the sunny side of life: March 2013

Dear Maren,

Happy second birthday! We absolutely adore you. You are the sweetest and most cuddly little girl. Ever, ever. You are funny and smart; and did I mention cute? Grammie and I were talking about you the other day, and we decided that age two just must be the absolute peak of cuteness, because you, my dear, are the cutest. ~~So, congratulations - it's all down hill from here.~~

Let me tell you about YOU at age TWO:

You are mostly a pretty good eater. Your favorite food is probably smoothie, yogurt, or berries. You are not a big bread or pasta eater, which I do not get. One time Dad told you that if you didn't stop crying, you wouldn't get steak for dinner. You stopped crying immediately.
You would be potty-trained if your mom would get it together. You especially like to walk out of your room when you are supposed to be sleeping with your pants around your ankles asking to go potty. It is a good little trick because, of course, we can't say no to that.
You were kind of a difficult kid from about 14-20 months, but now you are back to your sunshine-self.
You are a helper. You clean up better than your big sister and you cry if I don't let you carry in the groceries.
You like to "peek." You walk around saying, "peek, peek." This means that you want us to pick you up so you can look at something: pots on the stove, clothes in the washer, better view of the fish tank, etc.
Through some combination of speech, natural progression, and awesomeness, you have vastly improved your speaking skills. You say maybe 100 words and have started putting two words together. You have a sweet little voice that sometimes sounds like a frog-robot. :)
Some sweet speech things: D=G for you (Dada=Gaga). T=H for you (Toby=Hoby). You tend to strongly emphasize the end of words. Walk=Ock with a strong "K" sound. Dog=Ogg. You call Annie, "Aaaa-Eee."
You like "wawa, wawa, wawa." ("OK Mare, got it. Water.") "Iiiii, Iiiii, Iiii." ("Yup, ice, got it.) I appreciate this because I like water with ice myself. I do not appreciate this at 2am.
Sleeping. Oh, sweet sleep. You used a pacifier until about 21 months. You loved it, and quitting was hard. After you stopped using the pacifier, you also stopped sleeping independently. I became your comfort object, and it has been interesting. This is how things go most nights lately: you lay down with Annie in her bed. We have to walk you back into bed around five times. You wake up around 1am and walk into our room (we have taught you to do this with as little crying as possible), ask for milk (answer is no), ask for wawa (ok) with iiii (ok), then coze up with me and go back to sleep. It's not the most ideal situation, but it's the best we can do right now.
Your love the beach. It is so funny because we go so rarely in the winter, but you always know when we are close to it. I guess you see all the palm trees and lack of other trees. And then you say, with more than a hint of desperation in your voice, "beach, peas; beach, peas; beach, peeeeeeas."
You love animals, books, baby dolls, and the color blue. You constantly point out blue items.
As Annie said, when she was ~~staring intensely at your eyes in the bathtub~~ looking at you recently, "your eyelashes are as long as the world." I just love your beautiful brown eyes.
I can't decide about your curls. The hair growing out of your head seems straight, but I don't think we could cut your curls off either. Mysterious and TBD.
Annie thinks you are great. She is fond of looking at you and saying, "we are the best of sisters." And you nod your head. Yup, we are.

That's all I can think of right now. Above all, know that YOU (at TWO) are fabulous. You are happiness and joy and, although I wish you had a speck more middle-of-the-night independence, I am so grateful for our perfect mother-daughter bond. We love you more than words can say.

Mom

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