Peanut Butter & Jelly: Celebrating 2 years of Georgie

Our Georgie Girl turned 2 (last month, but I didn't get this out then, so I'm publishing it now, so just pretend like it's September again) and oh, what a sweet girl she is.

She talks. All day long. She listens, remembers, repeats, invents, associates, and surprises me everyday.

She moves. She runs, jumps, dances, leaps, climbs, and stops for only the briefest of snuggles.

She loves music and songs, and my greatest delight is when she sings. The songs are all in her head, but she's still figuring out how to get them out of her mouth.

She loves stories, and my other greatest delight is listening to her read them to herself, her baby doll, her baby sister, or at all.

She loves her little sister (mostly) and my other other greatest delight is seeing Georgie love "Baby Fwosie" with hugs, kisses, and shared toys and watching Rosie light up at the attention from her adored older sister.

Georgie loves bath time and going outside and coloring and being chased. More than anything or anyone else, she loves her special blanket.

She begs for candy and watching shows and playing on the phone/tablet/iPod. Thanks to her insistence, I have 101 Dalmatians, Frozen, the first forty minutes of Chicken Little, and Toy Story 1, 2, and 3 completely memorized.

She parrots everything she hears and sees, both good and bad. She very tenderly consoles her baby doll ("Ohhh, is okay Baby Doll!") and then pinches my arm when I take off the outlet covers. (I tried to teach her not to touch the outlets by pinching her arm to demonstrate what a shock would feel like. Wrong way to teach that lesson.)

Georgie is a sensitive spirit. She's very tuned in to emotions and gets concerned when other people are upset. It's very sweet. She's also very aware of other people (to an extent; I mean, she is only 2) and checks in a lot: "Mama okay?" "Daddy need food?" "Baby sad?"

She loves people and routinely goes down her list of family members, from grandparents to aunts and uncles to cousins to dogs.

She is still shy in new situations, with new people, or as of recently, just whenever anyone comes over, but it doesn't take long for her to warm up and start showing off.

She loves going to Nursery on Sundays. She loves playing with other kids. She also loves playing by herself. At home, she often loads up a bag/bucket/baby doll stroller with books and toys, says "Bye!", and goes to her room to play.

She has all her teeth, minus the back molars. Her hair is still very curly (see pictures below). She takes an afternoon nap (most) everyday, though sleeping is still an occasional challenge. Eating is still hit and miss. She's ready to potty train but I am not, so for now, we buy the diapers. She says prayers, recognizes all pictures of Jesus, and gets excited to point out temples anytime she sees one.

Georgie usually loves to help: vacuum, do laundry, put things in the trash, turn lights on and off (and on and off), get toys for Rosie.

She usually loves to test her boundaries: running across the parking lot instead of into the house; chewing up or ripping apart her books; coloring on the walls; dumping water out of the bathtub by the bucketful. On hard days, she gives new meaning to the phrase, "Hell hath no fury like a toddler. Period."

Our hardest days are the ones when she sleeps in too late and doesn't take a nap. Our second hardest days are the ones when she's hungry but won't eat what I have. Our third hardest days are generally Wednesdays.

Our best days are all the other days.

She is learning about happy choices and sad choices. She is learning how to play with Rosie. She is learning about consequences. She is perfecting how to stall at bedtime. She is learning how to ask for what she wants without crying so that I can help her. She is learning that her body is amazing and capable and strong. She knows that she is loved and adored and needed to make our family complete.

Happy birthday, Georgie Girl. What a beautiful, exhausting, fantastic, trying, delightful two years it's been. We can't wait for all the rest of the years to come.