ada charlotte {24 months}

My sweet Ada Girl,

YOU ARE TWO! I may have said this before, but time flies when you're the parent :) I can't believe how much you've learned and grown over the last year. On your birthday last year, you had no teeth, you weren't walking, and I think you were saying about 3 words. Now you have 16 teeth, you're running and dancing all over the place, and you say at least 150 words, but I'm definitely not counting anymore. You are mischievous, helpful, opinionated, and sweet. You know no strangers because you're so very friendly! You do funny and adorable things -- like saying "come on!" to balloons as you pull them around, or saying "hi guys!" to the whole Barbie aisle. I love seeing the world through your eyes. I love YOU! Thanks for being my little best friend :)

Stats

• 25.2 pounds (49%) -- You've gained about 2 pounds in the last quarter, which kept you in just about the same percentile.
• 33.3 inches (30%) -- It seems you only grew 1/3 inch, and dropped down from the 51st percentile for height. 
• We're still doing size 4 diapers by day, and size 5 by night. We're thinking about potty training soon, though! (I always thought I'd want to potty train because I'd be sick of changing diapers, but no. The real reason I want to potty train is because at least half the time, you still hate diaper changes, and you also love stripping your clothes and diaper off! Here's hoping potty training will improve the situation.)
• You still fit into pretty much everything. Smaller stuff I have to use a onesie extender, but you can still wear them otherwise. We're also still doing the dresses for shirts thing. I think the smallest you wear is about 6 months, and the biggest is 24 months/2T (but maybe actually just 18 month stuff).

Words
I stopped tracking your words because you learn new words daily now. You can repeat anything we say (though only the last word or two if we say a phrase or sentence), and it's the cutest thing! You've gotten really good at communicating what you want, and you're even pretty good about using either the word or tone of "please" when you want something. You mostly use single words to communicate, but you can string a few things together. The cutest one recently was when you and I were sharing a milkshake, and I was taking a sip and you said, "my turn!" It was soooo cute and just new for you to hook the words together like that! You're discovering (and using!) the words "my" and "mine" a lot more lately haha.


Milestones

• You can count to 10! When you want to . . . I actually think you've regressed a bit. You were doing so well, and now sometimes you'll say, "1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2" over and over 😂 We'll spend more time on that :) Granny B spent time teaching that to you while we were in Hawaii, so it was a fun trick to come home to!

• You've started saying prayers 😍 Daddy or I will lead you, and you'll repeat the last word or two of everything we say. It's the cutest thing!
• You pooped on the toilet one time! It was actually really lucky haha. You had stripped off your own jammies and diaper as you sometimes do, and I was just letting you walk around naked for a minute. I caught you looking like you were going to poop so I rushed you to the toilet and you did it! Now we talk about the potty all the time, but you're not all that interested in actually going, you just want to sit on the potty and use toilet paper and wash your hands haha :)
• You recognize a few letters, mostly "M." You always say "M!" when you see the word MILK on your bottle.
• You're eating off plates! And not throwing your food! And not spitting out water! And your meals are consequently much less messy now :)
• You got 4 new teeth in the last quarter -- your canines. That brings your total teeth count up to 16!
• You can get to literally anything now, and it's so frustrating haha. You learned that you can push the dining chairs around and then reach things on the countertops. I haven't mastered the skill of keeping nice, clean kitchen countertops yet (there are always some undone dishes and untouched mail and just random things that accumulate -- send help!), so it was getting really difficult to keep you from making my messes even messier. Sooooo we recently moved the chairs to the top of the table. It's super cute (not). 
• You sing the clean up song, and you help clean up! Sometimes you get distracted and start playing again, but you do pretty good ;)
• I don't feel like we've worked much on color at all, but you seem to know a few of them anyway! Mostly blue, pink, and purple.

Obsessions

• You still love singing -- now you have lots of favorites! "Wheels on the bus," "if you're happy and you know it," "the wise man built his house upon a rock," "head, shoulders, knees, and toes," "twinkle twinkle little star," and that's all I can think of :)
• You love playing or watching "Just Dance." You ask for it all the time! "Dance? Dance?!" 
• Aunt Rachel gave you a stroller for your first birthday, but I had to put it away for a while because you kept wanting to sit in it and that was breaking it. But I recently got it back out and now you mostly use it to push around your stuffed animals. You like this a lot.
• You also love buckles! In the cart, in the car seat, and on strollers. You're always trying to put them together :)
• You really like all stuffed animals, but especially your pink bunny and Little Love (your photo bear).
• You LOVE nursery! Every day you ask, "Church?" and on Sundays, when I tell you that we'll go to church after your nap, you always wake up asking for church first thing :)

Random Tidbits

• You do this super cute thing where you pinch food off books and screens to eat it. So like if there's a picture of an apple in a book, you'll pinch it off the page and pretend to eat it. You also hug "Cuddle Bear," a bear in a book we read to you. Every time we get to a certain page, you kind of hug the book! So cute :)
• You're a little more interested in family photo albums and this book of Jesus pictures that we have. You periodically grab one off the shelf to look at with me :)
• You have a special spot in your bedroom that you always want to sit or kneel at for family prayer. When it's time for prayer, we ask you, "Do you want to sit with mama or daddy, or do you want to sit in your spot?" And you always run off to your spot saying, "pot! pot!" haha :)

• You give such good hugs -- when you want to 😂 We call them "tight squeezies." You also know that the BEST way to get out of something is to say, "hug? hug?" I'm a total sucker for it.
• Sometimes we do family hugs at bedtime (we did them more often a month or two ago), and they're the cutest. You love to hug us both!
• You've learned the art of the fake cry, but so far you're not employing it too much. 
• You really truly love both me and daddy, but you have a strong preference for me sometimes. Daddy and I trade off holding you while we sing to you at bedtime, and I'd say at least 50% of the time that it's Daddy's turn, you're crying, "mama! mama!" and reaching for me. I realllllly want to just let you get your way (because I love the snuggles!), but I also want you to equally love me and Daddy. So we just keep trying, and I'd say things have gotten better lately. I'd definitely say this happens more if we're late getting you down for bed, aka you're overtired!
• Daddy and I went to Hawaii for a whole week and we left you home with Granny B. We had a lot of fun, and we missed you! Granny B said that you were great for her. We Facetimed with you one time while we were gone, and you looked so confused . . . haha I guess you're not used to us being on the other side of a Facetime call! Granny said she tried to keep you distracted/occupied most of the time we were gone, but on the last day she let you think about us and miss us. She gave you our FHE magnets that have our faces on them, and she said you kissed us. It was the sweetest story 😍 
• You take one nap every day starting around 12:45/1. Sometimes you nap til like 2:05, other times you nap til 3. And you sleep 11-12 hours/night. I never get you out of bed before 7, and even if you wake at 6, you wait contentedly for me 🙌
• We've still been doing a bottle of milk first thing in the morning and as part of your bedtime routine, but it's been my plan to stop when you turn 2, so we're down to 1-2 ounces of milk at each feed. I'll try to stop in the next week or two, and we'll see how you do! You still faithfully ask for milk at both those times (and also sometimes before or after your nap since that's a sleep time haha).

Love always,

Mama