29 months

Well, of course the biggest change for you this month is that you are now a big sister. You are so excited about baby Caroline and are so sweet with her. It is really fun to watch and I can't wait to watch the two of you as you grow up and become best friends. It has only been three days since she was born and we have only had one day at home together so we are all still adjusting.
Physically you are continuing to develop. You are becoming quite the gymnast. I may have to look into gymnastics or ballet classes in the fall. You love to twirl, climb, balance and do summersaults. We try to go outside as much as we can though it is so hot and your pregnant mommy did not really enjoy the heat. The other day we went outside to play with your garden tools. You wanted to water the grass. Of course watering the grass and trees with your watering can ended up with being very wet even though you were in your clothes. So, I decided to go ahead and let you play with your "silly worm" sprinkler. Before long you had striped off the shorts and shirts and had a ball in your cover.
This month we got a "new" sandbox from a friend. We put it on the patio so that you could be in the shade and to protect it from the rain. You have a lot of fun playing in it after dinner many nights. One of your favorite parts is using the dust broom to clean up the sand that made it's way outside of the sandbox.
One of my favorite times of day is when we snuggle up to nap. You love to snuggle with your mommy and are so sweet. We read lots of books and sometimes it is hard for me to stop and make you sleep because we are having so much fun. I know that will change now that Caroline is here but I will try to snuggle and read with you as much as possible.

You are really funny with getting booboos. You are so active as typical of a 2 year old and you are constantly getting hurt. You love to then get medicine and Hello Kitty band aids. Somehow you got a few bug bites on your foot that were quite painful. For almost a week we nursed that wound by putting band aids on it. The funny thing was that you truly had a limp with the bug bites. Here are some pictures of you "nursing your wound".


Your language continues to explode and amaze us. You are saying more words, longer phrases and speaking more clearly. The biggest change this month in your language is probably more of a cognitive or processing difference. The change is that you are initiating more conversation. Before we would often guide the conversation by asking questions and then you would answer or elaborate. Now you are often the one to start a conversation. It has been a fun shift.

One funny conversation was with your Nana. You were walking into the grocery store and saw a car with a flag on it. You said, "Nana, that car has a flag on it. That's silly, cars don't have flags, bicycles do." You remember decorating your tricycle for the 4th of July parade.

You continue to say funny things.

• Close your eyes and make a wish.
• Mommy, your eyebrows are cute.
• Mommy, you are sick, TV makes you feel better.
• That's perfect (said to Nana after drawing a picture)
• Good job mommy.
• I like milkshakes in my mouth.
• A little baby tree (answer to the question "What is in the middle of a peach?")
  

I am learning a lot about the complicated grammar rules of English as you are learning them. For example you say "last day" when you mean "yesterday". Why not? We have last year, last month, last week. Why would it suddenly switch to "yesterday" instead of "last day"? The personal pronouns still get confused a little though you are really improving and starting to use most of them correctly.

You are having a fun time at your summer Mother's Day Out or "school" as we call it. you are the youngest in your class which has not been a problem at all. Every day Ms Lottie works on a different letter and you are learning a lot about letters and numbers. When you come home you want to work on your letters. Your favorite is to play on the computer with the ABC animals. Look at how hark you are concentrating to find specific letters on the keyboard.

You love to sing. You now can sing your entire ABC's and you do so all the time. You have gotten so good at it that you will sing it in funny voices and to different tunes. You also sing Happy Birthday all the time. Usually it is YOUR birthday. Of course!

You are getting much better at counting. You used to count things and you would point to things as you counted but you would often let either your words or your pointer get ahead of the other so your count was not accurate. Now you are very good at counting things correctly.

Here you are improvising by using your garden gloves as oven mitts. I love it when you get creative and use your processing skills. You are getting so much better at playing independently and creatively and it is fun to see.

Katherine, you are doing several new things that are a bit dangerous and concerning to mom and dad. One Saturday Dad asked if you wanted to eat pancakes. You got excited and ran to the kitchen. He got there about 30 seconds behind you. You had pulled your stool to the counter and turned the stove burner on HIGH! Luckily he was right behind you and turned it off and told you how dangerous this was. Mommy went the next day to buy some knob covers so you cannot do that again. The same week when we were getting ready to leave you unlocked and opened the back door to the garage all by yourself. You have begun wanting to do this every time we leave. While I am not worried that you will be able to wander into the street or anything because you can't open the garage door to the driveway, I do worry that you will go out there without me knowing it and then daddy could come home and not see you. We have put a child prof door knob cover on that door knob. You have also started trying to open the door to get out of the car. The easy solution has been not unbuckling you from your seat until I open the door. Sometimes I would unbuckle you and then gather my stuff while you were crawling to the door. That is when you would open the car door. It is not a big deal in our garage but if we were in a busy parking lot it could be very dangerous. All of these things are things that you see mommy and daddy do. You do not realize that they could be dangerous. It is just a part of being a big girl and learning new things. You imitate what we do. We have to teach you though what is safe and what is dangerous.

I am pretty careful about what you eat. Your diet is in now way perfect but one thing I have kept you from is soft drinks. I am ashamed to say that mommy LOVES drinking Dr. Pepper and especially while I have been pregnant. So far I have kept you from drinking it. The hardest is when it is in a styrofoam cup because you think it is a smoothie or a milk shake. The other night I was talking to dad and not paying attention while you were on my lap. You grabbed my Dr. Pepper and tried it. Then you said, "I no like it". Thank goodness! You did like your dad's sweet tea though.

You love your puppy and have been trying to command her to do things for some time now. Last week she actually obeyed you! You were in your booster seat eating dinner when Hooligan came over to beg for food. You said, "Hooligan, on the carpet, sit, good dog" as you pointed her to the carpet. She actually went over and sat. You have climbed in the ranks to be an alpha member of the pack. Good job Katherine.