Happy 2nd Birthday Peach!

I haven't been as good about keeping up with all the cute things I want to remember about Peach in her development, so I'll try to think about it now that she has just turned 2 yesterday!!

I had quite the time figuring out what kind of cake to make for her because she is so easy going and impartial.  I finally got her to say something about strawberries so I made her a yellow cake with strawberry buttercream frosting.  The Frog helped me make them during her nap and he was so excited that we were trying to surprise her-  he whispered the entire time we were working on them.  (if only he'd whisper at church...)

Can you guess who did the sprinkles and candles? ;)

One down, one to go.

After several failed attempts, she decided spitting might work.

Everyone else thought it was funny.  She was just being innovative! :)

The Frog loves asking what color his tongue is while he eats.

Peach has been speaking in complete sentences for months, which just blows me away!  She's a complete parrot and will copy e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. you say.  (so be careful...)  I think my favorite cute word she says right now is "neegah" for "finger", despite the racial slur it almost mimics...  Her vocabulary is much much too wide to attempt to document all of it.  She can't say her "r"s (like me when I was young :D) but has a pretty good ear and can pretty closely repeat anything you say, whether she knows what it is or not.  She will often repeat the last thing you said to her, but in the form of a question, and when you tell her, "yes, that's right," she'll say, "ohhhhh".

She sucks her thumb, like her big brother, and can usually be found cuddling either her "bankie", "lamby", or "baby".  (she sleeps with all 3, sometime 4 because The Frog has a baby too, that she often confiscates.)  She often walks around talking to her baby and asking it if it needs this or that...  "You need your milk?  Okay!"

loves to change her baby's "bide-eh" (diaper)

She loves looking at all the hair-clips I have hanging in the bathroom (and long to use) and often requests I put them in her hair, but as soon as I do, she has second thoughts about it and protests wildly until they're gone...  Isn't it so stinkin' cute though?!

She love love LOVES cats and dogs.  If there is a dog or cat anywhere, she must pet it.  If there is a book with a dog or a cat on the cover, she must read it.  If a dog or cat flits across a screen, she must stop to watch it.  Loves them.

As much as we were sad to see Iris go, the timing was actually really great because Peach learned how to climb out of her pack-n-play about a week before Iris left.  We tried to put Peach in the crib in The Frog's room, but he would climb in and torture her, so we opted to have her sleep in my closet all year.  Once the pack-n-play was no longer a prison, we had no choice but to move her back into The Frog's room.  Much to our surprise, this time around Peach was causing the ruckus, not The Frog.  She was so excited to sleep on a mattress that bounces, that she would just hang on to the side-rail and bounce to kingdom come and The Frog thought this was hilarious, which only encouraged the behavior.  After awhile he'd get in and jump with her and they'd play for hours (literally.  why could they never do this during the day when they have tons of toys and a lit room at their disposal?) and then wake up early the next day super cranky.  Rinse and repeat.  So by the time Iris left, we moved Peach RIGHT in (that's why the sheets are red.  The white ones are getting washed) to Iris's old room and never looked back.  Peach is very proud to now sleep in a "big girl bed" (and she always mentions it when naps come up in conversation), though the first night she didn't really do it:

Jay and my favorite nightly ritual, now, is to peak in the kids room and see how they're sleeping.  It's always different.

 Peach loves her bath (and so does The Frog) and even though it's tighter quarters having 2 in there, they usually get along fairly well.  (i.e. they play by themselves on their own side of the tub)  I'm sensing a pattern.  Maybe my kids would get a long better if I kept them in a box or some other tight space all day with more limited toys...

I can't believe I don't have any evidence shots yet, but Peach, for some reason, has a mild obsession with rocks.  I find them everywhere- in her bed, in the tub, in the washing machine, little piles in the kitchen, around the yard, covering arm rests...  She stops to pick them up everywhere we go- even tiny pebbles in parkinglots!  She often gives small collections of them to people who come to visit.  Perhaps we have a future geologist or archeologist in our midst?

She loves shoes!  Loves to wear anyone's shoes and is very particular about the shoes she wears for the day.  I bought her some new Sunday shoes a couple months ago (which she has already outgrown...) and she insisted on wearing them every day after that.  Unfortunately, she has really, really narrow feet and so it's really, really hard to find shoes that actually stay on.  I can't buy a size up to prolong their use, or else they won't stay on.

Her hair is still "baby hair" and very fine.  I'm not sure what she's doing to it, but even after combing it in the morning it will usually have a big ratty mess in the back by lunch time and if not by then, always after she wakes up from her nap.  I've tried to give her the best a-line bob I can to keep it shorter back there, and it kinda helps.

She is extremely expressive with her face and body language when she talks.  If she has something very important to say, she'll often talk right up in your face with big eyes and soft voice.  It's so stinkin' cute!

It was so fun to give her presents today because she acted like she felt so special to have been given something. "For meeee?!"  And she was so gracious to let The Frog dive in and look at her goods and play with them too.

 Peach loves to pretend talking on the phone (or calculator, or anything that even vaguely resembles a phone).  Sometimes when she wakes up from her nap, I'll hear her on the monitor saying, "hello?  hello?"  and find her talking into... you name it!  Peach was thrilled to see a pretend phone in her birthday doctor kit. :)

(everyone wanted to try out the doctor glasses)

 

She is so quick to forgive and loves to follow her brother around- doing whatever he's doing.  She loves playing with his cars (with sound effects) and I'm not sure if it's because she loves cars, or because The Frog does it so much.

She is sooo good at playing by herself, as long as she's not being tormented.  Life would have been soooo different for me if she had come first, but I'll take her anytime I can get her :D

She loves to jump off things.  At first it would be over line or off her "bankie" onto the ground.  Then off the bottom step or a curb... but lately she's becoming more bold and yesterday (her birthday) she jumped off The Frog's bed.  Despite what looked like a hard landing, she wanted to do it again and this time she landed wrong and cried pretty hard about her foot hurting.  It looked okay, and she wasn't limping, so I just made a mental note to keep an eye on it.  Later, she woke up during her nap, crying that her foot hurt and this morning woke up with a pretty good sized bruise on the top of her foot.  I took her into the doc and she has a tiny fracture (apparently the best type to have) and doesn't need a cast, but will need to stop jumping for a few weeks and has a "special sock" (as we call it.  she loves socks.  bandaids, not so much...) in case it hurts.

I never in a million years would have guessed that she would need an X-ray before her older brother.

She's very easy going in almost every way (don't get me wrong, her tantrums can be pretty dramatic...) but she likes to be held a LOT, and it can get tiring carrying one on the inside and one on the outside all the time.  She is very cuddly, but sometimes I wonder if she only likes it because it keeps her safe from you-know-who.

Sometimes I think she is the complete opposite of The Frog, yet she is also just the right personality to be good friends with him, and that is very comforting.  It makes me wonder what #3 will be like...

We feel soo soo lucky to get this little ray of sunshine in our family.  She is always making us laugh, and is so thoughtful and quick to help.  I got a bee sting on the palm of my hand last Tuesday that ended up being much more of a malady than I expected.  Every time she noticed me wince in pain, she would ask to kiss it better.

And it was :)