Finishing The Race: Alaythia is Two!

It's so hard to believe that Alaythia just celebrated her second birthday! She has definitely moved out of the baby stage, and into the toddler stage (and just in time, since our new baby will be born soon!). I thought I'd just jot down a few things about her that I want to remember later.

First, I'll start with one of her newest games: playing with baby dolls. She likes to change their dapers, brush their hair, wash their faces, put them "night night", change their clothes, nurse them, rock them, and feed them. Obviously this keeps her rather busy. :) Other toys that Alaythia enjoys these days include: play-doh (with some simple cutters and stamps), blocks, puzzles, and books. She also loves being outside, and she is usually Enoch's sidekick in the dirt pile. I have to watch her closely outside though because she still puts everything in her mouth - acorns, rocks, and sidewalk chalk are her favorites though. Speaking of favorites, animals are still a huge hit with Alaythia! She always begs to pet any animal we see (even if we are driving in the car and see a dog on the side of the road!), but her favorites are dogs and horses.

Alaythia's vocabulary has really increased over the past 6 months. She now mainly uses full sentences (3-6 words), with only some arrangement errors. Her little voice is high pitched and cute still. She also loves to sing. She can sing part of ABC's and part of Twinkle Star. Counting is coming along, but somehow she has learned 4, 5, 6 better than 1, 2, 3. And now that she had her birthday, she understands that she's no longer one; however, she likes to claim she's either 3 (like Karis) or 5 (like Enoch) as opposed to 2. Silly girl!

When we're out in public, Alaythia is usually my shy, reserved child. She often won't even say "hi" to a new person, but once she warms up she will typically talk. At home, she is pretty good at playing independently, though if she's quiet too long it sometimes means trouble. Alaythia has also just recently taken a bent toward being bossy with her siblings. She likes to repeat any command I give them, often multiple times (which is not well-received by either sibling), and sometimes she will follow Karis around, trying to tell her what to do. ;)

Alaythia often wears a backpack/leash when I take all of the
kids out by myself with no stroller because she is quite the
fast runner these days! She doesn't mind though because she
loves the freedom of walking like a big girl.

As for size, Alaythia seems a little tall. She is somewhere between size 2T and 3T, and she and Karis pretty much share the same clothes in the closet. There are certain shirts though that only Karis wears, and if you try to put one of those on her, she will say, "No, Karis' shirt." When it comes to eating, she is more of a picky eater than my other two kiddos, but in an interesting way. Alaythia always prefers vegetables over most other foods. If you give her broccoli and lasagna, she will eat every piece of broccoli and only pick at the lasagna. And there are certain main dishes that she doesn't even eat at all, like chicken pot pie, but give her some vegetable beef soup, and she'll down 3 bowls! She also loves fruit... pretty much all of it. And she rarely refuses dessert. Alaythia has also been one of my longest enduring breastfeeders! She is not only still nursing, but she is still very attached to nursing. Often throughout the day she wants to comfort nurse, but not counting those, she gets 5-7 good nursing sessions per day still. In fact, only about 2 or 3 months ago did she start sleeping through the night. I've been totally okay with this because 2 years of nursing has always been a goal of mine, and because this will make it easier for me to nurse our new (adopted) baby. (On that note, we never tried to sleep train her because waking at night actually keeps my milk supply stronger, but I did have to adjust my schedule a little to compensate for the lack of sleep at night.)

Well, that's a pretty good summary of the funny, cute details in this stage. Overall, Hugh and I are so thankful for Alaythia Ruth, and we love her to the moon and back!