It's been a while since I did an update on Savannah, and with her 2nd birthday next week, I figured I had better do one before I forget everything!
First of all, I can't believe it's nearly been TWO YEARS since I hobbled into that hospital, excited and nervous and confused, and then walked out with this gorgeous, sleepy, dark-eyed baby! I'm excited for her birthday, but I'm also a little sad. Where did that tiny little thing go? Now I have this crazy wild thing who can talk and has the funniest personality and a hint of an attitude. When did she go from snugly baby to energetic toddler?!
She is a sponge. She absorbs everything she hears and sees these days. She's learning faster than ever and she surprises me every day with the things she picks up! She knows most of her alphabet. If you asked her to sing her ABC's, she probably wont do it for you, but if you hold a letter up in front of her, 95% of the time she will get it right. I especially love doing this with her during bath time. She has little foam letters that stick to the tub when wet, and I like handing her the letters and she will tell me what they are. She does this with numbers too, but not quite as accurately (although she can count to 10, and she can even count to 10 by 2's!)
For a while, we tried our hand at potty training. Just before Christmas, we were at my parents house and she told me she needed to go potty. When I asked if she needed a diaper, she ran to the bathroom and pointed in there. So I sat her on the toilet, not thinking anything would happen, but she went! On her first try! After that, she would occasionally tell us she had to use the potty, so we would put her on there, and she would go maybe 1 out of every 3 times. So in January, we got serious about it, bought her a baby sized potty seat and some pull-ups. For the first few weeks, she did great! Sometimes we had false alarms, and others we didn't quite get to the bathroom in time, but she was excited and proud about it so we kept it up. Then one week, she decided she wasn't that interested in potty training and stopped telling us when she needed to go, and when I would ask her if she needed to, she'd either tell me no, or run away. I didn't want to press the issue, because I wasn't even planning on potty training her yet, and I figured she will want to pick it up again sometime soon.
(The greatest bed-head ever!)
Her energy level lately has been on overdrive! By the end of the day, I am completely worn out by her. The 3 things people always tell me when they first meet Savannah are:
1: "Those dark eyes are so beautiful!"
2: Wow, she's a talker!
3: "She sure has a lot of energy for such a tiny person!"
She NEVER just walks anywhere, even around the house. She is either running, jumping, or dancing her way around. I can't wait until it really starts getting warm and I can just sit out in the backyard with the baby and let Savannah run until she can't run anymore. When we go for walks, I rarely put her in her stroller anymore, I let her just walk so she can burn some energy off (I like to go for walks before nap or bedtime for this very reason).
I recently enrolled her in a toddler exercise class so that she would get to play with other kids and get some wiggles out. At her age, a lot of the kids like to kind of play by themselves, and Savannah is that crazy kid who goes from person to person talking their ears off (kind of like her mama!) Sometimes she finds a new friend who is just as social as her and she is in heaven. Like the little girl the other day who had a laughing competition with her, and then there are the kids who run to their moms when Savannah gets right up in their face. Someday, we will find a good balance hahaha!
She also got in her first fight at the last class. A little boy came up and grabbed the truck she was playing with, so Savannah grabbed it back. Then the boy hit her right on top of the heard, so she smacked him right back. By then, both me and the boy's mom ran over and stopped it, and she whisked her crying kid off to the corner. Later, she made him come an apologize before he got to play again (I made Savannah apologize too. Even though she didn't start it, hitting's never nice). About 15 minutes later, Savannah was playing at another game with pool noodles. I noticed the same boy was there, and I looked see where his mom was, and she was talking to another lady. Just then, I looked back at the boy and he ran up and hit Savy with his pool noodle. Savannah stood up, looked straight at him and yelled "OUCH!" I just laughed and told her she was fine and that it didn't hurt. I just thought it was funny that this kid was still mad 15 minutes later. I guess we have a lot to learn about being nice to those who aren't very nice to us.
We have definitely hit the "terrible two's" in full force. Savannah's learned the phrase, "No, It's mine!" and it drives me crazy! We've unfortunately had to implement a time-out system because she's become a hitter too. Like the other day, we played outside on the swing set until her poor little body was shivering from the cold. When we went to bring her in, she got mad and hit Bryant in the face. Or like the other night I was putting her to bed and I gave her a bottle of water instead of milk, and she yelled "No! Baba milk!" and then hit me on top of the head with the bottle. I had to laugh though because when Bryant puts her in time out, and then goes to get her out 2 minutes later, she's usually crying and he'll ask "Are you done crying? Can you give me a hug and say sorry?" and when she hit me, she immediately realized she was in trouble and said "Oh, sorry mommy, I done! I done!". But, despite how cute it was, she was still in trouble.
(in the bouncy house thing)
Lately she's been obsessed with Curious George (she calls him Monkey George) Finding Nemo and Wreck It Ralph. It's so funny how she gets hooked on one thing for a while. Like last month, it was The Lion King, and she went around for weeks pretending to be a lion. Now she walks around yelling "I wreck-it!" and "races" her toys or food against each other.
She's also suddenly become a really picky eater. He favorite go-to foods are tortillas, cheese, crackers, any fruit, cereal, bread, rice and yogurt. But I have the hardest time getting her to eat much else. I can get her to nibble on carrots, but that's about the only vegetable she will eat. I feel like a short-order cook because she won't eat what Bryant and I eat for dinner. And I still can't get her to eat meat (she's never liked meat.)
She love's to be outside, and we've been pretty excited about it getting warmer, although we are supposed to get snow tomorrow :-( But she loves to go on walks, ride her new bike out in the driveway, play with chalk, and swing on the swing set. She especially loves when her grandpa comes over, because he helps her feed and water the chickens, and they like to walk down the block to go get the mail together. When it's too cold to play outside, she perches herself on top of the back of the couch and looks outside all day. We like to look for cars, people walking, cats and dogs sniffing the yard, and birds in the trees. She gets really excited when the neighbor kids play across the street, and she will open the door and yell "hey kids!".
She's a copy-cat and likes to do anything I'm doing. Every morning, she likes to stand on her stool and brush her teeth (she asks to brush her teeth several times a day) and then put on my make-up. I usually let her because it distracts her while I do her hair (which after 2 years is FINALLY long enough to do! She's even getting her first bang-trim tomorrow!) and then I wipe if off afterwords. Today however, we were in such a rush to get to my doctor's appointment, that I forgot to wipe her face, and once we got there, I realized she had lip gloss all over her eyelids! She also likes doing my hair, picking out her own clothes, and trying on my jewelry. She's such a girly-girl!
Wow, this was really long, but I had so much to write down and I don't want to forget a thing! As crazy as these terrible 2s have been, I think this is my favorite age she's been so far! It's a lot of work learning how to keep up with her, working around her stubbornness and independent spirit, figuring out a discipline method, teaching her manners, etc, but I finally feel like I'm beginning to get a hang of this parenting thing. Today I was talking to my dad about how when she was first born, I would call my parents or her pediatrician with every little question, but now I feel more comfortable making decisions and even with letting her have more freedom and not hovering over her like a hawk. I feel more comfortable in my role as a mother. I'm a little nervous about how I will handle 2 kids at a time, but I'm not worried a single bit about my ability to be a good parent. The great thing about Savannah is that I will always be learning with her. Every new milestone she will hit throughout her entire life, I get to hit that milestone for the first time as a parent.
I couldn't ask for a better daughter to experience life with.
(Also, here is this awesome picture of Savannah with Kenna, Sage and Sawyer holding a real bear cub at the international hunting expo last week. I wasn't there and I'm really jealous! It's so gosh darn cute!!!)
