Our Little WuBerry: 2.5 Years Old

Elodie is growing up so fast! She turned 2.5 years old in late October, and is generally a happy, curious kid, but I'm starting to see more of the "terrible twos" starting to kick in. She can talk really well now, and we can pretty much communicate with her about everything.

Physical stuff

We don't have another pediatrician checkup until she turns 3, but she weighs about 30 pounds and is around 36" tall.

Love her look of pure joy!

Eats pretty well, still generally prefers the same foods -- rice with meat or soup, my green beans with pancetta (the only veggies she will eat easily), yogurt, fruit, etc. Her newest snack obsession is ZBars (made by Clif Bars for kids).

Very active -- she's really good on her balance bike now (can push off and glide with her feet in the air), loves to climb up various climbing structures at the playground (very adventurous!), getting faster at running

Still sleeps well (around 8:30pm - 7:30 or 8am), with one nap in the afternoon (getting shorter... generally 1-1.5 hours).

However, she occasionally has night terrors. She will wake up in the middle of the night and be completely inconsolable for about 20 minutes -- crying, screaming, kicking. Nothing can comfort her, and if I hold her, she typically lashes out and hits me, etc. Then all of a sudden, a flip gets switched, and she immediately calms down and goes back to sleep. This seems to be a fairly common thing among kids, and there's not much we can do about it, but it was pretty terrifying the first time it happened to us!

Still hasn't had a haircut! I love the curls at the end of her hair, and hoping to avoid a haircut for as long as possible, but her hair is getting quite long now.

Other Developments

We can really communicate now. It's pretty rare when Eric nor I can understand what she's trying to say. Sure, she doesn't always talk super clearly, but at least I can translate her toddler English :). Plus, I think she has the sweetest/cutest little voice :). She is constantly talking out loud / whispering to herself if she's playing by herself, and I'm amazed at how much she can talk :).

Up until recently, I thought we might be one of the lucky parents that doesn't go through the terrible twos, but she has started becoming more whiney lately. She went through a phase (and still is like this sometimes) when she has a very strong preference to be with me (vs. Eric). She gets upset if I'm around and not paying attention to her (like when I'm cooking dinner), and she has also started saying stuff like "I don't like Baba. I only like Mama" much to Eric's dismay. :(

She's learning a lot from her preschool. She can write her name (usually) and recognize letters and knows what sound most of them make. The other day we were driving by the mall, and she read a big sign out loud, saying “S – A – L – E! That says school!” haha.

She negotiates a lot, usually with food. If I say something like “Okay we can have dessert after you take three more bites of your dinner,” she often responds with “No! Only one more bite!” or “Hmm, how about only two more bites?”

She's really good at drawing! Even her teacher is really impressed with her drawing skills, for her age. You can typically recognize what she draws (if she tells you what it is), and she comes up with some random/ creative drawings. The first picture below was the first one she drew in a new drawing notebook I bought for her back in October (less than 2.5 years old) and I was so proud!

Another picture she drew, this time copying the cat on the front of her book.

Likes

Sitting on Akong, typing on her "computer"

Typing - She started pretending to type on a black folder she found, which she called her computer ("I'm typing on my computer!"). Then, we let her start typing on a Word document on our real computers, and she loves to type her name, and the names of our family members and friends. If she's around when I'm working on my computer, I can bet she'll come up to me and ask "Can I type my name?? Please??" She is so excited that we can change the font to different colors haha.

Reading - She has always loved books, and she can sit quietly on her own and look at books for easily 30 minutes. She likes to makes up different stories based on the pictures and tells her stories out loud.

She also has a really good memory, and often wants to read a book back to me after I read it to her for the first time. Even after only hearing a new story once, she typically remembers (loosely) what was read on most pages!

Pretending to be mommy - She always pretends to be the mommy, and puts her stuffed animal "babies" to sleep. She tucks them in her bed, turns on the night light, closes the curtains, turns off the room light, then whispers "shhh, go to sleep!" and closes the door quietly. She also likes to have me pretend to be the baby and tells me to lay down and sleep and does the same "going to sleep" process. One time she told me as she was closing the door: "Shhh, go to sleep! And if you want mommy to come sleep next to you, you can just cry!" hahaha. Now I know how she thinks!

Watching videos - This is super common for toddlers, but she loves watching videos on our phones. If I need her quietly occupied (like when I'm trying to cook dinner on a busy weekday night), I've started letting her watch an episode of "Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood" (a PBS animated show, current-day version of "Mr. Roger's Neighborhood"). I try to have her watch this show because it teaches good lessons with catchy songs (e.g. "grown-ups come back", “use your words,” “it’s okay to feel sad sometimes”).

Mentioned above, but she loves to draw. When I pick her up from school, she's usually covered head to toe in chalk, because she's drawing outside with chalk. Then when we get home, she draws more on her whiteboard or in her notebook with markers.

I can't think of too much stuff that she DOESN'T like...

We will start potty training soon (been holding off until after the holidays / traveling), and she continues to absorb knowledge like a sponge, so I'm sure my next update will have a ton to report as well!

Some more photos: