Curly Straight

My brother gave Julia a new nickname at her family birthday party.

May I present to you: the newest 2-year-old in town, Lady Yaya.

"You are my flower" is a dancing song that Julia and I enjoy very much. I heard it during East Side Music Together for the first time and bought the cd - by Elizabeth Mitchell immediately. It's a beautiful song.

Seems as though she may not be the original writer, if my google sleuthing skills are up to speed. I searched for the words to You Are My Flower and Flatt and Scruggs was the most popular hit.

The song we love is number 34 on www.lala.com - search for Elizabeth Mitchell.

Lyrics:

The grass is just as green
The sky is just as blue
The day is just as bright
The birds are singing too

You are my flower
That's blooming in the mountain for me
You are my flower
That's blooming there for me

The air is just as pure
The sunlight just as clean
And nature seems to say
It’s all for you and me

You are my flower
That's blooming in the mountain for me
You are my flower
That's blooming there for me

So wear a happy smile
And life will be worthwhile
Forget the tears
And don't forget to smile
You are my flower
That's blooming in the mountain for me
You are my flower
That's blooming there for me

When summertime is past
And snow begins to fall
Just sing this song And say to one and all

You are my flower
That's blooming in the mountain for me
You are my flower
That's blooming there for me

When I hear Julia making noise in the morning, after she stands up in her crib and reaches up her arms to me, she tells me the first thing she sees, almost always with a smile. Sometimes it's "shirt", sometimes "dog" or "cat" depending on what's happening.

Today it was “Head! Hair! Eyes! Mouth!” as she saw me and pointed at these various things of mine.

Then “coat” hanging on the chair in the dining room.

When she sees TJ, she gets even happier “TJ!” she exclaims with love.

Julia is eating breakfast.

She has her waffle on a plate shaped like Mickey Mouse on top of an Elmo place mat, numbered 1 - 12 with different items signifying each number.

She is taking her fork and putting it on Cookie Monster's cookies and pretending to eat them. She's also pretending to eat the 12 rubber duckies, the 4 pigeons and Zoe's flowers.

She is finding this quite amusing.

I just heard a drawer open and Julia say "bye bye lollipop."

The last two years and one month with Yaya have been simply outstanding.

Now, she has learned how to whine.

I'm trying to nip it in the bud.

Julia: whine, whine, whine, whine, whine

Mama: Julia, I don't understand whining.

Julia: whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine.

Mama: Speak like a big girl.

Julia: whine, whine, whine, whine, whine.

It's definitely a work in progress. Sometimes she gets it and will correct herself and I celebrate!

Don't get me wrong, she is still my little chunk of love.

I told TJ that I am allergic to whining. He didn't buy it for some reason.

Put Yaya down for a nap early today, she needs it. Puff under her eyes. The new dining room table is coming at some point today so there will be barking dogs and loud furniture sounds here.

Put in the lullaby cd and things were going great. She was quiet in her crib.

I was about to sneak out of the dining room and go grab a cup of coffee.

The red haired princess who Julia asked me earlier "da da daaa?" (what is that?) was right by my laptop since I was googling her to answer Julia's question. Ariel.

I knocked her over onto the floor.

Bang!

Not quiet anymore from Julia's room. "Mama? Mommy?" and other assorted babbles.

Julia just repeated the entire alphabet after me.

Clearly, slowly and perfectly.

Awww.

Every now and then Julia will look at me and say "TJ's Mommy" or look at John and say "TJ's Daddy."

When John walked in tonight, she exclaimed "Julia's Daddy!" with a lot of excitement.

Julia seems to be drawn to motorcycles.

So much so, that when she sees one, she not only hugs it, but also gives it a kiss.

She particularly likes red Ducatis.

We took a quick ride to the beach today since it was 90 degrees suddenly.

Julia has on a tiny sundress, flowy, perfect for a hot day.

Before we are going, I tell her to go put on shoes.

She comes out rocking the cowboy boots and I do a double take then I cheer.

It's a fabulous look.

When I was in the store today, Julia saw a lady with long blond hair and told me "look, Mommy, a princess."

Watching Julia eat is the cutest thing.

She is eating corn right now, after turning her nose up at a bowl of broccoli. She is using the wrong side of the spoon to coerce the corn up the bowl and into her fingers.

She eats it all and tells me "mo-ah, mo-ah."

When you are two years old, you nap. Every day. Unless you are Julia.

Today, for the first time in a very, very, long time she fell asleep when I put her down for her nap. You see, I continue to believe that she will nap, even though she doesn't...

I am NOT accepting the fact that she is done napping.

Today, after she woke up at 5:45 a.m. and we took a big walk around the park, and she had her friend Brody over to play, I put her in her crib and said "goodnight, my Squee."

I didn't hear her cry, I didn't hear her yell "Maaaammma" for an hour, I didn't see her standing up in her crib.

No fussing, no fighting, no crying, no whining. Just boom!

Asleep.

Aaaaahhhhhhhh.

Julia loves using a napkin. Not only to wipe her hands and her face, but also when something spills, she is on it with the napkin.

Just now, she spilled some of her juice and wiped it up with a napkin. She then proceeds to wash her face with said napkin.

"I'm washing my face!" she tells me.

"You are? Your washing your face?"

"Yes! And my ears!"

Julia has the cutest method of jumping.

She basically keeps her feet on the ground, bends her knees, and puts her arms up into the air.

Julia is basically potty training herself.

I was planning on the boot camp potty training all next week, which I wasn't too psyched about. This week alone, twice, she has told me "poop" and I put her on the potty and she does it!

Sweet!

Still will be doing the Poop Camp (is that wrong? I just came up with that) next week, but I think it's going to be easy.

I am trying to do more weights, but haven't been good about it at the gym.

Doing five minutes of arm weights this morning since I won't get to the gym today and didn't yesterday either.

Julia watches me, while eating out of the bag of Trader Joe's potato chips she is holding.

Potty training today and this week. Officially. Using the book I downloaded and paid for when TJ was 2 years old. I need to re-read it.

So far she's been on the potty four times today and nothing. Every other day this week she has pooped on the potty by now.

She is demanding that I get her books and read them to her. "READ, READ," she yells at me. "Lookit!"

When one book is done, "another book" she tells me.

We have read at least 17 books so far. Really. Not kidding.

She is a demanding little thing.

Most kids get m&ms for potty training. Or stickers.

Julia wants me to give her dental floss.

I like it when Julia acts like she's surprised to see something that she sees everyday. Actually, now that I think about it, she may think she's explaining to us what it is.

"My bed!" she'll exclaim when we walk by her crib, or "Mommy's hair!" when she sees me or "Elmo!" or "TJ's book!" or "that's my baby doll."

It's very endearing.

Potty training is hell.

No, it's not really that bad. I am actually really enjoying the alone time with Julia and surprise, surprise when I put her down earlier, she actually sleeps.

I must have been missing the window of opportunity.

This may change my whole life schedule. Which is fine. Change is good.

My mom and dad sent the kids their Easter cards last week. Ali forgot to put them in the Easter baskets so she sent them in the mail.

Julia opens her card and a Spiderman band aid falls out.

She gasps excitedly. "A band aid" she shouts with such unbridled glee.

Julia has decided to start calling me Mom Mom.

Not only do is Julia forced to sit on the potty every 25 minutes but she also has at least one big honking tooth coming in. Two year molar, I think.

Poor little kiddo.

We put Yaya (she of the big old shiner) to bed and she was crying and crying tonight. John went in to settle her down.She was in there with no diaper on and she yelled PEE when she saw him, so he put her on the potty and she peed! So now she is starting to tell us when she has to go. Yippee Yi Yo.

Poor Julia, every time someone sees her with her black eye, they make a huge deal of it.

I'm teaching her to say "I'm tough!" whenever someone mentions it.

That way, they won't mess with her.

Julia gave her little friend a hug today. He's three.

His response: That was the highlight of my day.

Last Monday we started potty training Julia.

As of right now, I can say with confidence that she is potty trained. I have a black eyed 2-year-and-2-month-old who is potty trained. Yeah!

She still wears diapers when she sleeps and takes naps, which will be the norm for a while.

Psyched!!!

Julia loved her afternoon for many, many reasons...

One was being pushed in the swing by TJ, as she ate a powdered donut. She was loving it.

At least three of her favorite things were involved in that.

Should I really think it's a miracle when my 2-year-old takes a nap?

Mama: Julia, close your eyes and go to sleep.

Julia squints her eyes shut, but leaves one kind of open so she can see what's going on.

Julia eats anything as long as it is:

chicken nuggets
corn
pizza (sometimes)
cereal (sometimes)
hummus
or a waffle.

My little girl doesn't like things to be dirty. If there is something on a piece of her food, like if her strawberry touches her bread with butter and a piece of the butter ends up on the strawberry, she will tell me to wash it.

She is eating yogurt right now.

She spills some on her shirt, wipes it with a napkin, hands me the napkin and tells me to wash it.

One of the very cute things that Julia does right now is when it is overcast, or raining or dark, she says in her cute little voice "is it night time?"

Julia's breakfast: drinking yogurt* in a bowl.

Julia's lunch: drinking yogurt in a bowl.

Julia's dinner: drinking yogurt in a bowl.

*drinking yogurt is yogurt in a tube, Gogurt, etc.

I am fixing the "broken" Elmo pillow, and I have to stick a sewing needle through his eye to make his nose sit properly on the pillow.

It doesn't seem like something that should be done to Elmo.

Julia somehow launched herself from the crib today.

Not quite sure what she did but I heard a boom. When I walked in, she hightailed it out of the room.

So apparently she's not hurt.

My little Squee started going to daycare ("school") today.

She wore the cutest little blue batik dress with fishies on it and her white sunglasses with diamonds on the cat eyes. And socks and sneakers. A girl has to be able to run.

She had a great time. She is already learning names and making friends. And she told me she wants to go back tomorrow to see her new friends, Katiebell and Ellie.

Today, Julia is messing with a light switch. On, off, on, off, on, off, on, off.

TJ decides he wants to do it too.

So, he moves her aside. In not a nice way. And starts turning the light switch on and off.

Julia sidles up to him, and BOOM, gives him a giant push and knocks him right down on the floor.

She's only done anything like that one other time, when she was really little and TJ used to get in her face. CHOMP. She bit his nose and he never did it again.

I am in the kitchen making food for Julia and I hear her saying the alphabet from her seat in the dining room.

A...B...C...D...E...F...G...H...I...J...K..L...M...N...O...P...Q...R...S...T...U...V...W...X...Y...Z.

She knows the entire alphabet!

And we didn't teach it to her.

Hm. I wonder what else she knows.

Julia, on her Elmo phone: Hi Elmo, it's me Julia. I love you. Bye!

We got Julia's hair cut over the weekend.

Just a few inches cut off the back. It was getting too long compared to the front. Although she still has her short little baby hair underneath, which has yet to grow.

The hairdresser, Yolanda, said "we gotta take care of that Baby Mullet!"

Julia sat there very quietly in the chair and said over and over, very softly, "I'm getting my hair cut."

It's more of a bob now and really cute.

John says we won't have to get it cut another for another 2 1/2 years.