Samantha at age 2

Our baby girl is now a precocious 2 year old and we are still having as much fun watching her grow as we did on November 27th, 2009. These are some details that we don't want to forget about what she is doing right now...

Language: She is picking up new words and phrases everyday. She is like her Momma in that she likes to know what is going on, "Where Poppy go?" and she just loves giving Henry instructions. "Henry, no" and "Henry, one" are very commonly heard phrases in our house right now. She will often accentuate what she is saying with a single index finger pointed in the air. THAT she gets from her Poppy! She often answers her own questions with the response that she wants to hear, "Mommy cookie? Yes?"

Activities: She loves to take care of her "babies" and will line up many dolls to be put to sleep and also loves to feed them in her high chair. She also loves crafts including coloring, Play Doh, gluing pom-poms to paper and of course, stickers. She is very physical and loves to dance, wrestle and RUN. It is not infrequent that she tears through the house yelling, "I am running!"

Samantha is a closer. By that I mean she cannot walk by a door that is halfway open and not shut it. She also loves to play in cabinets. We have to remind her daily not to play with doors especially when Henry is around. She almost took off the ends of Henry's fingers at my parents' house with a door that has metal weather stripping on the bottom. Could have been a major ouch!

She is very brave on the playground and often heads for the big slides first. Her new interest is climbing the play rock walls and ladders which she does pretty darn well at for her age. She still loves to swing and asks to go "really, really high." She is very social and is always asking to play with booooysssss (aka other kids).

Eating: For the most part she eats pretty well and her Poppy can get her to eat all sorts of green things which she won't do on her own. She does great with fruits and her favorites are blueberries, strawberries, pomegranate seeds and melon. She does pretty well with meat but often runs hot and cold on an item within 24 hours. With the exception of hot dogs! The girl will eat them as often as she can and has asked for them at breakfast. She LOVES anything sweet (Momma) but loves salty too (Poppy). She also loves ketchup (a la Paris Colgan) and I have observed her dipping raspberries and pomegranate seeds into ketchup. Yech! She still drinks her pre-sleep milk in less than a minute.

Sleep: Samantha still loves to nap twice a day and usually sleeps for about an hour in the am and 1.5-2 hours in the afternoon. She usually goes to bed around 8:00-8:30 and you can set your watch by her wake up at 7:00am.

Behavior: We think she does pretty well for a 2 year old but tantrums are not uncommon. She does a great job saying please and thank you without being prompted. She loves to give kisses and hugs before bed and we just started giving eskimo kisses and they are a bit dangerous. She can't stop laughing during her kiss and often clocks you in the head.