Brooklyn: 2 Years Old

I just looked back at my blog post about Brooklyn at 18 months, which was the last one I’ve done, and it’s really incredible to think about how much she has changed since then. I thought she was a big girl then, but looking at her now, she has learned so much in the last 6 months. It’s crazy!

Brooklyn is weighing in at 26.7 lbs (50th percentile) and is 34.75 inches long (75th percentile). She still has that baby belly (which is super cute!), but is otherwise pretty long and lean. Her hair has grown a lot lately, and I am finally able to pull it back into pigtails :) It looks like a big frizzball when it’s not fixed, but it looks really cute when I actually do something with her curls. She will even wear hair bows sometimes now—she used to ALWAYS pull them out immediately. She is wearing size 5.5 to 6 shoes and mostly 24 month/2T clothes right now. A lot of her 2T pants are perfect in length but too big around the waist. Are there such things as belts for toddlers? If so, she definitely could use one! :) Brooklyn now has 16 teeth (if I’m counting correctly). I think the only ones she is missing are her 2 year molars. Maybe those will come in soon so that we’ll have a TINY break before her little sis starts getting teeth…haha.

Personality-wise, how do I start to describe her? Brooklyn can be a little shy around people she doesn’t know, but it doesn’t usually take long at all before she’s acting like their best friend. Around those she knows, there is no shyness present! She loves people and loves to entertain. Making Daddy laugh is always a fun activity. It seems like she gets so much energy from being social; I guess that makes her an extrovert. She definitely didn’t get that from me, and Travis doesn’t really consider himself an extrovert either. Who knows!

She is also a risk-taker and likes to test the limits. It would not shock me one bit to walk into the living room one day and see her jumping off the couch onto the floor. We have worked really hard with her over the last 6 months on following the rules and respecting what we tell her to do or not to do. It’s a work in progress! I do think she has gotten a lot better lately though. She still likes to do things her own way and when she is feeling particularly feisty, she will just flat out refuse to do what we ask. But, she can also be very tenderhearted and will sometimes get upset at me raising my voice at her. It doesn’t always take a spanking! She has her feisty moments (I still catch her trying to kick Gabby, our cat), but she also can be super sweet and loves to give hugs and kisses. She isn’t too much of a cuddler (I think she has too much energy to sit still for that long!), but she does enjoy getting her back rubbed. She also loves to be tickled; in fact, she ASKS to be tickled…haha.

She has SO much energy, and I feel like she runs, hops, jumps, dances, and gallops around the house more often than she walks. Her attention span may be a little bit longer now than it was a few months ago, but she still bounces from toy to toy all day long, never playing with any one thing for more than a few minutes. By the end of the day, the house always looks like a wreck because she has dragged every toy out and hardly played with any of them. I love letting her play in the backyard because she can run til her heart’s content and not make a mess; unfortunately, it’s been too cold lately to do that very often. But, she does love to play outside! I’m looking forward to warmer weather this spring for sure :)

This girl is such a talker! There would be no way for me to list every single word she knows at this point; there are just way too many. We can understand a lot of what she says, but she is saying new words almost every day, so sometimes we can’t quite figure out some of her new vocab. She is not only saying words, but she is speaking mostly in phrases and short sentences at this point. A lot of the sentences she says are direct quotes from Daddy or me—it’s hilarious to hear her say things like “Be careful!” or “There you are!” Some other examples of things she says are:

“Tickle Daddy!” – means “Daddy, will you tickle me?”

“Up on Mommy” – means “I want to get in your lap, Mommy”

“Mommy, floor!” (while pointing vigorously at the floor) – means “Mommy, sit on the floor.”

“Tank you Mommy milk” – means “Thank you, Mommy, for the milk.”

I could go on and on with more phrases and sentences, but it would take all day. Basically, we are just amazed at how much she is talking. It’s so neat! We have been working a lot on teaching her to say “please” and “thank you” lately, and she’s doing pretty well with that. She will also tell us “I love you”, but mainly when we prompt her to say it :) She also LOVES to sing. I sing to her a lot at home, and I think that’s part of the reason she sings so much. She knows a lot of the songs from Bible class, several songs from her music class, and other songs like the ABCs. We love to sing together! My favorite thing that she sings right now is “Jesus Loves Me”…her version is “Yes, Jesush loves YOUUUU!” It’s adorable :)

As far as sleeping, she is CURRENTLY sleeping through the night, although we never know when that will change. Her bedtime is typically around 8 PM, and she usually wakes up between 6:15 and 7 AM. Too early!! But, I’m afraid it’s genetic, and I have to take credit for that. I’ve always been a pretty early riser :) BUT, it would still be nice to have the OPTION of sleeping a little later. Oh well…maybe one day!! She usually takes one nap per day in the afternoon, usually around 1.5 to 2 hours…but sometimes we get lucky and they are a little longer! She has also had a couple of days recently where she only napped 20 or 30 minutes in the car all day and refused to nap in her crib when we got home. Those weren’t very fun days. We are planning to move her to a “big girl bed” ASAP when we get her new room ready, so hopefully that will be a smooth transition. I’m dreading it and ready to get it over with at the same time.

Brooklyn has apparently inherited both Travis’s and my tastes for food. She got her sweet tooth from me, but she also LOVES popcorn, pickles, beef jerky (she calls it “turkey”), and olives like her daddy does. She is a pretty good eater overall! She loves fruit and eats several different veggies too. She is still not eating much meat (other than beef jerky–so weird!), but occasionally she will eat stuff like meatloaf or spaghetti sauce with meat in it. Last night, she even ate a few bites of a chicken nugget dipped in ketchup! I guess that’s progress :) I also recently discovered that she does much better eating her sandwich if I DON’T cut it up in bites first. Sniff sniff…she’s growing up!

Brooklyn is still very much a mommy’s girl, which can be frustrating or endearing depending on the situation. I’m not sure why I’m the chosen one, but it means that when Mommy is around, Brooklyn wants me to do everything for her. If I am home, she doesn’t want Travis to hold her, get up with her and fix her breakfast in the mornings, read her a book, whatever. Now if I’m not home, she is perfectly fine with Daddy…it’s only when we’re both with her that she loses her mind if I’M not paying her enough attention. Most of the time, it’s not too big of a deal, but it would be nice for just ONE Saturday morning to be the parent who gets to sleep late ;)

Brooklyn is learning so much every week. She can sing her ABCs pretty much all the way through. (A few of the letters are garbled, but you can make out most of them.) She can count to 10 (with a couple of numbers missing sometimes). She knows some of her colors, although depending on the day, she may get them wrong. She usually knows blue and red, but gets yellow and orange mixed up a lot of times. She is great at identifying animals (especially farm animals) and can mimic pretty much all of their sounds.

What I am most proud of, though, is how much she enjoys looking at her Bible and listening to Bible stories. We had to buy her a new Bible for her birthday because her old one is SO worn. It’s gotten a lot of love (and some abuse too), but she looks at it every day on her own, and we also read a story with her before bedtime. Her favorite pages in her Bible are the story of God calling Samuel while he was asleep and Jesus doing a “fishy mircle” when he caused the disciples to catch so many fish that their net was overflowing. She looks at those stories every day. She can also name several other people in the Bible when she sees their pictures (Noah, Jeremiah (“Miah”), Naaman, Saul, Absalom, Mary, Jesus, David, Goliath, etc.).  I hope she will always love Bible stories as much as she does now. She has also recently started saying her own prayers in the past few weeks. Mostly, her prayers consist of “thank you (for) _________”, and she is thankful for everything from “sister” to balloons to food. It’s very sweet!

Besides reading, she also has a few favorite TV shows and a favorite movie. Her favorite movie right now is Finding Nemo. She would probably watch it every day if we let her! Her favorite TV shows are Doc McStuffins (“Dockins”) and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. She also begs to watch videos of herself (“bideo Book-ryn”) multiple times a day. I am trying my best to limit the amount of screen time she has, but she usually ends up watching at least one or two shows a day. I don’t want it to develop into a bad habit though!

Overall, she has definitely transitioned into toddlerhood. She’s not a baby anymore…that’s for sure. She wants to do everything that she sees us do. If I am putting on makeup, she asks to put some on too (which usually means I’ll let her play with my blush brush.) If I’m flossing my teeth, she asks for a piece of floss to use on her teeth. She loves to grab my feather duster from under the sink and “dust” the house for me. She wants to do all the things that big people do, and she will sometimes get frustrated if she can’t do something she wants to do. It has been so cool to see her grow and change over the last 6 months. Here’s to many more! We love you, Brooklyn Reese!! :)