazing! You are putting 5-6 word phrases/sentences together now.
--You LOVE art! Nothing makes you happier than when I tell you we are going to color, do stickers, paint, etc. Sometimes when you are bored or getting tired of an activity, you'll look at me & say: "Mommy, we need paint!" :)

--You are currently obsessed with Elmo & Abby Cadabby from Sesame Street. You had never even so much as seen of an episode of that show prior to the end of October. But I was kind of tired of listening to the same ole 2 or 3 DVD's in the car and since we had a road trip to GA at the end of October, I picked up the "Elmo's Alphabet Adventure" DVD at Target. To say you loved it would be an understatement. You get mad at me when it's time to turn it off and get out of the car. Since you liked the DVD so much, I started DVRing episodes of Sesame Street when we got back from our trip. You kind of like the show, but sometimes you just get plain mad at the scenes/skits where neither Elmo or Abby are involved and start getting hysterical until I fast forward to their part of the show. ;)
--You still sleep in your crib, and you love your bed! You still sleep great (12-13 hours at night & a 3+ hr nap), and you love your bed. You sometimes don't like to get out of bed when you wake up in the morning or after naps, so I give you books to read in your bed so you can have a few more minutes of time in bed. ;)

--You are a bossy little thing these days, and you are definitely acting like a two year old at times. ;)  Thankfully, your cuteness makes up for it though!
--Your current favorites are: running laps around the downstairs of our house, reading books, playing cars with Daddy, anything involving art or the alphabet, bananas, pizza, slides, cookies and M&M's, Elmo & Abby from Sesame Street, Super Why, & rolling golf balls down our driveway (totally random, but you love it!!).

Having a tea party at the local children's museum :)

Stringing beads

Derek & I still learning our way as we transition from parents of a baby to parents of a toddler. It's so hard knowing when to let go & when to step in, but we are loving watching Shelby grow into her own little unique personality and helping to foster her independence. Two is a challenging age, but it's so much fun!