Energy and monsters say rraaowrr!

My mom used to say if we could harness the power of a two year old we could power the world. I think that might be from a Bill Cosby sketch, but it is definitely true. She also used to call my younger sister a perpetual motion machine. Anja has so much energy. Luckily for us, naptime is still easy and so is bedtime. Anja sleeps 11 hours a night and today she actually slept a full 12 hours. She was awake for less than 3 hours after that and then back to bed. In between sleeping she is now full speed gogogogoooo.

She can open all the doors in the house now, so the other day she came in while I was showering and stuck her head inside the shower. I gave her a blob of bubbles on her hand and said, "Go show Daddy." She left and came back again 30 seconds later with bubbles gone and asking for more. So I gave her more and she left again. She did this at least 10 times. She would carefully carry her bubbled hands into the living room to have them wiped off by Jay and would then return for more. She loves these types of games:



She also likes to play pretend games and has a sense of humor we are beginning to see. She has a monster puppet with velcro eyes, ears, etc that can be removed. Today she was trying to put "monster hair" on the dog. Here she is modeling the monster teeth herself:


We really do need to get her a rocking toy or bouncing toy of some kind. She's a little too small for most of them still, though, so it may have to wait. Meanwhile, thank you Ikea removable couch arms.




Finally a successful somersault:


And she really loves to go running with Jay in this stroller. It's pretty cushy, so I can see why. There was a recent stroller-related tragedy when her lemur went for a ride in the stroller and she dropped it. This time we didn't find it again. Luckily she's not quite old enough to realize when one of her regular toys is missing. But I think at this point she would be pretty sad if we lost Big Teddy or Soft Teddy (yes, I realize we are incredibly mundane in naming Anja's stuffed animals, we also have two Tiny Teddies and a Small Teddy).


She is really beginning to communicate now. It is SO much easier for us when she can actually tell us what she wants. A few of the more useful things she can finally say are "Finished", accompanied with the sign for finished, and "Ouchie" if something hurts. She also asks for specific foods now, which is great except when she only wants to eat pizza or cheese. Luckily she still really likes broccoli and applesauce and grapes. Here she would rather have pizza than pancakes for breakfast: