Lena: 2 Years Old!

I hate writing these entries because I feel like my limited writing ability can't possibly capture Lena's personality and character. But I'll hate myself even more if I never do it, so here goes . . .

Lena is 2 years old today. She is hilarious and naughty and sweet and quirky.

The Stats

• She has most of her teeth. Still waiting on all 4 eye teeth and at least one more set of molars. 
  
• She's still tiny. She has a doctor's appointment at the beginning of February, but my best estimate is that she's around 25 lbs. She is just starting to grow out of her 18 month shirts. But 2T pants are huge on her (way too long).

The Fun Stuff

• She can count perfectly to 11.
• She sings the alphabet (loudly and often).
• She can identify heart and star but doesn't know any other shapes.
• I wrote in Lucy's 26 month update that she was starting to identify letters?! I've never even tried to work on letters with Lena. She definitely can't identify any of them. Haha.
• She loves to sing. She knows Let it Go, Do You Want to Build a Snowman, Jesus Loves Me, Wheels on the Bus, Twinkle Twinkle, Let it Shine (This Little Light of Mine), Laurie Berkner's Fishy Song, Head Shoulders Knees and Toes, and more.
• She talks non-stop. She carries on conversations, tells stories, and can say pretty much anything she wants to. For the most part she speaks pretty clearly, but there are definitely a few words she says her own special way. She calls Lucy "Oo-eez." It is adorable and I don't even want her to say it correctly. She says "huh" for yes. (Short for uh-huh I think. Haha.) 
• She is very attached to her lovies. We call them "Ellies" because the original one (that was Lucy's) is an elephant. But Lena added a bunny as well. She calls the bunny "other one Ellie." She also has to have her baby and puppy. Those 4 things go everywhere with her and must be present at bedtime. I have to sneakily wash them every once in a while because they get so filthy. 
• And she's still quite obsessed with the binky. She's been doing better with only having it at bedtime or in the car, but she still cries every time I put it away. 
• I wrote in her 18 month update that she wasn't interested in TV. My how things have changed. Haha. She loves TV and has figured out how to work the PBS Video App on my phone. Anytime she gets her hands on it, she immediately starts looking up Elmo or Daniel Tiger or Caillou (her three faves). She also really loves Pingu - which is some strange Swiss show on Netflix. 

  

  She's actually using my Kindle in this picture. She's a pro at that too.

• She's starting to love reading. She's still picky about what she'll read, gravitating toward lift the flap books or books with baby faces or TV characters, but she's slowly broadening her horizons. I got her a book about potty training at the library that she is obsessed with. She listens so intently when I read it, and always wants to read it multiple times in a row. I usually end up saying, "Why don't you read it to me?" She'll flip through it saying, "Girl wear diapers. Eena [Lena] wear diapers! Girl play toys. Eena play toys! Girl go potty and poop in potty chair. Put in toilet. Flush. Big girl! Wear big girl undies! Take undies down. Go potty. Uh oh. Go potty on pants. Floor gets wet." Haha. Maybe that doesn't mean as much if you haven't read the book yourself, but it's a pretty good gist!
• Speaking of potty training, she opened her new Elmo potty chair this morning. She loves that it's little and makes noise when you press the button and loves to talk about how she has a potty chair, but she is not interested in using it. We're going to take it easy for a couple weeks and just try it out before and after bed, before the bath, etc. I've been making her sit on it for 10 seconds at a time. After a while I'll start to get more serious. I think she's ready. She's very verbal. She tells me before she poops that she's going and then immediately asks me to change her. She occasionally wakes up from her nap dry and I've noticed her diaper is much less soaked overnight lately. She loves the concept of wearing Elmo undies, etc. We'll give it a try, but back off if it goes horribly. Lucy was more like 2.5 before she was trained, but she was way less verbal. 
• She's become a pretty picky eater. Her favorites are mac n' cheese, cheese roll ups, and pizza. She strangely loves beans (like in chili - not green beans). She loves most fruit, but will not eat vegetables. She's obsessed with dipping things in ranch or ketchup and I constantly have to yell at her to "take a bite! Don't just suck off the ranch!" She's also obsessed with pop. My bad. I don't ever give it to her in a sippy cup or anything (unless it's not caffeinated and is a special occasion), but she is relentless about drinking mine if she ever sees me with it. 
• She still has a bottle of warm whole milk every morning, but I'm going to cut that off starting Monday. She doesn't drink milk any other time of the day and refuses to drink it out a sippy cup, so we'll see how well that goes . . .
• She is a ridiculously early riser. I do not understand the kid. Lucy always slept in until at least 8. Lena is up before 6 every single day. I've pushed her bedtime back to 8:30 at night in an effort to make her sleep longer with no luck. She has one 2-3 hour nap during the day, so it's not like she sleeps a ton during the day. I refuse to get her out of bed before 6:00. So on the days she wakes up at 5:30 or 5:45 I either go upstairs and lay her back down, or I ignore her. Once in a great while, she'll fall back to sleep until 6:30 or so, but usually she just continues to scream for me until I can't take it anymore. Haha. I'm reeeeeallllly hoping she grows out of that. Lucy sleeps 'til 8:30 or 9 these days. How wonderful would it be if they both slept that long?!
• She's so much more fearless than Lucy ever was. She climbs on everything, gets into everything, and is mischievous and sneaky. I can't take my eye off her for a minute. One day she colored a huge section of Lucy's wall with a variety of different colored pencils. Another day, I heard noise in the kitchen and saw she had pushed her stool up to the counter and was digging into the butter dish. I regularly find her on top of tables. It's a fight every single night to keep her in her high chair during dinner. She and Lucy have really started to fight over things and annoy each other. Lena loves to be destructive and knock down Lucy's lego creations or dump out buckets of toys or throw her food off the table. And she does not like to clean up. Yesterday she dumped out an entire bucket of Legos. I told her to clean them up and she shouted emphatically, "No!" We spend a lot of time cleaning up together and talking about "obeying and talking nice to Mommy." Haha.
  
• But for all her obstinance, she can also be so sweet. She's a major snuggler. She will often climb on me lap and hug me or lay her head down on my shoulder. Sometimes she can be very helpful. She sings, "Clean up, clean up, errybody errywhere!" and says "Me helping, Mommy!" She adores Lucy and loves to play with her. She often says to her, "Ooo-eez, go upstairs? Play toys?" and they take off together up the stairs. She calls her "sister" sometimes which melts my heart. 
• She adores my mom and follows her around like a puppy dog. 
• She wants to be held all the time and spends a fair amount of time clinging to my ankles crying, "Up please!"
• She loves Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. :-)
• She is a total goof. She does this funny "Grandpa walk" kind of hunched over like my dad after he's been sitting in his chair too long. Haha. She makes this face multiple times a day and insists, "Picture!"
  
• She's also quite adept at snapchat and takes many forehead selfies:
  
• She loooooves babies, both imaginary and real:

  

  With baby Ryder

• She loves to play pretend. Her favorite is playing with the babies, rocking them, singing to them, feeding them bottles and giving them baths. But she also loves to play kitchen: 

  

  Safety first! She always wears her oven mitt when putting cookies in the oven. :-)

I'm sure you're getting the point that she is wonderful and hilarious and amazing and I could go on and on forever about her. We're so proud of her and love watching her grow. Our prayer is that she grows up to love Jesus and her family and that she and Lucy will always be best friends. Happy 2nd birthday, Leany Bean!! We love you!