An Ode to Two

Alyssa is two! That means a lot. It means two years have passed since she was born. Two years have passed since I graduate from college. Two years have passed sitting on the floor for at least an hour a day. It means that there is only 8 months left of graduate school life, if all goes as planned. It means that my 2 and a half years in Delaware is slowly coming to a close.

But back to Alyssa.

She is 2 feet, 10 inches tall. She weighs 29 pounds. She is highly active and doing more and more each day! We eat our lunches outside on occasion and go for walks around the complex on a daily basis. Spring weather is my new life saver with this rambunctious two year old. We are outside a lot and both of us find it quite refreshing.

For Alyssa's birthday we had a small cake surrounded by kiwis. Alyssa cut the cake for us and then ate all the kiwis. She preferred them over cake!

I really liked Alyssa as an infant. Who doesn't like an infant? They are so small and they smell so delicious. She was great as a one year old! She started walking and I thought life was just grand. But I have to say, despite the dreaded terrible twos, I am really really in love with Alyssa as a two year old. We have our moments. There are tantrums and time outs and crying on both our parts. I am not always the nicest mommy and Alyssa is not always the tamest child, but being two rocks!

Being two is bringing with it words and sentences. I am telling her things and she is repeating them back to me. My favorite morning in April was when I found her in the bathroom sink while Erik was cutting her hair. She was saying "O, crap! O, crap! Haircut!" Now, her selection of words, you may think was not the most clean and wholesome. But it was still pretty funny and cute. And it really hit me how much she is listening and understanding and trying to be like me. And that makes me want to be better...and cut a few words out of my vocabulary.

Being two means that she can request the primary song she wants me to sing. The last two times it has been the "temple" song. Mmmm this makes me happy because that happens to be my favorite primary song, too.

Being two means that she is playing and talking and laughing. We were on a walk yesterday and she was a little bit behind me with her baby. I could tell she was saying something so I started listing. "Hand in. Shake." "Hand in. Shake." Do you know what she was doing? The hokey pokey! So we did the hokey pokey the rest of the way home. Whenever we say elephant she puts her arm up to her noise and moves it like a trunk. She cooks pancakes with Daddy and now she has her own kitchen for her delightful enjoyment. We eat a lot of potato chips in her kitchen.

Being two means learning stories. We learned about Ammon and the sheep and that was a riot. And the great thing is when she finds Ammon sitting on the ground (I cut him out of the Friend) she picks him up and says "Ammon" and then attacks you...as if to cut off your arm.

When you think of having a baby, you might only think of the little squishy infant. And it seems exciting and challenging. But then they start to grow up and they become little people and even though the little people are even more challenging and might not seem quite as cute and squishy, they are definitely more fun. The minutes go faster and you grow together and have a blast!

I'm lovin' the twos in all their terrible glory!