24 months - 2 years

Wow! Katherine you are 24 months old - 2 years. It is so hard to believe that two years ago we were meeting you for the first time. I was so excited to finally be a mom and fell in love immediately. You sure have changed over the past 2 years. Take a look at how much you have changed.

4 days old
One Year Old
Two Years Old

You had a great birthday. You were really into it. All week long you talked about your party and all you were going to do. It was so cute.

A lot has changed in the past two years. You continue to amaze your daddy and me with all you are doing. We sit and watch you and shake our heads in wonder. You are such a big girl. Your Aunt Jaime wrote that with Sophia's first birthday she misses her as a tiny baby but can't wait to see what she will do in a year or two. I feel the same way. There are things in the past that I miss and things in the future that excite me. I am really trying to focus on enjoying the present, both the good and the bad.

You had your 2 year doctor's visit this week. You now weigh 22.4 pounds which raises you from the, 3% to the 5%. You are 32.75" tall which is in the 25%. So you are still small but very healthy. You are working on your ABC's and your 123's. You recognize what numbers and letters are when you see them but we have not started working on naming specific letters yet. You can sing almost the entire ABC song. You skip a few in the middle usually. When you count you usually just say 1, 2, 3 over and over but yesterday you were looking at the clock in your kitchen and said 8, 9, 10, 11. Daddy and I looked at one another and were so puzzled. We usually stop counting with you at 10 and have no idea where you learned 11.

You talk all the time. You are quite animated with lots of hand motion. (I wonder where you get this characteristic from?) Sometimes you are so excited and you just tell the longest stories. Usually I have an idea what you are talking about and by repeating what I think you are saying I can sort it out. I stopped counting your words 6 months ago at 150 so I don't know how large your vocabulary is but I would guess well over 500 words. Daily you say things that I have not heard you say before. Your words and phrases are becoming more clear as well so you are easier to understand.

You do have a few funny sayings. Whenever you are handing me something you say "thank you". I guess it is because you hear me say "thank you" to you when you hand it to me. So, when I hear you say "thank you", I know to look and see what you are trying to give me. We are working on you saying, "here you go" instead and it seems to be catching on.

You still mix up pronouns a lot of the time. You say "Mommy hold you" when you want me to hold you. I look at you and say "what? Hold who?" and you will smile and say, "Mommy, hold me". You are starting to get it right on your own sometimes too.

My favorite new saying of Katherine is "I love you too". Almost every time I tell you that I love you, you reply with that sweet phrase. It comes out "I love toooooo". It makes my heart melt.

You also have a lot of cute phrases like "let's see" when you are thinking and "Oh Boy" when you are excited or have discovered something new.

Recently you have really started to enjoy Sesame Street, especially Elmo. It is on in the morning when we are getting ready so it is a great thing to interest you while I am doing other things. You also like Curious George. Other than that you are not really into any of the characters that are on everything. You know who some of them are like Dora on your pull ups but you are not really into them and that is fine with me.

You have started to ask that I turn on the music in the car if it is off. One time I went past a country station and you said, "mommy, like it". Daddy was not too happy that you liked the country music. I love music so I like that you also seem to love music. You love to sing and when we are in the car we often sing together. Your favorite songs are "Old MacDonald", "Itsy Bitsy Spider", "ABC's", "The Wheels on the Bus" and "Twinkle Little Star".

You are getting more brave. You are no longer scared to climb at the playground or to go down the slide. We bought you a very small slide for the yard for your birthday. You enjoy going outside when the weather is nice so it is great to have a fun thing to play on. I hope to accumulate some other toys for you before long.

When we were on the airplane, you looked out the window and saw the sunset. You called it a rainbow. I thought that was a very good observation. All of the colors of the rainbow were spreading all across the sky. I taught you the word sunset but I love seeing you take something you know and applying it to something you do not know.

You are becoming a very independent little girl. It seems that one of your favorite phrases is "myself!" You want to do everything by yourself. You climb into the car and into your car seat by yourself, you try to get dressed by yourself, you eat by yourself . . . Sometimes mommy can use this for a little reverse psychology to get you do to something such as when you are moving very slowly toward the car: "Katherine do you want to get in the car by yourself or does mommy need to pick you up and help you do it". Usually you respond with an enthusiastic "Myself" and then you hurry to the car. We are both happy.

You recognize our house now. As we drive toward our street you always say, "Home" and as we go down the alley I ask you at each driveway if this is our house. You know exactly when to say "yes". Of course it helps that our house is the only one with a huge workshop at the alley but still you know where you live.

You love to play games and are developing a sense of humor. In the car you often hide under your blanket or jacket. It is different from "peek-a-boo" and you giggle the whole time you are hiding. We love to play where one of us hides an object and the other tries to guess where it is. You say things that you know are wrong to make me laugh. My favorite is when you say "mommy very sad" when I am happy. I tell you that I am happy and you insist that I am very sad. You say it with the cutest grin on your face.

You are starting to understand feelings and emotions. At school you show sympathy and concern for others when they are hurt. You know what it means to be happy or sad and you know that mommy is sad when I am disappointed in your behavior. Your feelings are mutually exclusive right now. If I ask if you are tired after you yawn, you say that no, you are happy. You don't realize that you can be both happy and tired.

You received a new Elmo book for Valentines. It has a page with the monsters dancing. I commented to daddy that it was neat that your first exposure to monsters were the ones on Sesame Street and that you did not know that monsters were supposed to be scary. You heard me and then told me that you were scared of the monsters.

You seem to understand more than I would have expected about mommy being pregnant. You get that there is a baby in my tummy. When I ask where mommy's baby is, you say "right there" as you point to my tummy. You like to kiss my tummy and talk to mommy's baby. We are working on getting you used to babies and being less jealous when mommy pays attention to other babies. It will be a difficult adjustment for you to share my attention.

Being two means that you do throw tantrums at times. I am trying really hard to deal with them with wisdom. I try to empathize with you and let you know that I understand your frustration. Sometimes you are just so overwhelmed by your emotions that you cannot get them under control. We usually sit together and calm down so that we can talk about what happened. There have been a few though that I cannot figure out or calm down. That is really frustrating.

Katherine, you are so much fun. We enjoy you every day. We look forward to seeing you continue to grow in every area over the next year.