24-Month Update - Little Girl in the Making

Adorable little girl! Her hair is getting so long :)

Admiring her outfit in the mirror

Little miss sunshine

Our baby girl is growing up so quickly! Since turning two, she is quickly becoming quite the little lady. One of the biggest changes we've seen over the past few months, is her fierce independence and desire to be a "big girl" and do nearly everything on her own. The phrase, "I do it myself" has become a mainstay around our household. Whether it be picking out her own outfit and putting it on, choosing what she wants for dinner, getting into the carseat herself, picking out her own books for us to read, Elise is adamant on making her own choices and decisions. We always have to make sure we give her options, otherwise she gets very vocal in declaring her independence.

 

 

Showing off her newly painted nails

 

Pink toes!

 

 

She is quickly transforming into the ultimate girly girl. As of late, she always wants to wear dresses and skirts and she has to have pretty "clippies" in her hair at all times. She recently wanted her toes and nails painted and asked to wear a necklace and lipgloss just like mommy. She also carries around her little Tinkerbell purse, and looks pretty darn cute doing so. It surprises me just how much she loves dressing herself and matching her outfits. Aside from just the girly things, it is really adorable seeing just how much she looks up to us and wants to emulate everything mom and dad do.

Clippy in the hair, bright baby blues

Playing outdoors in the sunshine

Now that the weather has finally warmed up, Elise loves being outdoors. We can barely keep her inside. Everyday after preschool, she wants to go out and play on her new playground and every weekend she wants to be in the pool swimming. She certainly is a 100% summer girl; she loves the warmth and sunshine!

Hide-and-seek in the backyard

Her signature cheese face - so cute/funny!

Elise has been at Montessori daycare for over four months now. She absolutely loves it there. She has lots of little friends and loves telling us about everything she did in school each day. She especially enjoys playing outdoors with all the other kids. Her vocabulary, which has always been ahead of the curve, has grown twice as expansive over the past few months. She sings her ABCs all the way through and has even started identifing letters. She counts to twenty perfectly and knows all her shapes and colors. She communicates very well and is extremely talkative and social. I'm happy that she enjoys preschool, and feel that the education and social skills she's gained there, will have her extremely well prepared for kindergarten.

In her Montessori uniform

Since turning two, Elise's tantrums have become more mangeable and less frequent. She's become an expert communicator and is quickly learning that giving us a hug and saying sorry is much less effort than throwing a 10 minute tantrum. Don't get me wrong, she still has her little tyrant moments, but now understands that mommy and daddy won't tolerate tantrums anymore, so her outbursts are much shorter. The biggest change, has been in her ability to communicate her feelings to us. She's now at the age, where she understands the difference between good and bad behavior, so after she calms down we always make sure to explain to her why she was a given a time out, and then give her a chance to say sorry and then give us hugs. So far, this routine has worked fairly well, so we're sticking with it.

 

 

Watch out for that throwing arm!

Now for a major update - Elise has shown a big interest in potty training and has spent the past few weeks using the big girl potty! She has the used the potty for multiple days in a row now, both for #1 and #2. Let me tell you, as much as this will one day embarass her to read, the first #2 is a huge celebratory moment for any parent. She still goes in her pull-ups more than the using the potty, but we've made huge progress in only a matter of a few weeks. Her incentive, aka - our tools for bribery, are Hershey's kisses and M&Ms. She loves getting a reward each time she uses the potty and we love the fact she's getting closer to going diaper free. We would LOVE to have her out of diapers (or somewhere close) before little sister's arrival.

Weight: 29 lbs 8 1/2 oz (82nd percentile)


Height: 35 3/4 inches (Above 90th percentile)

21-Month Update - Toddler Reality Check

Don't let the sweet face fool you!



The impending signs of the terrible twos are now a bit too close for comfort. The words/phrases, "no", "stop", "don't", "I don't like", "mine", "I want ______" (insert specific item name here - no substitutions) and so on, have taken hold and Elise can be quite the little tyrant at times. If she asks to wear her Tinkerbell pyjamas - she means business, if she wants her sparkly light-up tennis shoes - absolutely no others will suffice, if she's eating dinner and asks for her princess fork - it had better be clean. At first we found it cute that she was exerting her independence, but not so much anymore as she often resorts to tantrums if she's met with opposition. Nobody else usually sees this behavior, she primarily saves it just for mommy and daddy :| We had to start putting her on time-outs, which usually stem from her throwing a tantrum when she's not getting her way and refusing to eat what we give her for dinner. Whenever she throws a tantrum, we turn her high chair to the corner or walk out of the room and let her have her moment and it usually ends up with her apologizing and saying, "sorry momma", "sorry dadda", "I be a good girl".

The past few months have certainly been more challenging than any we've faced yet. However, I will give Elise the benefit of the doubt, as she has been sick off and on over the past few months, which has further fueled her unhappy mood. I know her outbursts are completely normal for her age, but it often has us wondering where our perfectly sweet and content little baby disappeared to? While she does have her feisty toddler moments, I have to say when she is being sweet it is absolutely adorable and totally makes up for the cranky times. We do our best to reward her good behavior and teach her manners; she is great about saying "please" and "thank you". In fact, her new phrase is "thank you, you're welcome", so all bases are covered.

Also, I should mention that Elise just started at a new daycare last month. Being around such a large group of kids, has been a bit of an adjustment for her, and of course she came home sick her very first week. Overall she is doing very well; her first day she barely cried and was playing and doing baby yoga with the rest of the kids. She's already surpassing most of her classmates in being able to count past five (she now counts to twenty), reciting the full alphabet and in knowing all her shapes, colors and animals. We do think that being around so many other fiesty toddlers has had a bit of an effect on Elise's recent outbursts, because she's been on her worst behavior since she started her new daycare. However, the upside of her new daycare is that she's become more social and independent - in fact maybe just a bit too independent. The other day she gave me the hand and said, "stop momma, I said stop. Elise do it, she big girl"! I was so caught off guard and had a good chuckle, but at the same time it made me think that she is growing up way too fast!

Just a few of her My Little Pony collection

One new development is in the activites she now enjoys in her play time routine. She's no longer into the typical toddler age appropriate toys. She now prefers dolls and make believe play. She loves Barbies, her princess dolls, anything Tinkerbell related (which goes without saying), her Disney character figurines, and her My Little Ponies.

The most fun thing that she enjoys lately is story time! We usually read her 3-4 different books before bedtime and she loves her story time. She repeats back all the words and sentences and will often pull the books from our hands and say "Elise turn, Elise read", which entails her pointing out all the pictures and describing them to us. She is talking up a storm and repeats new words and phrases quicker than I can finish them. Her vocabulary is massive and she strings together very coherent sentences. It is pretty incredible to think that in a span of 6 months she has gone from saying only 10-15 words to now speaking in semi-complete sentences. The kiddo has a great memory too and retains almost everything. I still get surprised whenever she identify difficult objects that I had no idea she even knew the name of.

Her eating habits are another story altogether. Only a few short months ago, she ate pretty much any and all food we put on her plate. Now, she protests nearly everything and her appetite fluctuates on a daily basis. She's decided that vegetables are her enemy and will even turn her nose up to certain fresh fruits. She still loves her carbs though; bread, pastas, french toast, waffles, soups with noodles she will almost never refuse to eat. Some other big news is that Elise is now drinking from a big girl cup. She still uses sippy cups when on-the-go, but during the day she drinks from her big girl glass like a little pro.