Happy 2nd Birthday, Natalie!

Happy 2nd Birthday, Natalie! I know I said 12 months, 16 months, 18 months, etc. was fun, but I have to admit – having a 2-year-old is more fun than I could have imagined! Natalie is definitely a toddler – she has her own opinion about nearly everything and initiates fun little games all the time. For instance, why walk to the bathroom when you could go on your tiptoes? Why brush your teeth standing up when you could try to brush them while hiding like a Jertain in the Curtain (thanks Dr. Suess). Why just let your O’s fall on the floor when you could instead pretend to feed them to Slow Poke, your turtle booster chair? (Just some suggestions for an extra dose of fun in your day!)

Personality: Silly. Enthusiastic. Curious. Concerned about others. Definitely keeps up to kids older than her. Particular.

Favorite Activities: Having her favorite people over (like Nana, Pop, Grandma and Grandpa), Swimming, Dancing, Running, Going to the Park (haven’t done a lot of that lately), Reading, Throwing stuffed animals out of her crib, Playing kitchen, Coloring with markers on a white erase board, Baking, Playing Hide and Seek. She’s starting to play make-believe games…. when we play with her dollhouse, she often sends my doll to the store to get tea. Her preschool teacher said that she had an animated dialogue about mommy and baby animals going the other day.

Daddy’s Top Activity: (from Daddy) My favorite activity with the Natbug – excluding cuddling in the rocking chair before bedtime – is dancing. This girl has got some moves. All anybody needs to do is start humming a little ditty and she will start shrugging her shoulders up and down to the beat and tilting her head back and forth. Even though she is more than capable of dancing on her own, we often like to dance when we brush teeth. Even though I’m holding her, she can do two moves I like to call the “head bop” and the “arm pump.” When it’s me singing, she’s partial to the refrain from Kylie Minogue’s “Can’t Get You Out of My Head.” When it’s me playing the iPod, she is VERY particular about what songs are acceptable but always seems happy with “Footloose.”

Mommy’s Top Activity: Well, in honor of Natalie’s favorite number – 2 – I’ll choose 2 things! 1) Reading stories in bed and the occasional goofing around that comes with that… be it wrestling, flying airplane, upside down or tickles. (Not too much right before bed though!) 2) Make believe kitchen play, especially drinking tea. Recent favs of Natalie’s include blueberry tea and chai tea.

At preschool, I am a birthday Queen for the day!

Least Favorite Activities: Being on the diaper changing table, Riding in the car for too long, Eating vegetables. (Last year, we had “shopping for more than 8 min” on the list, but that’s not the case any more! She and her dad go grocery shopping every weekend… and she loves to go to Lululemon or the Disney store and turn through clothes that are at her height)

Milestones: Tons of Talking, including a lot of full sentences “No go bye bye,” “I want that,” “Shh… baby sleeping,” “What happened?” “I got Dora,” “Here Daddy”, “I want to go down Mommy”, and “I want to see Mommy” (gotta love that one!). She can almost count to 10 (though often doesn’t stop at the right # of items) and can say most of her ABCs, with assistance. She runs EVERYWHERE. And, let’s not forget jumping! She also is really good at chiming in with songs (Ba rum ba rum ba bubble gum, Happy Birthday) and finishing ends of sentences of favorite stories.

Favorite Foods: Plain noodles, “cereal” (oatmeal baby cereal), raisins, gyros with tahini sauce, any kind of cheese, peanut butter, bread. Unf, you can see that fruits and veggies aren’t making the top of the list, so though we try hard! She is pretty good about eating fruit. (Some of her favs from last year – like blueberries and peas – are unf. off the list.)

Favorite Books: Adventures in the Great Up Nort’ (Natalie and her cousin Trevor are the authors of this classic), Big Sister, Fox in Socks (I try to hide this one), Green Eggs and Ham, Bear’s Snowy Day. We recently returned two books that we had gotten at the library – “Germs are not for Sharing”and “Smile Principessa”. Once we got home, she was sad that they weren’t there any more and had a 3-min story to tell us about going to the library. (Yes, Jordan and I were both with her so were well aware of the story.)

Height/Weight: 28.75 lbs (between the 75th-90th percentile) and 34 inches (50th percentile). She was weighed and measured on the big scale today – very exciting! I was excited about the continued drop in weight percentile (from off the charts at 1-yr-old to 90-95th percentile at 18 months), but was told no sweets, less fats (e.g. cheese, avocado), less starch and smaller portions! I told her that we’ve been trying all that, except the smaller portions, since 18 months – and let’s be honest, Natalie can get a little crabby when hungry, so I’m not about to limit portion size or snacks for a crabby toddler! Anyways, we’ll keep trying, but as you can see from recent pics, all rolls are gone. She is def. a toddler!