The things she does

I am relishing in the last few days of Abigail as a sweet baby. I might have missed some of this with Madelyn since I was so preoccupied with having a newborn when Madelyn was this age. I can tell the "terrible twos" are on the very near horizon.

She has definitely turned from a "yes" girl (she would nod yes and EVERYTHING) to a "no" girl (the way she says it is so darn cute though!...a very pronounced "o").

She's picked up a few bad habits from her sister, including pushing and hitting. She isn't doing it maliciously yet because she laughs every time, even when she is fighting back. Monkey see, monkey do.

She's got that toddler independence thing going full force. Oh yes, we've had tantrums about little things like her desire to drink juice in an open cup on the rug and my desire to have her do so at the table. The booster seats is completely history. It's a real chair or nothing for her (despite the fact that she can just barely see her plate if she is sitting in a chair.

She seems like she wants out of her crib and into a bed. (Madelyn was in a bed by this age but that more because we had someone new to put in the crib!) I am skeptical. She just seems to adventurous for a bed. She needs boundaries. But she has started leaning out of the crib. With a few more inches she could topple out. Scary! At bedtime we read books all together usually in Madelyn's room and almost every night Abby tries to sneak into Madelyn's bed, pulling the sheets over herself and all.

She's an explorer. From climbing up and the toilet to gain access to her toothbrush to opening drawers she wants to know about it all and how everything works.

I always said she'd be the kid to swallow pennies. While we seem to have dodged that bullet (she typically sees the value in money and will take it to her piggy bank!) there was a moment on Sunday when I feared we'd have our first ER visit. In the middle of church a woman behind us taps Kevin on the shoulder and whispers, she just stuck something up her nose. It was hard to tell at first. But she did keep sneezing. Sure enough she had stuck a sequin that fell off her little purse all the way up her nose. Thankfully Kevin employed the "snot rocket" technique, plugged one nostril, made her blow and the shiny pink sequin came flying out.

Her words are coming along and while I never really know what is "normal" it's so cute to hear all that she is saying. I do wonder if she is trying to just speak in multiple tounges though because she rarely says "yes", but mostly "da!" Thankfully she refers to the paci as "pass-pass"which is sooo much better that "cuck."

So we are bracing our selves as we approach the 2-year-old mark (and the 3-year-old mark which I have learned is just as, if not more, challenging).

But especially in the light of everything that has happened, I am so grateful for every moment and for the gift that the children are to us every day. I could do without some of the tantrums and the pushing, etc. but would I trade it? Never even for a millisecond.