From the Seattle Gottulas!: laurel update (lots of videos!)

In celebration of sweet lady's birthday and at the request of a Grandma Twining, here are a bunch super adorable videos from the last 6 months or so, with commentary on her awesomeness to follow.

This kids are KINDA obsessed with watching videos of themselves on the computer, and this one above is a definite favorite. (The most favorite video of all is one of Laurel from last Halloween crying oh so sadly. It's pretty hilarious.)

And this last one I just took today. This is her on her first day of being two. Note she talks about this book... we have only read this book ONE TIME and she remembers details about it. Awesome.

Laurel is pretty much amazing. She can practically spell her name, count to 25, sing the ABCs, and more. She sings Itsy Bitsy Spider and I Am a Child of God. She tells us what she's thinking, like at the bus stop when she says "I hear two dogs," or when she's crying in the middle of the night and she says, "I want a drink of water." Once she said, "my body is cold," and dang -- she had a fever. It's uh-mazing. She communicates so well. I'm in awe of her! I couldn't even begin to estimate her word count. She says everything.

She plays with toys. She took all the animals from the nativity set and put them on the windowsill today. She takes burp rags she found in her room and uses them to put all her stuffed animals to sleep. She lines them up on the floor, covers them in a burp rag, and says "night night." She loves to mix her foods... she'll dip her garlic bread in her water (gross), and pour all her water into her chocolate milk. She loves dunking fruits and veggies in ranch. She's our little chemist, haha. I love that she can entertain herself! Although I suspect she'll get into trouble before too long... toilet paper off the roll, every ornament off the tree, stuff like that.

Since Wesley's gone to school, she has become obsessed with backpacks. She has one, she uses his old one, and she got a third one for her birthday from a friend, so now she has three backpacks that she puts random things in and totes around the house and to the bus stop, wanting to be like her brother. She mimics him a lot. She's good at his toys -- like she likes to build with blocks and make wooden train tracks. She LOVES the iPad and it's dangerous. I've got to put it on airplane mode or I'm afraid she'll buy something. I can't trust her with my smartphone (she can figure out how to turn its airplane mode off).

She loves loves loves books. We read LOTS of books. She can ask for the exact books she wants by name. She has her favorites we read over and over again, usually in waves. Some of them drive me crazy and I sorta want them to disappear! She's also very observant with her books, like we'll read them and she'll look at the pictures and point out things in the background of the pictures. Very cool.

She gives the best hugs. When she's really stressed out and throwing a crazy tantrum I'll ask her if she wants a hug. I get this sad exasperated "yes!" and she melts in my arms. She loves to cuddle :-)

I bet she could potty train. I'm not ready for that. She has peed and pooped on the potty. She just wants to be like everyone else.

She is picky about her clothes. I give her choices... "do you want to wear pants or a dress?" "do you want the little cupcake shirt or the big cupcake shirt?" "do you want the monkey pajamas or the flower pajamas?" and heavens, if I pick up the WRONG monkey pajamas she'll let me know. She has her favorite things, like ladybug socks and babylegs and this blue shirt. She wears them the second they are clean. She has A LOT of clothes, thanks to my friends and their hand-me-downs. We are VERY well taken care of.

Physically, she'll have her 2-year checkup next week. I think she's just perfect. She's probably around 25 pounds? She has all her teeth and her hazel eyes are so beautiful. She sleeps wonderfully at night, goes down for naps easily, is just so temperamentally fantastic. She can definitely throw a tantrum when she wants something, AND she is sorta addicted to mom. Some days I have a hard time dropping her off at nursery or leaving her with sitters. But she's easily distracted and she's fine, I know she's fine.

She is a great eater. She um, eats everything. She loves yogurt, milk/chocolate milk, cheese (we had to cut down some dairy after a bout with constipation!), peaches & prunes (to combat the constipation, and it is really cute when she says "prunes help us poop" and then she asks about all sorts of food, "bananas help us poop? -no- "oatmeal helps us poop?" -yes- etc.), all types of berries, white bread with butter, anything sweet (especially M&Ms and chocolate), and more. She simply eats almost everything. She'll eat twice as much dinner as Wesley does. She's just amenable.

She is really into helping me cook these days. She wants to get up on our blue stool and stir the bowl when I make sweets or bread, she wants to get up and help stir boiling water on the stove (terrifying), she wants to help me cut vegetables and fruits (also terrifying), etc. She's hands on. I have to think of good jobs for her to do. For example, her and Wesley are good about counting, so if a recipe calls for 2.5 cups of flour I'll use a 1/2 cup and they'll help me count 5 of them. I'll fill the 1/2 cup and let them pour it in. They love that stuff. I complain that they don't like helping as much when it's "cleaning up," although now that I think about it, Laurel helps there a lot too. Sometimes when I'm almost done making dinner I'll have her set the table, like I'll give her two plates and say, "mommy gets one and daddy gets one." Then she'll come back and I'll give her two forks and two knives, etc. She loves doing the dishes, either emptying the dishwasher and giving me things so I can put them away, or picking up dirty things out of the sink (while standing on the stool) and handing them to me so I can put them in the dishwasher. (Amazing!) She also likes to push the vacuum and I have to assist. It makes vacuuming take five times as long, but sigh, she's interested so I'm patient and accommodating :-)

She's into arts and crafts. She LOVES putting dozens of stickers in sticker books or on paper. She loves stamping. She loves painting (dot paints, water colors, finger paints). She loves coloring, and her and Wesley both are really into dry-erase marker boards right now. They do lots of play-doh, too. We do craft projects at library storytime and she just eats it up, like gluing feathers onto a paper turkey, etc. I know I did a co-op preschool with Wesley because I think he needed me there, with her I'd love to do it simply because it would be fun.

I just asked Shane what his favorite thing about Laurel is, and he said "her voice. The way she says, 'I did it!'" And she seriously says that all. the. time. She is always wanting to do things herself, and she succeeds lots, and she's so very capable and sweet. We're working more on like, having her put on her shoes and stuff like that.

Someone posted this thing on Facebook the other day, it was so very appropriate. It said "You will never have this day with your children again. Tomorrow they will be a little older than they were today. This day is a gift. Just breathe, notice, study their faces and little feet. Pay attention. Relish the charms of the present. Enjoy today, it will be over before you know it."

It was posted on Wednesday, the day before she turned 2. How funny, she will never be 1 again. Now she's 2, and before too long she'll be 3. Gosh I love her so much, I'm cherishing the time I have with her. I'm doing my best to be patient and accommodating, especially when she wants to read that book yet again.

Here are some pics from her actual birthday yesterday....