2.5 Years with C

We have a full-blown 2.5 year old. Really, we have for a couple months, but if I told you my disciplining-myself-to-organize-kid-pictures story, I’d bore you to tears. So just assume that now my pictures are organized and I finally dropped them into this post about my little toddler best friend. She’s so freaking cool and fun.

C is the busiest, most physically-capable 2.5-year old I can imagine. She has tiny-athlete levels of muscle and is always moving and finding new ways to work out. She recently discovered she can climb over our couch and up the bannister of our entryway stairs, which is not technically allowed, but still definitely happens. Even when we’re resting around the house, if she isn’t asleep, C is usually climbing all over me and Jack or the furniture or looking for something to kick or balance on. She’s usually mistaken for being about 4, and her best physical matches are usually 3-5 year old boys. She loves engaging them in chase and roughhousing games. When we chase her, we’re astounded at how fast she really is. Combine that with her agility and she’s legitimately hard to catch. She’ll randomly decide to run a mile immediately after dinner, and that’s that. Our girl has so much energy.

She loves books, cooking, painting, and anything to do with dinosaurs or princesses. Everywhere she goes, she walks with the confidence of owning the place. She will one day benefit from organized sports, but doesn’t have much patience for direction right now. If she sees a group of kids doing an activity, she tends to head the other way. Playing with other kids? Great. Being told what to do? Absolutely not.

For a long time, in contrast to her physical prowess, C didn’t talk much. When people told me their kids had a massive language explosion around 18 months, I’d get a little nervous that that’s really about when C was starting to talk at all. But she always understood us and could communicate effectively enough, so we opted not to get her evaluated for any sort of early intervention.

Well, that instinct was right. C has talked more and more over the last year or so. And then in April, Jack was gone for a couple weeks on a work trip. One of the first days he was gone, my dad was hanging out with us and commented that he was surprised I could interpret C’s words so well, because he really couldn’t understand her much. Two weeks later, we were all amazed at how much more and more clearly she was speaking. Jack came back amazed at how much better she was at communicating.

And then fast forward to the last three months, and she’s going through another big leap in her language skills. She pulls out expressions that we use regularly on her own, issues commands (mostly to her brother, though she’s getting bold in her directives to me and Jack, too: “Mom, Dad, stop talking!!!”), asks questions, makes requests, tells stories, narrates movies, experiments with tone and inflection, uses words we didn’t realize she knew, and is really improving her pronunciation, tense, and comparative usage. It feels like every time she wakes up, she has something new to say. It’s so freaking cool and fun to hear her thoughts. Many of them are sassy. Many of them are sweet.

C is an incredible big sister. She adores her brother, and is always looking to give him hugs, make him laugh, hand him a toy, or ask if he’s okay when he falls or cries. She frequently asks him to “come here” and questions where he’s going when he crawls away.

When he’s in need of distraction, she starts playing peekaboo with him, or comes up from behind to boop him on the back of the head. They both get all giggly and she’ll ask, “Does he like that?” over and over to hear us tell her how much he loves it. She asks him to chase her, and while he can’t do that, her desire to involve him in many of her endeavors is so sweet.

When we went to the beach earlier this summer, C got a little scared after a big wave splashed her on the first morning. Later that day, she worked up the courage to try again, and her bravery was so cool to see. She loved the beach and asks to go back all the time.

She still loves to be outside, but I’m finding this stage so nice because I don’t feel like we have to go outside all the time. She finds so much more to do inside than she did just a few months ago. Perfectly timed with the insane summer heat and Z’s preference for crawling around inside over outside. But what she doesn’t love to do is sit down to eat, so almost every night in the middle of dinner, she asks to go play outside.

C is what I’d call choosy as an eater. Some days, she’ll go to town on meat or heavily spiced curry and touch nothing else. Some days, all she wants is like three strawberries and a handful of Cheerios. She likes to be in control and eats exactly what she pleases or nothing at all. I always put something on her plate that I know she likes, but if it’s not what she’s in the mood for, that doesn’t really matter.

She’s pretty much always in the mood for ice cream, though. And who can blame her?

I’ve never called C a great sleeper, and she’s still not. When she started talking more and more in April, she started napping a little more frequently than before. She had pretty much dropped her nap around the time Z was born, and then in April she started napping more days than not. Now, I’d say she’s back down to 1-3 times most weeks. I just leave her on the couch with a movie while I put Z down for his nap, and sometimes she falls asleep. If she really needs one but is fighting it, I’ll lay with her in her room for ten minutes till she falls asleep. Regardless, she usually goes to bed between 8:30 and 9, is often awake around midnight, and then usually sleeps till between 7 and 8. Some nights, she crawls into the guest bed with Jack at midnight. Other nights, he just sleeps on a mat next to her bed. It’s not perfect, but it works.

I need to get better at practicing quiet time with her, but it’s easier to just let quiet time = TV time, so that’s on me. Usually I let her watch a movie while Z naps and then we turn the TV off until after dinner. She’s often playing during said movie, and if that’s the case or if she sleeps through it, I’m more relaxed about leaving it on. If she’s zoning out in front of a movie, I’m more likely to turn it off. Most nights, she wants to go outside right after dinner or we do a bath, so the TV doesn’t usually get turned back on till we’re getting everyone dressed for bed. She handles this amount of TV pretty well, and we can tell when we’ve watched too much because she does get a little crabby. Same, honestly.

I started homeschool preschool activities with her this summer. It’s not something we do every day, but I like adding it in when we have some blank space and she has some interest. She doesn’t love reading books of my choice, only hers (“Mom, don’t read that!”), so I read whatever she asks of me throughout the day and we just talk about the unit and do activities separately.

She’s only 2.5, so I’m not concerned about doing it perfectly, but she likes learning, gets excited to tell Jack about what she did, and asks to repeat some activities, so it feels worthwhile.

Things I Don’t Want to Forget

• The sly look she gives us when she knows she’s doing something she shouldn’t.
• When asked what she wants to do on a given day, the answer usually includes, “see Grandma/Grandpa/Great-Grandma/Great-Grandpa/Mason/Camryn/Kayla,” “see big kids,” and “go in the Mom/Grandma car.”
• How empathetic she is. If anyone seems sad or hurt, she stops and asks, “Are you okay?”
• She calls me “Mom,” “Mama,” “Ma,” and “Mommy,” but she also calls me “Mom-Mom” a lot and I think it’s adorable.
• Almost every morning, she greets me by calling from the top of the stairs, “Mom-Mom, I need some chocolate milk.” Fairlife chocolate milk is her breakfast (and anytime-she’s-allowed) food of choice. We even water it down and she still likes it.
• Her big, whole body hugs.
• When I say, “Hi, beautiful girl,” she’s started saying, “Hi, beautiful mommy,” and it’s very sweet.
• She loves it when I paint her fingernails and toenails and requests it every week or two. She doesn’t really sit still for it, but we make it work, and then she shows off her newly-painted nails to everyone.
• When I’m getting ready in the morning, she wants to sit and brush my hair and gaze lovingly at me in the mirror.
• She loves to be chased.
• How excited she gets to go up and greet Z when he’s done sleeping.
• If Jack is around, she immediately starts treating him like a jungle gym.
• She loves to ask questions she knows the answer to, and when you reflect them back at her, she’ll say, “I don’t know!” like it’s a little joke.
• Probably a thousand more things. This age is so cool and sweet.