2 years, 3 months

Stubborn and independent as ever!

• You're beginning to use possessive words like "mine" and "I" in your speech.  Just little phrases so far, like "where mine binky?" or "I see it!"  You still refer to yourself ("nennett") in the third person plenty.
• You are starting to show a preference in clothing.  You often ask for your shoes with the blinking lights instead of whatever else I'm trying to put on you, and you love your tiger sweatshirt and monster shirt. . .to the point that you don't want me to take them off sometimes!
• We've finally got bedtime back under control.  There was about 6 weeks there (including New York) where you weren't sleeping through the night, or would have a really hard time going down, or waking up way too early.  We tried a cool toddler race car bed for a while but you wouldn't stay in it.  So you're sleeping in your crib again, although we had to take out the screws so that the bottom could sit flat on the floor so that you couldn't climb out.  Now you're going to bed on your own and sleeping through the night again, thank goodness!  I can't complain too much because for most of your life you've been a very good sleeper.
• You are a pretty good eater now.  I decided that when you turned two, I would stop worrying about your food intake and just do my best to feed you at normal meal times and that would be it - no more desperately trying constantly all day long to get you to eat a bite of food.  I don't know if my plan worked because you learned to eat when the opportunity was given, or if the problem just self-corrected, but now you'll eat at least something at each meal.  I know I can pretty reliably give you Go-gurt, cheese, white grape juice, pretzels, chicken nuggets, and popsicles (which are really just frozen applesauce mixed with butternut squash or fruit pulp so I let you eat as many of them as you want each day!)
• You regularly speak in 4 word sentences now!  You can also voice your own thoughts now, instead of just expanding on what we're already talking about.
• You are such a little monkey and can clamor up onto the couches with no hesitation now!