TWO

Since I knew I had been playing catch up for quite some time now, I wrote the kids birthday posts at the beginning of the Summer so I wouldn't forget what they were doing at that point as they change SO quickly in these early years. I am so glad I did this because especially Brenn has changed so much over the summer. At her second birthday she was just starting to acquire language, whereas now she is able to recognize all of her letters and mastering almost all of her phonetic sounds--it just blows my mind at how fast she has developed! Enough blabbering, here is what the little miss was up to as she turned two...

Brenn turned 2 on June 2nd (during our road trip, poor baby got to spend her special day strapped in a car seat!). We got her into the pediatrician right before we headed out from Boston and she was ___ tall (__%) weighed 24 lbs (___%) <info packed away, fill in when I find it!>

At 2 Brenn...

* Is super strong-willed/stubborn and wants to be quite independent (with the exception of when she feels the need to be Mom's arm monkey).

* Is very polite. She always says "thank you" or "no thank you," even when she is beside herself and wants nothing and is yelling/crying "NO TANK YOU!" at you.

* Is still quite the Mama's girl.

* LOVES her big brother "Cardy" (thats what she calls him)

*She loves to give hugs and kisses. 

*Also, when you tell her "I love you," she immediately says back "Too," which is her very shortened way of saying "I love you too." 

* We were a little worried about her language development for a little bit. She was speaking, but compared to Carder at that age she was WAY behind (words but only a few phrases and no sentences). To make a long story short we had her hearing checked and after a little bit of a scare with her failing in both ears at the pediatrician's office, we saw a specialist at Boston Children's. Thankfully everything looked great. As she turned two she has blossomed linguistically and has mastered quite a bit more vocabulary. 

* Can count to 14. We had no idea about this until we were driving across the country (Mom fail!). Carder had told me a few days before that she had counted to either 13 or 14 (he gets really excited and praises her for her accomplishments). I didn't witness it myself so I thought maybe he had misunderstood her or was being a little liberal in the standard of what he considered to be counting. Anyway while we were all in the car there it was, she counted to 14 (and did it several times). Well that made Mom and Dad feel rather silly that we were all worried about Brenn and being behind on her milestones.

* Knows her colors--her favorite being pink. She actually calls anything pink "I lub Pink." We think she may be a little confused and think pink is really called "I love pink," but it's super cute so we aren't trying too hard to correct her.

* Loves books. We often find her sitting aside a bookshelf just turning through the pages of one book after another. If I had to say what her favorite toy was/the thing she plays with most, I'd have to go with books.

* Knows her animals and animal sounds. She will find every animal in the books you read her and say "MAA" over and over until you ask her what that animal is/says (not quite sure what she is saying there but we have come to learn it is her request for us to ask her what the particular animal she has spotted says). 

* Knows/says her shapes (star, heart, "obal" (which she seems to overextend for circle as well), square, "gon" which she uses for pentagon/hexagon/octagon, diamond etc). Is doing pretty well at knowing her letters and even knows some of their sounds.

* Is still super girly. She loves necklaces (or "pretties" as she calls them), boas or using dad's ties as a makeshift boa when she doesn't have something else available. She loves to get her toes painted. She loves babies and has recently come into liking princesses (her favorite being Cinderella or "Lella" as Brenn calls her).

* Has a rather advanced dexterity. She can open the fridge, get the milk out, brings it to you and says "Sippy." (she may or may not be addicted to those things). She can peel and segment her own orange (Carder still can't <well maybe more like wont> do that). When she writes/colors she oftentimes holds her pen the correct way (We have to bribe Carder to not use his whole fist when he is writing and it's quite the battle, hopefully we won't have to deal with that with Brenn!)

* Just like her brother she loves music and dancing. She has some of the cutest moves. One of our favorites she does is how she strikes a pose to the music.

* Loves Minnie Mouse, Dora and Little Einsteins (and The Yo Gabba Gabba Cd we have in the car).

* Loves cuddles and kisses.

* Likes to make trouble. She climbs everything. She likes to color (and not just on paper) she has gotten the wall a couple of times but her picasso art work mostly ends up all over her chunky thighs and legs and one time my computer and keyboard fell victims to permanent marker (thank you clorox wipes for saving me there). Her fridge opening skills have been one of the major "trouble" culprits as of late. For some reason she is really drawn to the eggs. There have been multiple occasions I have had to chase her around the house to get the egg carton back from her. The other day she came out of the kitchen holding an egg, I went over to take it away from her and felt goo as I transfered it from her little hands to mine. She had been cracking eggs. I looked all over to find out where this had been taking place and then see her diaper geanie open with egg shells sitting on top. Thats right she had been just standing over her diaper geenie cracking eggs in it. Who is this child? Well I guess we are just going to have to brace ourselves for the shenanigans that will follow as she enters her "Terrible Twos".

We love our little lady and feel so lucky to have her in our family!