So much to catch up on!

Since I joined Facebook, I've been very neglegent about posting on our blog. It's been almost a year since my last post. Farah is now 2 1/2 years old, and we're expecting our second baby in the beginning of April. Farah is so excited to be a big sister, and she is convinced that we're having a baby girl. She says she will rock her, change her, feed her, teach her etc. Hopefully she won't be too much of a little mommy!

As far as Farah's developments in the last several months, she potty trained before she hit her second birthday. She was in panties around 21 months and virtually accident free by her second birthday. She continues to do very well with it, but she does have to wear a pull up to sleep. She knew all of her colors by around 18 months, and knew her alphabet soon afterwards. At this point she can sing the abcs, count to about 11 or 12, and she knows about 8 shapes. She is still very verbal and cracks us up with her imagination and humor. She went through a phase where "poop" was the best word in the world. If you asked her what she wanted to eat, she replied with, "poop!" If you asked her what she did at Trisha's house, you got "poop" in response. She got a little too carried away with it though, and the word now has to be reserved for bathrooms only. She has replaced it by blowing "zoober" like noises with her mouth when she wants to be silly. Her newest made up silly word is "cricker" (it used to be "oot.") When she's feeling silly, she calls us "little crickers." Tonight, after prayers, Farah said, "Amen, cricker God."

Farah also developed an absolute obsession with "Finding Nemo." It was all she wanted to watch, read or play in the tub. Heath sort of fixed the problem; he went out and bought three more Pixar movies! I, as usual, don't want her to watch much TV. Now if I could just get Heath and Farah on board with my plan. Her favorite activities (outside of movie watching) include diapering her baby dolls (preferably with real diaper cream), putting them and everything else in the house to bed, reading stories to her "friends" (dolls and stuffed animals), packing bags for "trips", and pretending to cook, but only if she can use real pots and real ingredients. She does also like to write notes, mainly birthday cards, color and use stickers and do sticker books. She will do some puzzles, she's not a big fan of building blocks, and pretty much has zero interest in anything related to a ball or sports. She does however really love horses and horseback riding. She hasn't done a lot of it, but she is always very excited to get on and doesn't want to get off. She also loves jumping on inflatables, she calls ball pits, "bit balls." Some other cute misnomers in the last year have included, "motorbicycles," "tapiyoyo" pudding, "peejew" (instead of pee eww), and "high tray" for high chair, to name a few. My favorite mistake has to be when she has any type of an accident, she'll tell me not to worry because it was an "accident happens."

Her temperament has really improved as she neared two years old. She was a very fussy, temperamental, and basically melodramatic one year old. She definitely still has her moments, but she's more even tempered these days, and gets along better with other kids. Hopefully this will hold true for how she handles her baby sister (or brother).

It's a New Year

Well, Christmas is over and the New Year is here. Between my mom's car accident and the two feet of snow we receivd the week before Christmas, it was decided that it would be best for Christmas to be held at our house. I now understand why adults are always so frantic around the holidays. I never got that as a kid, Christmas was so much fun, and I could never figure out how anyone could dread the holidays. Not that I dread Christmas, but I totally get the stress after hosting a holiday at my house and having the responsibility of making "Christmas magic" for my own child. I think it all went well, and Farah certainly had a blast, which made it all worth while. She really enjoyed her older cousin, Christian, and she got the idea that the gifts were for her this year. Her favorite gifts were her potty and her doll baby accessories, such as her high chair, cradle, and probably the biggest hit of all, the doll baby stroller.

I loved having a full two weeks home to enjoy Farah and to see her develop. By about 17-18 months she started putting together simple sentences, mostly just repeating things she heard. I think her first full sentence came at daycare, she repeated a child there by saying to her sitter, "Joyce, I'm done, " which shocked everyone! But over Christmas break she really started putting together more and more original complete sentences, such as "daddy, I want up, "which she said after I had told her no of course:) She is a total chatter box now, and continues to amaze us with her vocabulary and her ability to put her thoughts into words. It's so fun to watch her make connections and to recall things she experienced weeks or even months before. Over break we had some particuarly windy days, which makes our dog, Josie, shake like crazy. Farah figured out that the wind was making her shake, and she would say, "wind...Jo Jo shake," and you could see the thought that she put into that statement. She then transfered that to something that scared her and started saying, "I shake," whenever anything scarey happened. Yesterday, a fire truck went by us on the road with its sirens blaring and Farah responded with, "that make JoJo shake." She is also doing really well with the potty. If her bottoms are off, she always uses the potty. She even started pooping on the potty this week. But if her diaper is on, she usually just goes in that and then asks to be changed. I'm not sure when she will ask to use the potty when she's fully dressed, but this feels like good progress for her only being 20 months old. I would be estactic to have her out of diapers by her second birthday! The other major milestone we hit was to limit the use of her pacifier and milk. She definitely has an obsessive nature, and she was getting to the point where she asked for her "b" or her "milk" constantly. It got so bad I actually went on a parenting chatroom and (anonymously) posted a question about when/how to limit the use of pacifiers and the like. I got a mixed bag of answers, but the most straightforward answer was to just do it, so I did, and we survived! It was actually much, much easier than I anticipated. I think it helped that we made the changes at an age where Farah can actually understand what we're telling her. She knows that she can have her pacifier in the crib and in the car, which works out wonderfully, because now she actually really likes being in those two places! She has to have her milk in her high chair, and she still cries for her milk, but not as often. Now she says, "high chair milk." And it certainly has helped to reduce all of those little milk spots on our floors and furniture:)