you are my sunshine

Two years and one month old. Right now when she tastes something good and says in her deeeep, old Southern woman voice ' Behee-hee-LICIOUS'  I can't stand how cute it is. I mean she BELTS it out. It's ridiculous, illegal levels of cuteness. Two year olds are a boatload of work but man, they are cuter than puppies.

She talks a blue streak. As soon as we get in the car to take Lola to school every morning, she says ' John Jacob please. ' This is because John Jacob Jingleheimer Shmidt is her favorite song in the world, and I'm not kidding when I say that we listen to it about seven times a day- and that is only because I keep the CD of silly songs in the car, and not the house. I'm teaching her patience by working on taking turns. Everything is either my turn, Daddy's turn, Lola's turn or her turn. She's starting to be able to control her agitation at having to wait for what she wants. Man I relate.

She's still nursing a lot but I have been slowly cutting down, so that during the middle of the night I say ' tootsies are sleeping' and most of the time, she fusses half heartedly for a few seconds and zonks back out. She still nurses at waking, nurses at naptime, and often once at five pm, but I've been working on cutting that out- like today, she didn't- and then nurses herself to sleep. BUT when she puts her hands on my cheeks and says, almost crying because she wantt to nurse, ' Just a yittle bit Momma? ' then I say yes!!!! We have our days were it all backtracks and it feels like we start from 0 again. She hasn't been sick in about a year.  I give her baby probiotics five days a week, and she eats a lot of black beans, avocado, apple, banana, yogurt and noodles. She is eating peanut butter for the first time in the last two weeks, although she's always liked KIND bars.

She is an extrovert and has occasional bouts of shyness where she points to me and says ' That's Mommy ' but for the most part she says hello with a smile and waves at every person we see. Going out to run errands is like one long social visit for her. Today we met an older Mexican gentleman with turquoise earrings and a beautifully masculine old beaten leather Mexican cowboy hat, and thick dark but greying hair that curled down almost to his shoulders. Ever told him she liked his hat, and he touched it gently. ' This hat is very, very old sweetheart. '

She does most of the typical toddler things- leaves a trail of disaster wherever she goes, ( yesterday she found a pack of Trident and chewed and spit out most of it within a seven minute period before getting caught ) is loud when happy and sad, questions everything, has occasional tantrums. She is incredibly inquisitive, bright, funny and there is nothing sweeter than a little girl cupping your face when you're sad and saying ' You cry an? Tis OK, I love you. ' Well it is OK. It is OK because that's really all there is, when it comes down to it. The rest is caskets and confetti.