My cute girl!
Some times I am reminded by her behavior. She is not past throwing a tantrum when she doesn't get what she wants. Or yelling "NO" or even on the rare occasion, hitting mommy or daddy. She picks and chooses when and what she wants to eat, even though we are very consistent about offering her one meal, one time. She is persistent about what she wants to wear. It is always a dress; a dress to school; a dress to play; a dress to sleep in! We get in more arguments over whether or not she can wear this or that dress than most other things.
This was the day before picture day. We picked out her dress for the next day.
Then, I wouldn't let her wear it to bed. The crying followed!!
On the other hand, though, Janie is incredibly sweet. She loves to give hugs and hold hands and rock a bye. She has the perfect blend of sweet and sassy in her personality.
Her reaction to things she is scared of...
Planting a seed at school.
Sweet movie date!
Janie is also speaking in full sentences, all of the time. Besides her tongue thrust, her speech is extremely intelligible. Her stories do not always make sense, but the words can be understood! We have always been impressed with her ability to put words together.
We made a valiant effort to potty train Janie this summer, but I am not convinced that she is 100% ready. She shows signs at times and uses the potty often, but she does not recognize she needs to go and then turn that into action. At least at home. I think we will try again later, closer to her 3rd birthday to see how she does then. Unlike her sister, she did not seem to have any anxiety with using the potty, which I found to be awesome while at home, but also unlike her sister, she didn't flip over to undies only after 4 days... which was not so awesome.
Potty training!
We did make the big change to a big girl bed this summer, which Janie has loved and also done great with. She doesn't get out of her bed when she wakes up, which is fantastic, and the transition didn't affect her sleeping in the least.
Other updates since her 2nd birthday...
Uses sentences to speak As I mentioned above, Janie's speaking is still amazing. She is stringing sentences together to tell stories. And although they may not make any sense, they are still stories with lots of words! She will also repeat phrases she hears, which are super cute, like "That's a great choice!" and "That's so wonderful!" She is highly encouraging and so very darling!
Knows basic colors & shapes One of the biggest differences between Janie and her sister is the amount of academic knowledge they had retained at the same age. Janie is a smart girl and I am by no means concerned about her, but she is just more interested in feelings & social situations than she is with learning new math & literacy concepts. I know that Janie knows her colors & some shapes, but I'm not sure she has made vast improvements with new numbers, letters, etc.
Can count to 12-ish I can honestly say I have NO idea how high Janie can count these days! Second child excuse! I do know that she can count to 5 very well. And she can hold up 2 fingers to tell people how old she is.
Sings ABC's Janie loves to sing her ABC's and does so well, but still doesn't know very many letters, even J for her name. I think she may know A & B, but not consistently. We will work on it as we need to, but as I said before, we are not super concerned as we believe she is doing just fine for her age!
Enjoys playing with baby dolls & dressing up Janie's most favorite thing to do is dress up. She loves all things that have to do with dresses. I don't think I will buy her an actual shirt for a while, unless there is a skirt to match it to! She also loves wearing shoes, especially ones that are not hers. She also loves picking out her own clothes herself, which can be extremely difficult for me to relinquish control of!!
Dressing up at school...
...dressing up at home!
Playing at school... closer to two & you can tell!
Loves reading books to self & others We read every day. She loves books and remembers the parts of the books waaayyy too well. If you even for a second try to skip a sentence, she will call you out on it. She also loves to read books to herself and actually retells the stories pretty well. That's one thing that as a teacher I know kids pick up from listening to adults read: sentence structure, inflection, vocabulary, etc. But watching it happen so young is amazing. While we waited for her sister to finish her hour-long dance class, the only thing Janie did was read the same book over and over. And by herself. She refused to let me read it even once!
Reading books at dance class.
Sings songs & sometimes makes up her own We recently went to a birthday party for a friend and Janie seemed to love singing and dancing on the stage. She loves singing and dancing at home. And by dancing, I mean twirling. She sings in the car and in the bath and in her bed when she's all by herself but thinks no one can hear her. And her little voice carries... So what I'm saying is that these last few things have not changed much!!
Pretty picky eater Janie will actually try a lot of things, but sometimes she eats tons and sometimes she doesn't eat anything. So I think the picky part is not as terrible as it was a few months ago, but she is pretty inconsistent. She never asks for anything different, though! And for the record, she can still eat her body weight in eggs!
Sucks her thumb This. This is the thing I've been worried about for a looooong time. Now we are in the stretch to three years old and I'm not sure how we will break this habit!! I'm sure her tongue thrust is all intertwined in this problem. And her overbite... {sigh}
Janie loves her school & her friends! Her concentration face is amazing...
Obviously enjoyed this activity...
THAT FACE!
Uses utensils Janie is great with eating. I mean, she still spills and can be a messy eater, but uses utensils well! She even used her toddler knife once.
Drinks from a cup (sometimes) We totally let daycare handle this, but Janie can drink from a regular old cup now. With no help from us!
Likes to brush her teeth Janie likes to brush her teeth all by herself now. Which means she likes to suck the toothpaste off the toothbrush. So, we let her try and then we intervene. We are not yet to the point where she can do the brushing independently, though she likes to think she is!
Has 16 teeth Yes, I stopped counting teeth awhile ago. She has molars. She had her first visit to the dentist this summer and did awesome! Her teeth were great.
On her half birthday. What a sweet little smile.
Falling asleep with daddy!
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