Happy 23 Month Birthday!

Samantha and Amelia might as well be two years old already with all the big girl progress they’ve made this month. From getting rid of their cribs and graduating to toddler beds, to rocking the potty training (updates coming soon!), S and A have been intent on ditching all the last vestiges of their babyhood.

Except for their Wubs. Not ready to leave those behind anytime soon.

We are going on Night 3 of toddler beds and are definitely making progress as far as not getting out of the bed ten zillion times during the night.

Today also marked Day 5 of formal potty training and so far today we’ve had zero accidents (knock on wood). And that included running three errands this morning. All grown up, I tell you!

Meal times are still a work in progress. Amelia randomly ended her veggie-strike last week and inexplicably picked up a piece of broccoli and ate it like it was no big deal. I swear they just like to mess with me.

S and A are constantly joking and playing games with each other– typical meal time entertainment this month. Here the girls enjoyed a seaweed snack from their friend, Parker, which they then decided would make the perfect mustaches. No idea how they even know what a mustache is.

During the past month, the girls’ communication skills have grown leaps and bounds and they’ve been adding new (sometimes intelligible) phrases to their vocabularies each day. Their biggest speech accomplishment this month was applying the power of the word “please” instead of whining for what they wanted. Hallelujah!

Samantha’s favorite phrase: “Poo poo is stinky.”

Amelia’s favorite word: “Yeah!”
As in, “Would you like to read another book, Amelia?”
“Yeah!”
“Do you have to go potty?”
“Yeah!”
“Do you like walking Bandit?”
“Yeah!”

Conversely, Samantha’s favorite word this month was “Nooooooooooooo!”
As in, “Samantha, are you ready to play at My Gym?”
“Noooooooooo!”
“Samantha, let’s brush your teeth.”
“Nooooooooo!”
“Samantha, do you like graham crackers?”
“NOOOOOOOO!” (Pause) “YES PLEASE!”

In other news, the girls have been in a constant state of teething for what feels like the past month. Not sure how many teeth they now have, but I’ve made it a goal to count before they turn two. All I know is that they can chomp on a chicken drumstick like nobody’s business.

In addition to hanging out with their friends in the neighborhood and at the park, the girls have been keeping busy with their gymnastics and their Music Together class with Ms. Elena. As part of the class “materials,” we were given a songbook and cd, which we keep in the car and listen to all the time. I’m loving it too since the songs aren’t your typical “Itsy Bitsy Spider” toddler fare and include music from all over the world– some from Africa, Israel, France, and traditional English songs. It’s funny to hear the girls try and sing the songs or repeat some of the words after listening a million times.

Amelia, particularly, is really drawn to music and we’ll often catch her humming her own songs. For some reason, she also loves to hum the “like a diamond in the sky” portion of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” and will repeat those notes over and over again.

It’s been about 8 months since the girls’ first dance debacle (Toddlers and Tiaras Soviet Edition), and now that the girls are a little older, I figured it might be time to try dance again. We found a new place with an awesome teacher– the very first class, I had to sign a bunch of paperwork up front and the girls were getting cranky, so the teacher called them over to read books with her AND THEY ACTUALLY SAT ON HER LAP, READING HAPPILY. This never happens with strangers, I can assure you, so it was a pretty big deal.

Anyway, the girls loved dance this month. I have to put “dance” in quotation marks, because it’s basically just an excuse to dress them up in tutus and miniature ballet slippers (I DIE) and give them ribbons/bean bags/stuffed animals/hula hoops to dance around with. It’s the opposite of their last Nazi-style dance experience– fun and whimsical!

Props to their teacher, Ms. Emily, for prancing around the room repeating vocabulary like “sache, “plie” and “arabesque” while five toddlers run around in circles. Hopefully they’ll pick up some of the terminology, but for now, they are super happy walking on their tip toes, turning in circles, and holding up their arms to say, “TA DAAAA!” S and A especially love the hand stamps/glitter they receive at the end of class and the “disco ball” time where they dance around in the dark chasing the lights of the disco ball. “Dancing Queen,” anyone?