The Leen

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My dear Elanor,

Today, you are two years old!

I typed that and immediately got a little teary. I can’t believe it’s been two whole years since you were born and became a part of our family. What a wild and wonderful two years it’s been!

There are not words to describe the depth of my love for you. Papa and I agree that having you in our lives is a fantastic, incredible gift. I won’t lie, the past two years have been difficult for us in a lot of ways, but your presence throughout has been the one consistent source of joy and brightness for us.

Two years old seems to agree with you; these days, you are a happy, funny, exuberant, spirited little girl.

You seem to always be in motion: running, jumping, climbing, hugging, laughing, dancing. Just watching you is draining! You go go go until you simply crash from exhaustion. We’re working on finding ways to help you learn to calm down, which is challenging but something you definitely need.

We are so very thrilled that you’ve finally started talking to us! We know that you’ve understood practically every word we’ve said for months now, and just within the past three weeks or so, your language has completely exploded. You say a new word every day, sometimes more than one a day. It is so fun to hear your voice and to finally hear what’s going on in your little head!

Some of your favorite (and most useful!) new words and phrases include: help, I do it, come in, go, stop, switch, movie, watch, play, car, rain, wind, hot, sit, water, hold it…and on, and on, and on.

I’m sad that you seem to be slowly losing your signs, although you still sign I love you and please on occasion, and you are slowly losing your adorable mispronunciations of certain words. There are some mispronunciations remaining, though, since you put an –e sound at the end of words with –er. So water becomes “wah-wee,” butter is “butt-eee,” car is “car-eee,” and so on. I love it.

We’ve started playing with friends more often, which you can’t seem to get enough of. You have definitely inherited my extroverted characteristics. You love being with other people, and while you’re overwhelmed at first when there’s a crowd, you quickly warm up and become the center of attention and the life of the party. We had a party here in November, and there were 25 people here, and you just danced and played and had a blast. I barely saw you the whole night!

You have a keen understanding of how things work. If you see Papa or me do something, even a relatively complex multi-step process, you can usually replicate it. My favorite thing you do is that you drag a chair from the dining room table over to the shelf where the record player is, page through the records until you find one you like, pull it out, climb on the chair, take the record out of its sleeve, open the lid to the record player, put the record on, press play, and stand on the chair and dance. Watching you do this is hilarious and really fun.

Like your Papa, you love art and will contentedly color for quite a long time. The easel we got you for Christmas has already seen many hours of use. It’s really fun to see you and Papa put your heads together and create fantastic images.

You don’t seem to have a lot of favorite things. Most of your toys get equal play; your kitchen, your babies, your instruments, and your tea set are all things you play with on a regular basis. You don’t have a lovey or a special doll or blanket, either. (That role seems to be mine.) There are times I wish you did have one, and while you do show preference for one or two of your babies over others, you aren’t attached to them like many kids are.

Any Pixar movie will hold your attention, and you adore Curious George, Elmo, and Arthur. It’s strange for me to realize you’re at the point where you recognize characters and will respond to the way things are branded in the store.

Food is an area I’ve watched with bated breath over the past few months. Your tastes as a baby were so wide-ranging that I was nervous the pickiness of toddlerhood would be especially bad. I’m proud to say that unlike most toddlers, your palate remains as broad as it’s ever been. You enjoy moderately spicy food, ethnic food, and rather epicurean food. Avocado, cheese, hummus, pasta, anything with pesto, olives, yogurt, and tomatoes are some of your favorite things. Oh, and how could I forget? Butter! You still love it and I have to make a real effort to keep it out of your reach, or it tends to disappear!

You also love coffee, even black. You’ll drink an Americano, black coffee, or a cappuccino and beg for more sips. Funny enough, you don’t like juice. I guess you’re just an uncommon toddler.

On that note, you are still nursing at two years old, something I’m somewhat surprised but very happy to report. You love having milkies, or nums, as you call them, and our times nursing together are among the sweetest I can think of.

Another thing that surprises me (because I never thought I’d allow it this long…how naive I was, ha!) is that you still sleep with Papa and me. It’s getting harder these days, as you are a big toddler and take after your Papa’s habit of wild tossing and turning, but even though there are moments we wish we had more room, the benefits and closeness we derive from sleeping all together far outweigh the difficult times.

Elanor, I cannot tell you enough how much I love you. Having you in my life is such a blessing and a treasure.

Love,

Mama