Two Years of Awesome

Greta turned two last week and today we had her 2 year old appointment. She's about 23 lbs and 33 inches. It's harder and harder to describe what she's up to these days. There aren't big, momentous changes the way that there were in that first year or so. Now the changes are more subtle.

She's talking more everyday, and it's fun to see her mind work. Yesterday, she had gone to the zoo with Ben's parents and sister and I'd been made aware of the fact that she might be chattering about bears and penguins as a result. So while she was eating dinner, I asked her if she had gone to the zoo, did she see bears, etc. What intrigued me was that she not only confirmed that she had seen these animals, but she elaborated that the bears had been sleeping and the penguins had been swimming, and that the penguins had also eaten fish ("Bite! Fish!" along with illustrative gestures). What surprised me most was that when I asked her about other possible animals that she may have seen ("Did you see any tigers at the zoo?") she paused, thought, and then said, "No." I had kind of suspected that when she was prompted, "Did you do x, y, and z today?" that she was always saying "yes" just to please us because of the way she was being asked the question. But it became clear from the conversation that she was truly thinking about whether she had seen each animal and answering to the best of her memory. It was kind of awesome to actually carry on a conversation with my child.

She's also starting to move more quickly -- scurrying more quickly and having stronger opinions about where she wants to go when we are out walking. This is both fun and exhausting. A trip to Target can be a bit of an adventure when she's not in her best listening mood. But it's also lots of fun. When I took her to the park recently, she not only wanted to slide down the slide, but she also pushed herself off, without me having to coax her or help her scoot close enough to the edge.

She really is just getting more fun everyday. I can't think of much more to update on. I suppose I could go on for a paragraph or two about her picky eating habits, but . . . eh . . . it's not too interesting of a discussion topic. So here are some pictures.

This was an attempted reprise of last year's Pi Day photo op. 

She LOVES walking around with her hands in her pockets.