{lion: jellycat via Nordstrom // chambray shirt: Carter’s // pants: Carter’s (similar) // socks: Carter’s (old) // beanie: June & January}
**also, I couldn’t choose just one picture for this month, so here are two!**
{month twenty-seven} Holy cow you guys, how has it been an entire quarter since Eloise turned two? In case I didn’t ever say, I have decided to do quarterly updates for Eloise since we are doing weekly pictures and posts for Baby Foot (which will continue thru the rest of my pregnancy and then that first year!). I was just reading back over Eloise’s two year post and she seems like a totally different kid! Okay, here’s a quick re-cap of the past three months:
Eloise has been “mean muggin'” since before she was one, but now she says “mean muggin'” while she does it. And it’s hilarious! She has the best looks.
She sings the alphabet every time Aaron or I spell something that we don’t want her to hear or repeat which is quite a bit these days. And, she has learned what a few of the spellings are, so we have had to come up with code names for words like: walk, bath, and applesauce.
Eloise is still obsessed with books! We read quite a few throughout the day and at least one or two before naptime and bedtime too. She has memorized many of her favorite books and reads to herself and her dolls or toys which is impossibly cute.
She uses a fork and spoon at all meals, though sometimes her fingers work just as well. Unless it is making a huge mess, I try not to be too strict about using a utensil if she refuses (picking my battles!). But generally she is excited to use them and wants to use the exact same thing that Mama and Papa use. Plus, she has learned to set the table. You guys, this is huge and I am so proud. I will put the utensils that we need (except for sharp knives) on the corner of the dining room table, and Eloise will come over and move all of the utensils to everyone’s spot on top of his or her napkin. Emily Post would be so proud!
Sometimes (especially if she is trying to be funny) Eloise says “MOM!” to get my attention. Or she will just yell it for fun. It gives me a good glimpse into her teenage years I think.
Eloise can count from 1 to 20 in English, and 1 to 10 in French, Japanese, and Spanish. She is equally obsessed with counting as she is with saying her ABCs, and counts everything.
She tells us she dreams about paradise and butterflies after she wakes up from naptime or in the morning. Paradise always includes: Mama, Papa, Grammie, Paga (what she calls my dad, or her version of Grandpa), Kilo (my dad’s horse), Yaya (my sister Anya), occasionally Sadie and sometimes a few other characters. And the butterflies are always green, blue, and purple.
Speaking of purple, Eloise is obsessed! Seriously. Every morning she picks out her underpants and socks for the day, and she wants her purple ones. She has about three pairs of purple underwear (maybe four or five if I can convince her that the smallest little bit of purple actually makes them purple) but only one pair of purple socks. So she is always stoked on laundry day when her purple socks are clean! Needless to say, she needs a few more pairs of purples socks and underwear… I sort of love that she loves purple since I too like it (plus, it is the color for UW so in this area it is perfect!) and Aaron loves it because it isn’t pink! We will see how long this obsession lasts, but I don’t see it ending anytime soon.
Eloise is always singing songs: when she is playing, at mealtime (which I am really trying to stop), in the car, and when she is falling asleep. Twinkle Twinkle, Are You Sleeping (Brother John)? (though we usually since the French version), The Wheels on the Bus, Itsy Bitsy Spider, songs from school are the current favorites.
And probably the biggest change in the past three months is that Eloise is potty trained! I had hinted previously that I was going to do it at the end of the summer, but wanted to keep mum since I didn’t know exactly how it would go. I am going to be honest and say that there were some rough times and times that I thought I would be happy for her to be in diapers forever, but we have turned a huge corner and Eloise is a champ! We rarely have accidents during the day and Eloise is self-initiating all the time. She is still in diapers at naptime and bedtime, though that is only because I am not willing to take on night-time training just yet; we have a loose plan to try to night-time train in December or very early January, but are just going to play it by ear since there are a lot of big events and life changes on the horizon for this kid. Plus, in total honesty, I don’t want to have to wake her up to go potty in the middle of the night when she would otherwise sleep completely thru the night and I am seven (plus) months pregnant. So I will keep you up to date on that! For those who are curious, we used the book Oh Crap! Potty Training which I cannot recommend enough! It was super comprehensive and broke things down into blocks (not days) which I appreciated. Plus, it discouraged the use of rewards which is really in-line with our parenting philosophy. If you are needing to potty train a toddler, pick this one up!
Eloise is learning her shapes and colors, and is pretty good at identifying at this point. I try to teach her without doing rogue drills, so we talk about things that we see and what shape or color it is. And now Eloise points things out on her own.
If you ask Eloise what time it is, she will tell you it is thirty-teen. Hilarious!
And another big thing that happened (in September) is that Eloise doesn’t use a pacifier anymore! We had restricted it to sleeping time (with the occasional exception like if she was sick, really upset, or we were travelling or out late) since she started really sleeping well (around five or six months). But, she became pretty attached to it. Our pediatrician had recommended we give it up right at two years, though our dentist said that since she was using the Soothie pacifier, it was fine for her to use it up until three. Though we knew it would change her sleeping (at least a little), we both felt like we wanted her to give it up and have a nice big break without it before Baby Foot is born. One night we had her put her doll Stella’s paci in a jar because Stella was a big kid and didn’t need her paci anymore; and then we had Eloise put her four pacis in the same jar the next night. We kept the jar in her room up on a shelf where she could see them but not get to them for about a week, and then they mysteriously vanished! It was a rough couple of nights and really took just over a week for her sleep to get back to “normal” but we did it. She didn’t ask for her paci nearly as much as we thought, but wanted many more cuddles before bed. We have noticed that it takes much longer (like 45 minutes to an hour sometimes at bedtime) for Eloise to fall asleep even if we have adjusted the time she goes down, but other than that, she is sleeping really well. And honestly, she is sleeping better thru the night because she can self-soothe without having to find her paci in the dark or having one of us go in there and stick her paci back in her mouth!
Shortly after the paci went away, Aaron converted Eloise’s crib to a toddler bed. This is really just taking off one side and having a small guard rail. We weren’t sure how it would go, but again, with Baby Foot’s impending arrival (and us not wanting to buy another crib!) we decided to go for it and see how it went. One night after dinner Eloise and Aaron went down and she watched him convert the crib, and boy was she excited! She even came up and wanted me to go back downstairs to her room so she could show me – so cute! And she is still pretty excited about it. She likes to climb in and out by herself (although she will stay in bed all night and until one of us comes in in the morning!) and have all of her blankets and animals in bed with her. She doesn’t move around nearly as much as she did when she was in her crib, staying in the top third of the bed. The only tricky thing I see is that she stays up near where the guard rail is, so we may have some rolling out of a twin bed once we make that transition (we are thinking January for that). Having her in the converted toddler bed has made it so much easier for me to get her in and out of bed (since I was having trouble lifting her up out of the crib if she was laying down flat), plus it allows us to more easily night-time train her and then eventually transition her to a twin bed.
And lastly, as most of you know, Eloise started preschool in September. The first two weeks of drop-offs were really rough, but now Eloise is off and playing by the time I head out the door. She is excited to go to school and really loves her teachers and her friends. While it isn’t a Montessori school, it shares similar principles which is perfect for Eloise and for us. She brings artwork home every week and they are all hanging proudly in our front window (though I am going to have a special place in her room for art once we move her in a few months). She has learned so much in terms of basics (colors, numbers, letters) but also sharing with others and being able to respond and respect other adults. We are always amazed what she comes home talking about; just last night she talked about the moon waning and waxing as she moved her hands open and closed!
It has been an amazing three months with this little gal and she is such an awesome kid!
{weight} 30-ish pounds.
{hair} dark (reddish) brown.
{teeth} 20 teeth and molars.
{eyes} dark brown.
{clothes} 2T, and some 3T.
{diapers} POTTY TRAINED! size 2T underwear during the day and honest company size 6 diapers for naptime and at night.
{feeding} during the day, three meals, morning snack, & afternoon snack. sippy cup of milk with every meal. eloise is really starting to master using a small cup for water too, so we try to offer one with at least dinner & sometimes snack time.
{likes} school (her friends and teachers), talking walks around the neighborhood, coloring, Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, football, yelling, Duplos, digging in the dirt, splashing, counting, chewing on her toothbrush, the mailman, any person outside on the sidewalk, bubbles, sidewalk chalk, buckles, jumping, watching out the front window (dogs, kids, trucks), books, mama & papa’s cell phone, singing & music, dancing, Sadie, standing, FaceTime, bath time, shoes, mama’s (diaper) bag, clapping, putting things inside a bag or box, taking lids off of things, talking, helping with anything & everything, when Papa comes home from work.
{dislikes} not being included, having something taken away from her, being hungry, getting into the carseat, getting out of the carseat, not being able to do something herself.
{nicknames} Bug{s}, Love Bug, Baby Bug, E, Wheezy, Kiddo, Love, Bugaboo, Ellie or Elle.
Happy 27 months Eloise!
M
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