23 Months

Rules of rounding go: 5 (or 1/2) or greater, you round up; 0-4, stay the same.  Being that we are only 11 days (which is less than 1/2 of the month) into Geneva’s 23rd month, I will consider myself right on time with this update ;)

Life with our 23 month old is topsy turvy, up and downy, round-a-bouty (I’m no poet obviously).  Accordingly, she has gone from sleeping in her big new bed every night, to not at all, and now sometimes (I swear we are just going to ditch it altogether very soon).  Same thing with potty training: she was pretty much all in two months ago, then got sick and began tearfully refusing.  Now she is sometimes interested.

The one thing that keeps plowing forward without fail is her language development.  Three to four word phrases are her norm (“Come on, mom” “I do it” “green patty with cheese”) but she has been surprising us occasionally with five to seven words at a time (“I want a wagon ride” “I’m gonna drink the water” “oatmeal with banana and honey in it”).  She is pretty good with her pronunciation and clearly says multisyllabic words.  She calls herself something that sounds kind of like, “awevah”- I think the soft “g” is still difficult for her.  Another cool thing is that she recognizes all kinds of family members in pictures- even people she hasn’t seen since Christmas.  She also counts three items.

More big news in toddler-land: We had our first haircut! (see next post).

Recent pictures:

    

Smelling the roses on a pretty spring day.

Geneva’s gram came to visit and had her all cute-ed up on a daily basis- usually complete with hairbow, sunglasses, and potentially other headgear.

Easter-egg hunts in West Texas are decidedly kind of lame. (But check out the new shorter ‘do). ;)

And just to end on- Geneva’s first piano concert:

Big Girl Bed

A few months ago, a furniture store went out of business and we took advantage of the 1/2 price sale and bought Geneva a very big, big-girl-bed.  We knew it was way too early, but the price was very good and we knew we wanted something just like it in the near future.  For a few months, it has been taking up a large amount of space in her room as she has still been sleeping in her crib.  We have eventually gotten around to adding mattresses to it, but have not been in any kind of hurry.

Her mattress came in the mail yesterday and she had fun helping to unwrap it and watching it fill with air (it is a dense foam material).  Kind of fun, but no big deal, right?

     

I put sheets on it b/c my mom has requested to sleep there when she comes to visit next week.  Geneva had fun rolling around on it and pretending to sleep.  Still, we think nothing of it.

Night-night time comes and we begin to put her in her crib and she gets on the bed and insists on sleeping there (I know she isn’t even 2 yet, but she has her way…).  Greg and I share this- “Is this really happening” moment and make the decision to follow her lead (Why fight it only to introduce it in a few months?).  We put pillows around her and a gate in front and watched her from the monitor.  She laid there, giggling and talking to herself, before falling sound asleep.  She slept peacefully and I had to wake her up this morning.

I gave her the choice at naptime today and she walked over to the bed.  As I type this, she is sleeping there now.

And that’s it… We are done with the crib. 

Greg is sad to have one more baby thing behind us but I am happy to move the crib and changing table out of the crowded room.  It is another testament to how quickly things can change with our little Beba (one of our cutie nicknames for her that her friend Lyla started last summer).

Spring Break in San Antonio

Oh blessed school district and the joys of spring break (and summer break, Christmas break, etc :) )!

For the second part of my week off, we took a little trip to San Antonio to show Geneva some fun and for her to see some of her grandparents.  Greg’s dad was there for a professional conference.

We stayed in a hotel downtown, right near the river and a really pretty section that recently had a pathway added.  We walked along it daily and it does not have any residences or restaurants along that part.   Very peaceful amidst the bustle of downtown.

We walked, went to the Farmers’ Market, took Geneva to Sea World, and went to the Children’s Museum.  Geneva also got to go to the Zoo with her PaPa and Grammie Tammie.  We all had a blast, but especially Geneva, who was pretty much in toddler heaven for three days.

Here are some pictures of our fun trip:

The first thing we did at Sea World was watch the Dolphins.  G loved them.  She also liked the shows and especially the walrus doing a sit-up at the end of one of the shows.  Us parents were happy to leave the shows dry, despite sitting in a “splash zone.”

She really liked standing in front of the glass to see inside the aquarium.

       

This is kind of a funny sequence of photos because you can see that Geneva never let go of me for the entire carousel ride.  She was so excited to get to go on the ride, but she held on tight around my neck the entire time.  I wasn’t tall enough and had to stand on my tip-toes whenever her horse would move up the pole.

   

The toddler splash area was a little more her speed.

   

After our day at Sea World, PaPa and Grammie Tammie came to our hotel and gave her a girly cowboy hat (see the pink accents?)  Now our little Texas is a proper one ;)

This was at the Children’s museum.  She had a ton of fun.  (I made her dress :). )

Group shot while we were saying goodbye.  See the ostrich?  She had just gotten back from a special trip to the zoo.  Ostrich has joined the ranks of glow-baby as nighttime sleeping buddies.

This might have been foreshadowing of what was to come…. :) (see next post)

We are so lucky to have been able to take this little trip.  I know Geneva loved it and it was great to show her some special fun and see family- all within driving distance from home :)

22 Months

      

How do I describe in words a little girl who is at once gentle, loving, independent, confident, and willful when there is so much feeling tied up into the moments spent caring for her, playing with her, reading to her, and redirecting/ shaping her behavior. 

In one moment I am flabbergasted by her nonsensical persistence and then I turn around and hear her singing a goodnight song to a baby doll.  If my back is turned too long, she may be found playing in the garage or sitting in her wagon.

At 22 months, Geneva goes to the potty at least once a day (usually more), sings the entire first half of “Rock-a-bye Baby” and spontaneously uses phrases like, “Daddy, where are you?”

 

She loves her mommy and daddy and regularly talks about other family members.  She has fun at daycare and comes home talking about the other kids in her class.  She adores playing at the park and tolerates the long walks to get there.

She is willful and tests us at every turn, but complies about 90% of the time when we get down on her level and restate the expectation and/or explain to her what we want.  The other times, she responds to either counting down from 3 or after putting her into time out.  We rarely get to time out. (Ha- Can you tell that I work in special education?) 

She tells the dog, “Down Stella” and pushes her off the couch as if she has figured out her place in the pecking order of our little world.

She is perfect to us.