23 Months

Dear K,
You are 23 months old today. Only one month before you, my baby, turn two! I am so proud of the little girl you are growing up to be. You really are turning into a little girl. The toddler in you is starting to fade and although I sometimes wish you wouldn't grow so fast, I love learning about the person you are becoming each and every day.

You recently learned to tell me your emotions, sad, happy, mad, and we are working on frustrated. This has made both our lives so much easier. When you have the words to tell me how you feel you don't need to act them out so much and we can work through them together.

Things You Like: You like manners. I know that sounds strange, but you expect people to use their manners around you. You are good at remembering to say please and thank you. You also say, "salude!" when someone sneezes and sorry if you accidentally bump into someone. You also like formal greetings and I often hear you making your stuffed animals ask, "Como estas?" and the response is always the same, "Muy bien, gracias" You also expect others to use those same manners with you, as you should. The other day while distracted I asked you to hand me something. You did and then standing at waist height your blue blue eyes looked at me with a little disappointment and you said, "mama, gracias?" Sometimes mamas need reminders too.

Things You dislike: The sun. Well, you actually like the sun, announcing each morning that the sun (solecito) is awake as if there was any doubt the sun would rise, you get excited when the sun dries your clothes, and when the sun shines through your prism in your window creating rainbows on the wall. What you despise is the sun in your eyes. You have little sunglasses that we have to carry with us wherever you go just in case the sun decides to shine too bright. You look like a rock star in those glasses so I am grateful for sunny days.

New Words: You have almost mastered complete sentences. Well, you do speak in complete sentences, but they often have errors and you drop a lot of the smaller words. You also add "the" often when it isn't needed such as, "Kaylee is on the dada" We all let our voices get a little higher at the end of a sentence when we ask questions, it is just part of speech, but baby girl, your little voice gets so high pitched when you ask a question it is hard not to laugh. Sometimes I act like I couldn't hear you just to make you ask the question again. Too stinkin cute!

Your Spanish is improving and you seem to be figuring out when to use Spanish and when to use English, You will often use the English version of a word with me and the Spanish version with your dada or when in Spanish class. There are still a lot of words you only know in Spanish such as colors, numbers, the alphabet, animals, etc but you are very aware that most words come in two version, English and Spanish.

What I Like About This Age: I am in LOVE with this age. I told your dada the other day I wanted to have another baby, but give birth to them when they are 20 months old. The past 3 months have been my favorite. You are so easy to please (for the most part), a great helper with chores and cooking (although it does take twice as long with my little helper), easy to entertain, extremely independent, and a great little talker. I am a little nervous for the "terrible twos" to approach, but I am sure we will figure it out as we go!

I do miss naps, but I am adjusting to your nap free lifestyle and my lack of breaks.