In September, Coraline turned two and a half with little fuss. I don’t have the rocking chair in the corner of her nursery anymore, and we didn’t get out the blocks (though I did think about it). We did measure her height and let Jameson check his, too! But she already seems every inch of two and a half. Even though she’s shorter than Jameson was at her age (only by a bit), she seems more articulate! After all, she’s got her big brother to keep up with.
This is my favorite of her fall outfits. I could dress her in that long bunny tunic all day long. For some reason it shouts “growing up!” and “cute little baby!” all at the same time with those pig tails and new minion socks she picked out. “Slip-shers”, her way of saying slippers, has come and gone.
In the mornings, I asked her if she wants one tail or two, but we mostly do two. Her hair is getting too long for the side tail! Long enough now for a regular pony tail or half up, but my favorite is the piggy tails.
Coraline has this hilarious expression of delight when she’s excited, with eyes wide open and mouth in a big “o”. She says it when I tell her we’re going to gymnastics and when it’s “bath-a-night” as she calls it.
She’s fully potty trained (after a bit of drama with numero duo, we have the whole shebang down pat now – including night training). She’ll even use a public restroom, which is a novelty for me since Jameson was so against it as to cause a little paranoia about going out. It happened over the course of the summer and the many days outside in a swimsuit. She was almost as easy as Jameson was! How I got so lucky with two kids I think is mostly due to daycare.
“Are you hungry in your belly Coraline?” -Brian
“I hungry in my mouth” -Coraline
Coraline likes to do art a bit more than Jameson, and occasionally plays with dolls, but for the most part she likes to do whatever Jameson is doing!
“I coloring mommy. I busy, I busy”
Coraline is doing a bit more pretend play. She’ll play doctor, and my favorite, she plays at being a baby. She curl up on the floor, or snuggle up against me, and do a little fake baby cry. I could do this all day long as long as I’m sitting down (she’s getting heavy!)
We are currently dealing with a bit of fear of the dark. She’s a little too young to explain how she’s feeling or what she’s afraid of particularly, and is pretty quick to go back to bed, but she comes running into our room crying loudly for mommy (sometimes daddy) one to two times a night.
She definitely doesn’t like to be in the dark herself, but Jameson is really getting into play in the dark so we have been taking advantage by trying to play games and make the dark fun! Jameson set out all his flashlights for her.
She adores her little burp clothes which are now called blankies. She’s developing preferences for certain ones. She loves the sheep one (of which there is only one!), and the striped monkey one (which there are two). I’ve tried offering some real blankies, but it’s not the same. These are her favorite and they are starting to look very raggy!
We haven’t really addressed the thumb-sucking actively yet, but will sometimes tell her to remove her thumb from her mouth. We say daily that she’s super cute, and I find it a bit harder to discipline her than Jameson because even though she’s a bit of a drama queen, she listens for the most part (and is terribly distraught when she does get yelled at). She’s responding very well to 1…2… the threat of 3 works great.
Her favorite movie and characters is, of course, Frozen. I sing a verse of the snowman and let it go songs every night. She loves when she gets to wear her new Elsa and Anna shirt. She wants to watch the movie any time, too! I’m looking forward to all the fun ways we can play with the Frozen theme through the winter. I’m hopeful that she’ll be into the snow more this year! So much to look forward to that I don’t frequently look back. We are lucky parents!