A Little Late...Lucy's 2nd Birthday Post

Okay, so it's more than a "little" late. Better late than never though...right?

Waaaaaaaay back in September (the 16th to be exact), our little Lucy turned the ripe old age of 2! We had a small "Monkey-themed" party with a monky cake, banana bread, monkey bread, banana puffs, and frozen chocolate dipped bananas on a stick! I'm pretty sure Lucy had a great time. We had a couple of family friends over and her cousins Jack, Molly, Sophie, and Macy joined the fun as well. Nana, Papa, Mimi, and Shea-Shea were here too :)

The monkey cake I made...

Our little monkey getting ready to blow out her "2" candle

Hangin' out with Nana in the back yard...

So, even though it is now 2 months past her birthday, this is what our little Lucy has been up to...

~ Vocabulary is amazing and I can't even begin to list the words she uses (in correct context no less) and says. She will carry on a meaningful conversation with us and understands and responds to questions. She LOVES to sing and since Abby sings the songs she learns at school around the house (non-stop), Lucy has picked up on them and will sing "Jesus Loves Me", "America the Beautiful", "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", "Life is a Highway" (from the Disney movie Cars), "Onward Christian Soldiers", "the ABC song", and a couple of others from her music cd in her room. She will repeat anything she hears someone else saying (gotta be careful!). When she sees or hears something that she really likes she will say "Holy Sacasoly" or "Oh.My.Gosh." She also loves to say prayers with her daddy at night and asks for the specific prayers by name and can recite them along with John or finish the sentences.

~ Sleeping is...hit or miss would be the nice way of putting it. She is still fighting sleeping in the big girl bed at night but does well in it for daytime naps. She does still (most of the time) take a
morning and afternoon nap, just because she gets up at the crack of dawn and has been waking up 2-3 times a night, sometimes staying up for about 1-2 hours. We have tried the one nap thing and she just doesn't get enough sleep to make up for what she is losing at night. Since she has been sick this week, sleep at night has been even worse. I am praying that she will outgrow this before the baby gets here in a few weeks.

~ Potty Training? Ha! Let's not go there right now okay? She has ZERO interest in it and may be the first child in history to go to college in a pull-up! Seriously though, I am just trying to make it through the Holidays (and child birth for that matter) and we will begin to get down to "business" (pun intended) in the Spring.

~Pappies (aka pacifiers)? Yep, still has them. Yeah, I'm a bad mom for not taking them away sooner but for now the whole sleep situation that I mentioned above would be a MILLION TIMES WORSE without them! I keep thinking that I am looking at another 3+ months of sleep deprivation once the baby gets here (if she follows in her brother and sister's footsteps) with nursing so I'm not going to take away from the little sleep I will be getting by fighting Lucy back to sleep without her pacifier! That can wait for the Spring as well.

~ Eating? She would eat all day if I let her! Unfortunately, unless chips, pretzels, fruit snacks, crackers, or cookies become official food groups, she doesn't have the best eating habits. We do limit what she gets but if she were given HER choice ALL the time, she certainly would not be choosing salad :) She is getting a little better. She loves green pepper strips and apple slices and grapes. She also likes yogurt but will only eat it when she is in the mood. She will ask for other things like carrots but then takes bite and spits it out saying "I don't like that". She is definitely a "snacker" like her sister. I told John last night maybe that is why God chose not to give us another boy. The way Max eats now (pretty much head to head with his dad), if we had another boy with his appetite we'd both be working 3 jobs just to buy groceries! Lucy will eat what I serve her but it is usually in very small amounts.

~ Playing? She is into her baby dolls BIG TIME! She loves to play with Max and Abby and is crushed when they try to exclude her from doing something with them. She will play on her own for short periods of time but when she gets too quiet I have to inspect because she is usually making a colossal mess (pulls all the the hairties out of the bathroom drawer, pulls all of her pull-ups onto the floor, gets a hold of a box of baby wipes and pulls them all out of the box!) She likes pushing her babies in the stroller and putting her "best friend" bobby (her lovey) in the high chair and "feeding" him.

~ Is she ready to be a big sister? Some days I think so but others I am not so sure. I have been babysitting for the past couple of months for a 1 year old little boy. She loves having him come over but I also see spurts of jealousy there when he needs my attention and she wants it. She talks about her baby sister but we'll have to see how she does once the baby is actually here and taking up a lot of my time. Lucy is DEFINITELY a Mama's girls right now!

And there you have it! Lucy has embraced being 2 years old with gusto! She is displaying her temper with frequency when she doesn't get what she wants or just when she feels like it. Time outs are becoming more and more frequent for her as she is learning (I hope) to get herself under control. She likes to lash out at Abby when she's mad and will pull her hair or smack at her for now reason. We are trying VERY hard to nip this behavior in the bud quickly and make her see that she needs to use words when she's mad and not hurt someone. Max and Abby did not do these behaviors so it's new territory right now. They were kind enough to just scream at the top of their lungs and throw themselves onto the floor in a fit when they were mad. Lucy is most definitely her own person and we love her (and her siblings of course) just as they are.

Peace and quiet is highly overrated...don't you think? :)