23 Months

Recently I've been having a hard time grasping the fact that my first baby is almost a 2-year-old. But sure enough, she's growing up. Every day holds something new. She says something new. Does something new. Learns something new.


"Patty cake, patty cake bakers man. Roll it. Pat it. C! Oven for Chloë!"

She sings constantly. (I can't imagine where she gets it.) Unless we ask her to, and then she gets all cute and embarrassed and won't do it. She's always singing or humming some cute little song, usually something she made up.

A couple of weeks ago, we were home, just going about our evening, when she suddenly stopped what she was doing. She started making a face. That face. On a whim, I asked her if she wanted to make poo poos in the toilet. She got really excited about the suggestion, and was the happiest little girl in the whole world that night. We really aren't ready to potty train her quite yet. We have a trip in a few weeks that includes new places and airplanes, and I'd rather not complicate things by having a toddler who is partially potty trained. But it's good to know that when we are ready to potty train, she won't be afraid of the toilet.

Here's one of her great faces. It's her attempt at the "I'm Chubby" face.

And this is her space face.

And then this face was just today. Mimi had the camera and said "smile!" and this is what we got:


Last week I went to the mall with the girls. We met up with Betsy and her kids, and we all splurged at Starbucks Happy Hour. Frappuccinos were 1/2 price, so I figured I'd introduce Chloë to the wonderful world of frozen coffee beverage. Of course I ordered hers without the actual coffee, so it was basically a chocolate smoothie. She eagerly consumed half of it, and then gradually sipped on it as it melted into liquid. At one point I looked down to see some of the beverage was on her hands. And then I saw that her cup was empty. Oh no. She had dumped the last half of her beverage on to her lap, and was happily sitting in a 2 inch puddle of melted frappuccino. She made quite a mess, and didn't seem at all phased by being covered in frappuccino.

Our church had their annual Easter Fest a couple of weeks ago, and Chloë was old enough to enjoy all of the fun; face painting and dancing, among other things.




It was so much fun watching her watch the dancing. We kept asking her if she was ready to come home (since it was nearing bedtime), but she kept insisting on staying to watch more. I think we might have to put her in ballet lessons in a couple more years.

She's always been curious about what goes on when I'm nursing Elaina. I guess she finally figured it all out and decided her bunny sock monkey was hungry.


Now that it's May, we've finally had some nice warm days, and Chloë is thrilled that she gets to spend so much time outside. Today she got completely drenched while I was watering our just-sprouted grass. She kept running in front of the spray of water, giggling and shrieking with joy.

A couple of days ago, helping Papa with a project.


Playing with Louella, who now lives much closer than Seattle for the summer. Hurray!

She would play outside all day long if I let her. Even though our back yard is totally fenced, I'm really not quite comfortable just letting her run around without supervision back there. Soon though.

Since we've been outside so much lately, there have been lots of little bumps and bruises and scrapes. She's funny about scrapes. She doesn't like band-aids, but she's quite distraught at the sight of her "wound," as we've come to call them. Of course she usually has one knee or the other scraped up, and as long as she doesn't see it, she usually forgets about it. But if she notices it, she can get quite upset about it. The thing that helps the most is to tell her to be "tough like Samuel." And she nods and agrees and usually cheers right up.

She is quite the emotional child. Happy and cheerful most of the time. But fussy and whiny at other times, especially if her nap wasn't long enough. Last week, I randomly made up a little song when we were putting her to bed. She calls it "go sleep Chloë." It's a simple little tune that has now become part of our naptime and bedtime routines. "It's time to go to sleep, now Chloë. It's time to close your eyes, and sleep. Mama loves you very much. Daddy loves you very much. Jesus loves you very much. And now it's time to sleep. It's time to go to sleep, now Chloë. It's time to close your eyes, and sleep."

She seems to love all living things. Since we've been outside a lot lately, she's become quite familiar with various bugs and critters, and loves seeing squirrels and neighbor's cats out and about. We stopped to see the grizzly bears over in Pullman, and she thought that was pretty great.


She's such a sweet spirited girl, and so good with her little sister.