A swan a day keeps the doctor away

Can your Daddy turn apples into swans?

Our two year old

My, my, my.... Our baby girl is two. And boy is she two. Tonight I fixed whole grain pancakes for supper. Juliana loves pancakes and was pretty pumped about it until I set them on the table. Then, she exclaimed that she was scared of pancakes and ran off to hide in the new play tent she got for her birthday. She finally rejoined us at the supper table when I took the scary pancakes off the plate. She ate her fruit and yogurt happily enough, yet all the while suspiciously eyeing Gabriella's pancakes. Then, she decided to use the yogurt for body lotion.
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Juliana's two year appointment went well. She weighs 27lbs 14oz and is 34 inches tall. That puts her in the 70ish percentile for both height and weight.

Dr. Sarah was very impressed with her language. Gabriella wasn't along so Juliana was pretty chatty. She still has reflux and will remain on prevacid. We're supposed to keep track of how often we have to give her Malox in addition to the prevacid. She may eventually need to see a specialist.

Juliana had two shots at this appointment. For the first she said, "Ouch! That hurts!" and for the second she let out a little squeal, but stopped as soon as I pointed out that the nurse had a pink band aid. As soon as that band aid was on she thanked the nurse and was bright and cheery. The nurse was a little surprised. I don't think she gets thanked after shots very often.
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Juliana still wears mostly 18 month size clothes, but I think that has to do a lot with how she is built. She has a long torso. 2T pants are still way too long. 2T tops work OK sometimes, but are still pretty long in sleeve length.

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One of my favorite of Juliana's phrases is, "Aww man!" Sometimes this is accompanied by a dramatic slap to the forehead. Love it.

One of my favorite Juliana words is, "Sunggle" (snuggle.) That girl really knows how to snuggle and goodness knows I'm a mama that is always up for a snuggle. Juliana loves to play tiny baby. I swaddle her up in throw blanket and Gabriella does the same with one of her dolls and then we exclaim over our "newborns" while I unabashedly sneak in extra sunggles.

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The other day when Jonathan went off to class Juliana said, "Good bye! Have fun with Shanta!" Shanta is Gabriella's preschool teacher. Evidently all this time we've been saying that Daddy was going to class she was envisioning him going to Gabriella's preschool class.

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Juliana has an imagination that may even rival her sister's. While Gabriella has imaginary husbands and royal titles, Juliana sees imaginary dinosaurs and monsters (and, you know... menacing pancakes). She loves to play scared and ends up in hysterical giggle fits over her own imaginary creations.
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Juliana has started making some little representational drawings. I'll have to scan in the little face she drew (don't let me forget!) She has some crazy fine motor skills for having just turned two. She has always loved to draw and color and she loves to pretend that she can write like her sister.

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Juliana Jayne is all sunshine and spunk and sweetness and sunggles. I can't get enough of that girl.

At least someone around here is writing something

I know I really need to update. I have a few half written posts saved in the queue, including a two year update for Juliana.

So, basically I just wanted to let you know that I'm alive and haven't given up on blogging. In addition, this is what is happening at our house right now...

The girls are at the table writing. Gabriella is practicing lowercase letters. Juliana is making hieroglyphs and pronouncing what letters they are and what they spell.

Juliana (triumphantly): "I'm bwiting La-La!" (La La is what Juli calls G)

Gabriella: "No dear, you're not biting LaLa, you are writing "LaLa." Rrrr Rrrrr "Writing" See?"

Juliana: "Oooooh I'm writing La La"

Two

Happy Birthday to my sweet, vivacious, affectionate, joyful Juliana Jayne. We love you so much. You are such a blessing to this family.

Why almost 2 year olds don't make good hairstylists

Grandma Whisler brought up a good point in the comments of my last post. I have yet to share about Juliana's first haircut... that she gave herself.

On Christmas morning, yep, Christmas morning... we had out some scissors for de-packaging gifts. After the gifts were opened I turned my attention to helping Jonathan prepare our Christmas meal. I'm pretty sure you see where this is going. Gabriella screamed out that Juliana had the big scissors and I turned to see her holding them with both hands going to town right on top of her head. You know, I didn't actually cry when Gabriella cut her hair, but this time I might have shed a few tears when I undid the elastic from the little ponytail on top of her head and about half of the long blonde locks it contained fell right into my hand. Gabriella's hair grows so fast, but Juliana has been slowly working on her shoulder length hair since birth. Sigh.

Here is an overview of the path of destruction...

It certainly could've been worse, but for now pig tails and such are out and her hair perpetually looks messy. I noticed in the comments on the post from when Gabriella cut her hair last year, that Grandma Whisler said that the moral to be learned was to keep Juliana away from Gabriella's scissors. Well, I'm sure that by now we've learned our lesson and that such a thing could never possibly happen again...

ps- Juliana is actually amazingly good at using scissors (to cut things other than hair) for being not quite two.

Surely not...

Hmmmm... it has indeed been awhile since I've updated the 'ol blog. Why would that be? Surely it is not because our two lively and lovely girls (plus work, plus photography business) have been keeping me quite busy. Surely a good portion of that busyness would have nothing to do with my sweet almost two year old. I'm sure that some almost two year olds do things like eating enough toothpaste to necessitate a poison control phone call, dipping their toothbrushes in the toilet and then sticking it in their mouth, dipping their hand into the toilet and sticking it in their mouth while their mother is still trying to figure out what to do with the darn toothbrush, digging the chapsticks out of their mothers purse and discarding the lids, attempting to follow their big sister out the door to preschool wearing only a dress up hat and rain boots and demanding chocolate for supper. I'm sure that there some almost two year old children out there that would do such things, but surely not our sweet younger daughter.

Christmas Morning Photos