Anna, Age 2 1/2

If I could use only one word to describe Anna at this age, it would be "independent."  If she can do it by herself (or if she thinks she can do it by herself), she will NOT allow anyone to help her.  She has to put on her shoes, take of her pajamas, climb into her car seat, wash her face, climb into bed---all without assistance.  If you do something for her that she wanted to do herself, a giant tantrum ensues.  And then she has to do it again herself.   Like one night, Derek put her in bed and she immediately started bawling because she wanted to do it herself.  Still crying, she then climbed OUT of bed, put both feet on the floor for one second, and then climbed right back in again.  Luckily, we have figured out how to work her independent streak to our advantage.  If we want her to stop dawdling (she's a queen at dawdling) and do something right away, all we have to say is, "Anna, do you want to do _______ by yourself or should mommy/daddy help you?"  And then we just move like we're going to help her and she immediately says, "No!  I do it myself!" and does it herself.  It (almost) always works like a charm.  There was one time when she took forever to get into her car seat, so I finally just put her in it, and she screamed "I want to do it myself!" the ENTIRE 20-minute car ride home. And once we got home (after sitting in time out until she calmed down) she had to go back out to the car and climb in the car seat by herself before she could move on with life.  I know this is just a stage most kids go through, but it still drives me CRAZY!

Anna continues to adore books.  She can "read" most of her favorites by herself these days.  I'm always amazed how well she can recite the words almost verbatim, especially the ones we bring home from the library and have only read half a dozen times.  She has an incredible memory. She will just be off playing and all of a sudden, I hear her quoting entire picture books to herself.  Her favorite books right now are definitely the Elephant and Piggie series by Mo Willems. (If you've never read them, you need to. They're hilarious...for kids and parents alike).

Anna also still loves to sing. She sings all the time to herself, but also frequently invites you to sing with her.  My favorite is when she sings the hymns in church.  She doesn't know most of the words, so she just sings jibber-jabber.  I'm always reminded of this clip from the Jim Carrey version of "The Grinch"...

Here's a cute video of Anna singing Twinkle Twinkle. She recorded it herself on my phone haha.

She also still loves to dance.  We have to skip all the slow songs that come up on Pandora until we get to what she calls a "dancing song."  :)  Her favorite song to dance to is Uptown Funk haha.  I know we've posted about a million videos of her dancing in front of the T.V., but this one might be my all-time favorite.  It's a little long, but SO hilarious!

We think the rolling on the floor must be her new interpretive dance moves.  No clue where she picked that up!

A big event for Anna was her second eye muscle surgery at the end of May.  Click here to read my entry about that.

Anna still doesn't sleep well consistently.  I'm not kidding when I say Paul is a better sleeper than his sister!  She often doesn't go to sleep until 10:30 and wakes up before 6:30.  She also doesn't like to take naps anymore.  Sometimes, she refuses to take a nap and then does this at dinner...

Anna is the best big sister.  Whenever Paul wakes up from a nap, she is the first one to hear him, and if I don't respond quickly enough, she is at his door calling, "Just a minute Paul!  Mommy's coming! It's ok, Paul!"  Then when I open the door to his room, she immediately climbs up his crib and looks over the rail to say hi to him. :) She always does silly things to make him laugh, brings him toys to play with, puts his binkie in his mouth when he's crying, and fetches his burp cloth when he spits up. She also loves to help change his diaper.  Weird, I know.  If I don't let her have a turn wiping his bum (after he's already clean of course), she will cry.  I tell her that one day, she's going to laugh at herself for crying over NOT getting to change a diaper haha.

"Anna, will you get Paul a toy?" (or ten?)

Making Paul laugh

Anna has never acted resentful or jealous of Paul, but lately, she's started crying  if we're doing something fun with Paul and not her.  One time, I was finishing giving her a bath and she could hear Derek singing a song with Paul, and she started bawling.  I assumed she was jealous that Paul was getting attention instead of her.  But then yesterday, I was playing pat-a-cake with Paul in the living room while she was eating graham crackers at the kitchen table.  She started crying and said, "I want to see my Paul!"  So apparently she isn't sad because Paul's getting attention instead of her but because she wants to see him laugh too.  Funny girl.

Anna loves to make-believe play.  She loves making food in her kitchen and comes up some pretty unique sandwich combinations (pickle, pancake, pineapple sandwich anyone??).  She also likes playing "doctor office" with her doctor kit and listening to all of our heartbeats. Oh, and she's really into pretending to be a puppy.  She crawls around on all fours and asks for a bowl of water on the floor almost every day.

Even doctors need naps haha

Anna has a few favorite toys.  At the moment, her blanket, her dolls, Sally and Rosie, and their two blankets, and her two monkeys, Monkey and Mr. Monkey, have to go with her everywhere.  She sleeps with them at night, then in the morning, she brings all of them downstairs to play.  Then at nap time, they all have to come back up the stairs to her bed before she'll go to sleep.

She wanted to take a picture with her monkeys

Monkey

Mr. Monkey

I think Anna's verbal skills are pretty advanced for her age.  She uses (mostly) full sentences and can say almost all the sounds, although she still struggles a bit with the hard c and "th" at the beginning of words.  But she does still say some words and phrases wrong, and it's super cute.  She pronounces "ketchup" as "chepit."  "Kitchen" is "chicken."  "Slippery" is "slipperly."  Some of my favorite phrases she says are "That's so tasty!" "It's my favorite, favorite!" "I'm so excited!" "Oh my goodness!"and "I fink so." Also, when she's doing something silly and you ask her what she's doing she stops, gives a sheepish grin, and replies, "I dunno."

She has also started saying the things we say to her back to us, which gets pretty hilarious.  For example, I'll be getting dressed or putting my shoes on, and she will cheer, "Good job, Mom!  You did it all by yourself!" Haha. She also frequently gives compliments like, "I like your shirt, Dad!" or "Love your hair, Mom!"  :)

Anna has really loved summertime because she loves being outside.  She helps me water the garden and pick vegetables every morning.  She goes out to jump on our neighbors' trampoline almost every day.  And she LOVES swimming.  We've had a lot of fun going to the splash pad and swimming pool this summer.

If you're still reading this (and not Anna's grandparents), I'm impressed!  Sorry, I can go on forever about my kids haha.

Even though she drives us bonkers sometimes with her little quirks and strong will, we adore our sweet, spunky Anna-girl and wouldn't change her for the world!