M is growing and changing by leaps and bounds these days. You can’t really tell, but the reason M is running in this picture is because she is chasing after B…as usual. She LOVES her big sister. Loves to play with her, loves to chase after her, loves to hear her read stories, loves to talk to her…doesn’t always love to share with her, but she is working on it.
M is rarely without her favorite buddies…all five of them (Nemo, Fishy (she won him at the fair), Mickey, Baby, and Pooh), which she carries all at once. If we’d let her, she’d take them everywhere…all five of them. Fortunately, she is usually fairly reasonable about just taking one or two out of the house, and rarely complains if I ask her to leave those in the car. Much harder to lose them that way…
She loves to sing, and she especially loves to sing with us. If B is singing a song she knows, she sings along. Same with Jason or me. She also often demands certain songs. Favorites include Kenzie-poo (sung to the Batman theme), A-B-C, Shake Your Sillies Out, Snuggly-Snuggly, I Love my Baby Girls, and Little One. While in the car, she typically demands the “na-na-na-na song (Pink’s So What), and then gets mad when they don’t sing na-na-na-na the whole time. I think I need to introduce her to Hey Jude, but I’m still scarred from when B made us listen to that several hundred times one year.
She almost has her ABC’s down (sings them all clearly except G-H-I-J-K), and just tonight I heard her count to 10 (she counted one number each time I took a step up the stairs). Her vocabulary is improving greatly, though she still sometimes reverts to pointing and grunting. It is sometimes hard to figure out what she is trying to say, but we usually figure it out eventually. B is often quite helpful. She says things like “more turkey here please” while pointing at her tray, “Daddy mano” (which means he should come to her/follow her), “more bik peas” (more milk please), “daddy uhstairs” (Daddy upstairs), “pay cars” (play cars), “mommy! go now!” (she can be impatient about leaving when it is time to leave…), “baby nigh-night,” “bi kickel” (bicycle), “B-B ah cool” (B-B at school), etc. And she can say her name fairly well – no small feat! She seems to understand most things that we tell her, but like B at this age, she pretty much says yes to every question we ask her, so…
She has a bit of a temper, and I can easily visualize many full-blown temper tantrums (i.e., lay down on the floor kicking and screaming) in the future. Typically, this happens either when one of us does not understand what she wants, when one of us does something differently than she wants, or when one of us takes something from her. The latter is unlikely to change (as that is usually part of a punishment when she is not listening), but I suspect the other two will improve as she is gets better at communicating her needs/wants to us.
She is very good at putting the correct shape in the correct spot (and has been for a while), but is not quite able to pick the correct shape when I ask her for a particular one (e.g., give me the triangle). She recognizes some colors consistently (yellow, purple, pink, and green), with her favorite seeming to be purple, but she is indifferent to/uninterested in the others.
Her favorite characters right now (by far) are Lightning McQueen, Mater, Pooh, Mickey (or Minnie – she doesn’t differentiate), and Ariel, and thus she generally picks books that has at least one of those characters in it. She loves books and her stuffed animals, and has quickly followed in her sister’s footsteps re: demanding books and buddies in her crib each night.
She generally wants to do things herself (e.g., pick out her shoes, brush her teeth, go up the stairs, buckle pretty much any buckle, bundle her baby, etc.) and has even managed to put her pants on by herself a time or two. Here she is with B on Thanksgiving wearing her cute Thanksgiving dress (that we put on her) and her jammie pants (that she put on all by herself).
She insisted they stay on! She generally picks her own shoes, often preferring her squeakers over pretty much any other pair. I have a sneaking suspicion she does not like turtle necks. While I have been able to get her to keep them on once I put them on her, she fights me quite vigorously when I try to put them on. B can’t stand turtle necks, so perhaps they both are like that (which puts them squarely in Jason’s camp on this subject). She loves wearing jackets, and usually has pretty strong opinions about which ones she wears at any given time…and which hat she wears with them, of course…and whether they should be zipped…heaven help you if you don’t read her mind and get it right the first time!
She still sleeps great at night and during naps. When she wakes up from naps, she generally sings and looks at her books until she is ready to get up. Note: she naps in the room by herself. When she wakes up in the morning, however, she wants B’s attention, and she will go to great lengths (much to my, Jason’s, and B’s dismay) to get it, including throwing her stuff out of her crib and demanding B get it for her. So, mornings often start earlier than they likely would if they were in different rooms. BUT, both girls really seem to like being in the same room together. If B is not in there with her at night when she goes to bed, she is sad and confused.
She is not always interested in me taking her picture or capturing her cuteness on video, but when she does choose to cooperate she will pose – even go so far to walk over to our “photo wall” and wait patiently while I take the picture. But, I am at her whim these days with this, so pictures are not always a given. Enjoy these two!
We had a lot of fun this year with Halloween. Both B and her best buddy chose Star Wars themes AND insisted that the whole family dress up! B chose to be Princess Leia, and she also decided M should be R2D2. As for J and me, she decided we should be Anakan and Amidala, respectively. Her buddy Hawke decided to be Darth Maul, and his parents were Obi Wan Kenobi and Amidala. Her buddy Charlie is crazy about Yoda, so he went as Yoda. We started the evening with Halloween dinner – mummy hot dogs and Halloween mac-n-cheese. Then after posing for a few pictures, they were off! M did great for about 20 houses, after which she was content to sit in the wagon and enjoy the ride. It was a fun time had by all!
The kids:
The Star Wars big kids:
Princess Leia and Darth Maul:
My own special R2D2:
The whole crew:
The happy girl with her haul:
We all had a great time and got lots of comments on our costumes! Afterwards, we went through the candy and donated 2 lbs of it to a local dentist office that was participating in a candy collection effort to send candy to soldiers over seas. Don’t worry – she still has PLENTY left. Win-win!
This little pistol is already 21 months! B and I regularly ask: where did our itty bitty go? I’ll tell you where she went…she went around the corner to explore/get into something so you had better chase after her! When you come tearing around the corner to see what she is up to, you may find her playing calmly with her shoes or books, or you may find her pushing buttons on the stereo, or you just may find her snuggling with someone…
Fortunately for me, I generally find her in the same vicinity as B, and B is really good about making sure M doesn’t get into too much trouble before alerting me. 
They are the best of sisters!
This is the special smile she pretty much has just for B…
She went through a brief stage where she refused to pose for pictures, but thankfully she is mostly over that now. We still have to make lots of funny faces, but she is fairly cooperative…most of the time…except when she wants to play monster…
She still generally wakes up once a night or so – typically bc she lost her bink and is none too pleased about it. She also wakes up earlier than B (or anyone else for that matter), and she isn’t quite as willing to hang out and babble or play to herself for long stretches of time, but she is pretty good. Poor B bears the brunt of it tho. Most mornings, we hear M calling out to B (B-B!) trying to get B to get up and play with her. I often walk in to get her only to see B hiding under her pillows. Even with all that, B is a very good sport about it and rarely fusses.
M is still picky with food, but seems more interested in trying/eating different things if she has a spoon. One of her more peculiar traits is how she will refuse to eat something outright, but will often decide she loves it if you can just manage to get that first bite in her mouth. She LOVES canned green beans. *sigh* I suppose that just makes it easier to feed all three of them veggies (everyone but me likes canned green beans). We also recently discovered that she loves creamy garlic sauce. Who knew?
Her vocabulary has really taken off (though pretty much only the three of us (and B more than J or me) understand her most of the time). Go Gators is a regular mantra (alas, it isn’t working very well right now). While she has advanced to 3-5 word sentences, she still heavily relies on the point and call method (e.g., point at the desired object and say “B-B” or “mommy” in the hopes we will retrieve it for her). She recently started saying “wack-a-doooo” at the end of pretty much any song (J has done that with both girls since birth) – it is adorable. And whenever it is time to clean up she sings “______ away, ______ away” while she puts ______ away. She has also started counting along with us and generally makes it up to five before she gets distracted. She doesn’t really appear to have any favorite songs yet, but she does get testy if I try to change the radio station away from classic rock.
Her mobility is pretty good, which is necessary, of course, if she wants to keep up with B. She seems pretty capable at our local playground, though she often comes to close to the side of the bridge or one of the openings for my comfort. Like B, she tears across that bridge without any thought to how wobbly it is – yay! She is also pretty good at the bouncy houses, though personally, I wish she was a little less fond of the crazy sections. She loves to go where the craziest and biggest kids are – I assume because they make everything more bouncy! They are generally pretty careful around her, but I have seen them fall within inches of her without her even blinking.
Favorite toys/games still include anything that stacks, B’s cars, playing chase with the grocery carts and stroller with B, riding her tricycle, coloring, and according to her teacher at school, playing with baby dolls. She is always on the move, and extremely curious about everything. I am pretty sure we NEED all three of us just to keep up with her!
