Two

See that tiny little baby in the picture down there? That tiny little baby turned two today.

She is short and fat and hilarious. She loves shoes, and socks, and has little pink Mary Janes that squeak when she steps. I bought them figuring I would just take the squeakers out, but let her try them on before I did, and, well, she loved the squeakers so much I never did take them out. She calls them her "squeaky shoes" and sometimes, just for the fun of it, beats her heels against the footrest of her stroller just to hear them squeak.

She stopped nursing a few weeks ago, the longest any of my kids have gone. This past Shabbos, for the first time, she ate a meal not in a high chair or a booster, but sitting in a regular chair at an adult table. She's left-handed. She loves cats, and points them out gleefully from the stroller: "Chatula! Chatula!" She has been expert at going up and down the stairs for a while, and no longer needs to hold on. She loves to play with her big sister and follows her around the house; I still keep a pretty close eye on what she's doing, but these days I will fold laundry in one room and listen to her and Marika playing together in the next. She likes Playmobil, but you have to watch out or she'll put it in her mouth sometimes. And she likes Hello Kitty, and, well, pretty much anything Marika likes. Especially drawing, especially when she can do it sitting at her little pink chair at the little pink table in the living room. It's more fun there, of course.

After being the most epically horrible sleeper I have ever given birth to (and whoa, is THAT saying something) she settled down  to sleeping occasionally aged about three months, and to sleeping through the night, sometimes... well... I think she did do it last week once maybe. Yeah. Sleep is not so much our thing around here.

She says amen to brachos. She says no to most questions, being, you know, two and all. She loves to climb up on the rocking chair and rock it, and sings "nadned, nadned" when she does. Oh, and she LOVES the playground. She'll climb up the stairs of the play structure, go through the tunnel, down the bridge and down the stairs by herself, and do it again, and again, and again.

She likes lox and chicken and noodles. Chicken soup, not so much. Peppers yes, apples yes, tomatoes yes, cucumbers no way.

We're all doing well here. Maybe I'll blog about it all a bit more, if anyone is still reading.