Amanda at Just-Over-2
Since we haven't given an update on Amanda in awhile, we thought her birthday would be a good opportunity (OK, so we're a little late). Who is Amanda at 2?
- She can count up to about 13, but usually starts at 3 unless prompted, and often skips 6 (five, memen...).
- She knows her alphabet, and can sing the alphabet song ("ABCs", as she calls it) pretty much on her own.
- Speaking of singing, she sings all the time! She knows several songs - Twinkle Twinkle, Baa Baa Black Sheep, Baby Beluga, Muffin Man, and lots of others. She will often sing a whole song completely on her own. She's not always totally on pitch, but she does get the basic idea and she has a really pretty voice.
- She also knows the difference between pitches that are "high" and "low". She loves to sit at the piano and hit high notes, saying "high high high" (in a high squeaky voice), then the low notes ("low low low", in a deep voice). Very cute!
- She knows tons of musical instruments - even less common ones, like harp and French horn. If she's listening to music on the radio, she will quite often tell us if she hears a trumpet, trombone, piano, or guitar. As she says the words, she mimes like she's playing the instrument.
- Her hair is still curly, especially in this hot weather!
- She talks like crazy...pretty much all the time. We're at that weird stage where we can understand most of it, but it's unintelligible to other people, so they just think we're pretending she's talking.
- She's getting a bit pickier in the food department, but she's still a pretty good eater. She seems to especially love chicken.
- She moved into her big girl bed just after her birthday, and she loves it. She gets excited every time she goes in her room and sees her "own bed". She's been sleeping well, but last night we experienced our first night terror - not fun! We're hoping it will be a short phase.
- She loves going to Nancy's house and hanging out with her friends.
- Although we wanted to hold off on attempting potty training until the summer (when Jeff will be off with her), she's been very interested and so we've been introducing it slowly. In the next few weeks we'll make a real attempt and see how that goes. The downside: now she likes to make a big deal out of it when WE use the potty successfully! :)
- And combining those last two items...one of her favourite songs to sing on the potty is Patty Cake, and we have to bake cakes for every one of her daycare friends before she'll let us stop. Sometimes we even get to bake cakes for Mommy and Daddy too!
- She gets more beautiful, and funnier, and more girl than baby, every single day. We are having a blast with her and can't imagine life without her.
