Conversations

Heard around the house this week:

Anja: Daddy, you haff a baby Maija in your belly?

Daddy: No, no baby Maija in there.

Anja: Blue haff a baby Maija in her belly?

Daddy: No, Blue doesn't have a baby Maija, just Mommy. Daddy doesn't have a baby Maija, and Debbie doesn't have a baby Maija, only Mommy.

Anja: (thinking) But Dillon has a baby Maija!

(Dillon is her friend at daycare)

(Anja stands up and stretches her arms really high)

"I'm growing!"

(later that day)

Anja: I'm not growing anymore. It's hard.

"To infinity and beyond!"

Jay: Anja, it's time for bed.

Anja: No, it's time for jumping!

Anja is two!

Zero years old:

One year old:

Two years old:



We haven't looked at Anja's height and weight percentiles in a while, mostly because she is obviously a healthy weight and height. But here are some interesting stats:
At birth:
weight = 5lbs 15oz, 7th percentile
Now:
weight = 27.5lbs, 57th percentile

At birth:
height = 20in, 77th percentile
Now:
height= 37.75in, 83rd percentile

At birth:
head circumference: 13", less than 3rd percentile
Now:
head circumference: 19.5", 97th percentile

So, she started out long and thin with a small head and has remained long but normal weight with a gigantic head. She always outgrows her shirts at the neck opening first , and no wonder at 97th percentile for head circumference! At least she wasn't born with a 97th percentile head.

Anja's birthday was Sunday, and we had a little mini party with the three of us. She had a great time opening presents, and even blew out her own candles. She has been busy playing with her playdoh hair-growing kits and molds. She also puts her froggies and other little animals in her new (handmade felted) purse from Auntie Heather and walks around the house with them.

We also went to the zoo and it was a hot day, pretty unusual for around here. I was pretty tired and the heat didn't help, so we didn't make it very far into the zoo. I think her favorite part of the zoo is the petting zoo, where the kids can brush the goats with soft rubber brushes. Anja loves it. And we did wait for about 20 or 30 minutes in line to ride the little train (a fairly mediocre 5-10 minute ride but we did get to see wallaroos), and Anja thought it was pretty good. Then we paid a ridiculous amount of money to eat some probably pretty scary hotdogs and some "juice" that tasted like extra sweet koolaid. Anja also rode on the carousel twice, the second time by request on the panda (a fierce running panda baring sharp teeth and with big exposed claws!). Anja liked it all.

Trips like that are getting really hard for me to do. Any amount of walking or standing longer than about 5 minutes leave me really out of breath. And heat makes everything twice as hard.

She really likes to make jokes and laugh about them. She gets particularly goofy after being given a sugar bomb like birthday cake. I love this one: "I'm looking for something... I'm looking for...my foot! I found it! I'm looking for something... other foot!"

She continues to be pretty fearless for her age. She loves to go exploring in our backyard, in "the woods" with Blue. In the dark with just a flashlight she follows Blue through all the trees and vines that surround our house. Sometimes she roots around in the leaves looking for insects. She will do this for quite some time on her own.

Her language skills are increasing dramatically daily. I'm sure a large part of this comes from daycare, where she is the youngest toddler. Yesterday when Jay was trying to get her to eat her sandwich, she said, "Don't worry Daddy! I will take a bite!" And to me yesterday when I was trying to read her a book and she wanted to play instead she said, "Stop talking Mommy! Pay attention!" Or when she leaves to get another book: "Mommy, stay right there, I'll be right back!" And yes, most of her sentences end with exclamation points.

The funniest thing these days is when she plays Simon Says. She LOVES this game. I think she really likes that she can tell us to do something silly and we do it. Some day soon I'll take a video of it.

Head down, now stay!

Nothing new at my latest prenatal appointment. The baby (or rather, my uterus) continues to measure exactly the right size. I have gained 19 pounds so far. Yay? But the good news is that the baby is positioned head down right now. We still have eight weeks to go, so she could definitely flip back up, but head down is still good news for now.

It's hard to imagine how much noisier it's going to get around here soon. And how much more chaos there will be. Two things to notice in this video are the energy that Anja has and the (now typical) state of our living room during her waking hours. And it's all about to get crazier.


And also, here is an example of mealtime with our almost two-year-old. She's really become a picky eater lately. She likes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, which means she pulls the bread apart and eats the jelly with her fingers. Then she asks for more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.



And here's a video that's just funny. I don't even know why she was so tired here. I had just picked her up from daycare and we were on our way to the playground. By the time we got there (5 minutes later) she was nodding off. I couldn't make a successful transfer from carseat to crib, but I was able to get her into the high chair.