My Girls

Nap-time struggles, deliberate disobedience, and temper tantrums aside, I have been really enjoying our 2 year olds lately. They are so sweet and cute and funny, and never cease to amaze me, the little smarties.

Anna is our crazy silly girl and makes us laugh with all her jokes (her new thing is pretending to eat anything you give/show her, including animals, bugs, and Alden). Kara is a little more reserved and thoughtful - she has a great memory (Anna does too) and is a bit more concerned with others' feelings, wanting to do whatever it takes to make everyone happy.

They're both speaking really well in complete sentences lately (still working on verb tense, word order, and making sure all connecting words are there), but Kara especially - you can see her little brain working as she puts the words together- she thinks it's so funny when I tell her "great sentence." The best part is hearing them say things they're thinking that I wouldn't expect. A couple recent episodes stand out. Last weekend we went out to eat for their birthday (kids eat free at CPK during their birth month) and we got chocolate milk - I asked Anna if her milk was too chocolatey, and she told me "a little bit." One day this week we were looking for a missing toy, and when I found it Kara told me "great job Mommy." She then added to her sentence and repeated over and over "great job find baby seahorse mommy under chair."

Their interaction with each other mainly consists of sharing when someone is upset, telling each other what to do ("be careful!" is heard often), and fighting over toys. This fighting now includes verbal reasoning, telling each other that they had the toy first, therefore should get it ("no Kara first ___" vs. "no Anna first ___"). They also say "Anna turn 3 minutes" or "Kara turn 3 minutes" - my mom introduced us all to the great idea of taking timed turns with toys they both want...it generally works very well, but they are adamant about whose turn is first.

When my mom was here...my pretty ballerinas. I hope they'll like ballet when they get older - at this point I can see Kara being a little more willing to concentrate and enjoy it and Anna wanting to do something more active.

Just a little snippet. Most of these are from before we went to the Garden a couple weeks ago.