Terrific Twos
Today is Julie's second birthday. I can't believe it's been two years already, and I can't believe it's only been two years. It's been the best experience of my life, and it's pushed me farther in patience and love than I ever knew I could go. Geez, and I think it's only going to get better!
A personality snap-shot of my girl...she loves coloring in her coloring book with crayons. She's obsessed with her farm animal toys, and loves pretending they are going to bed, waking up, eating, pooping, going places with her. She recently discovered the fun of spinning around and around till she's falling-down dizzy, and she does so often. She also knows how to hop and jump, and does so when she is excited or especially happy about something. She speaks in complete sentences, and lately when she's looking for something, she uses the phrase "I don't see it", straight out of my lexicon in words and tone. Julie is the cutest little kid ever (of course, she's mine) with beautiful brown hair that is absolutely WILD when not pulled back in a ponytail. When we get in the car, she always says "Music, please" and often "Listen Sesame Street" because that is her favorite album. She still hates bedtime, but her current obsession with her Wee Sing songbook sometimes makes it easier because she'll sit still while Joe or I sing through the entire book, and occasionally even drowses off to it. But don't even mention the word nap. We gave up on those a couple months ago, and she will take one only if she falls asleep accidentally in the car or while watching Sesame Street in the late afternoon.
We had a good day today. We spent the morning at my friend Kari's house, where Julie played with Kari's son Jack who is 2 and a half, I got to hold newborn Will, and another friend came over with her baby to play and chat. We came home for lunch, and after a brief meltdown over some other nominal reason but rooted in her being worn out from the morning, we hopped in the car where she fell asleep immediately. I drove over to Pea Pods in St. Paul, where we picked up her birthday present, a cloth doll with a real cloth diaper, anatomically correct parts, and coloring that matches Julie's. She woke up and was interested enough in their wooden train set-up that she didn't seem to notice what I was doing while the clerk wrapped up her gift.
After that, we came back to our own neighborhood and stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things. Julie LOVES those carts with fronts that look like cars for the kids to ride in, and I managed to score one for her from the cart corral, even though it was raining and I had to go to the service desk to get some paper towels to wipe it down. We got some of her favorite fruits, a package of birthday candles (I nearly broke down in sappy tears while picking them out - my baby is two and will be blowing out candles tonight!), some other ingredients for dinner tonight and things that were on sale, and at the checkout counter, I picked up a helium birthday balloon which she couldn't wait to show her daddy when he got home.
Dinner tonight was one of my favorite soups, a thick gravy thing with lots of vegetables and some ground beef. I pulled some cake left over from Joe's birthday a couple weeks ago and stuck two candles in her piece. Joe helped her blow them out, and she scarfed that sucker down like it was - well, chocolate cake.
The big celebration will be on Sunday, when the whole extended family and some close family friends come over for a lasagna dinner and a fresh birthday cake. After last year's two wild parties, and all the moving and renovating going on at the moment, keeping it simple made more sense for us this year.
Happy Birthday, Julie! You'll always be my baby.
Now I'm off to sew the head back on her bunny rabbit doll, which was given to her by Derik and Sarah the week she was born, and which she has loved the head right off of.
A personality snap-shot of my girl...she loves coloring in her coloring book with crayons. She's obsessed with her farm animal toys, and loves pretending they are going to bed, waking up, eating, pooping, going places with her. She recently discovered the fun of spinning around and around till she's falling-down dizzy, and she does so often. She also knows how to hop and jump, and does so when she is excited or especially happy about something. She speaks in complete sentences, and lately when she's looking for something, she uses the phrase "I don't see it", straight out of my lexicon in words and tone. Julie is the cutest little kid ever (of course, she's mine) with beautiful brown hair that is absolutely WILD when not pulled back in a ponytail. When we get in the car, she always says "Music, please" and often "Listen Sesame Street" because that is her favorite album. She still hates bedtime, but her current obsession with her Wee Sing songbook sometimes makes it easier because she'll sit still while Joe or I sing through the entire book, and occasionally even drowses off to it. But don't even mention the word nap. We gave up on those a couple months ago, and she will take one only if she falls asleep accidentally in the car or while watching Sesame Street in the late afternoon.
We had a good day today. We spent the morning at my friend Kari's house, where Julie played with Kari's son Jack who is 2 and a half, I got to hold newborn Will, and another friend came over with her baby to play and chat. We came home for lunch, and after a brief meltdown over some other nominal reason but rooted in her being worn out from the morning, we hopped in the car where she fell asleep immediately. I drove over to Pea Pods in St. Paul, where we picked up her birthday present, a cloth doll with a real cloth diaper, anatomically correct parts, and coloring that matches Julie's. She woke up and was interested enough in their wooden train set-up that she didn't seem to notice what I was doing while the clerk wrapped up her gift.
After that, we came back to our own neighborhood and stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things. Julie LOVES those carts with fronts that look like cars for the kids to ride in, and I managed to score one for her from the cart corral, even though it was raining and I had to go to the service desk to get some paper towels to wipe it down. We got some of her favorite fruits, a package of birthday candles (I nearly broke down in sappy tears while picking them out - my baby is two and will be blowing out candles tonight!), some other ingredients for dinner tonight and things that were on sale, and at the checkout counter, I picked up a helium birthday balloon which she couldn't wait to show her daddy when he got home.
Dinner tonight was one of my favorite soups, a thick gravy thing with lots of vegetables and some ground beef. I pulled some cake left over from Joe's birthday a couple weeks ago and stuck two candles in her piece. Joe helped her blow them out, and she scarfed that sucker down like it was - well, chocolate cake.
The big celebration will be on Sunday, when the whole extended family and some close family friends come over for a lasagna dinner and a fresh birthday cake. After last year's two wild parties, and all the moving and renovating going on at the moment, keeping it simple made more sense for us this year.
Happy Birthday, Julie! You'll always be my baby.
Now I'm off to sew the head back on her bunny rabbit doll, which was given to her by Derik and Sarah the week she was born, and which she has loved the head right off of.
posted by Shelly Kang at 5:45 PM
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