Twenty Two Months Old

Goodness gracious!  How have we ventured to this point?!   We are two months away from Mae turning TWO.    Time goes so fast and it's such a fun adventure.   

Mae's first for her 22nd month included:  trick-or-treating, sleeping through the whole night*, lots of new words and phrases.

Yes, Mae's vocabulary is really exploding and aside from being quite the parrot for anything her brother or the rest of us say she's doing great coming up with things all on her own.   It's really cute because after she poses for a picture, takes medicine, anything really she wraps up with 'gud job' which is often what we tell her.    She love to say prayers now and she will offer up prayers in one word sound bytes that then she wants us to say "Dear Jesus, thank you for..." "dad"  "Thank you for dad"  "bruder" "Thank you for brother"  and if we don't pray and thank Jesus for what she has said she repeats it until she does.  Her prayer list typically always includes:  Dad, Bruder, Mom, Pehul, food.   Others that aren't as consistent include: bed, nap, sad (not to be sad), kind, lov-u (loving), Pop Pop, Grammie (I think she's lumped all grandmas into this prayer), piggy, printhesses, diapers... and the other day she was stuck on needing to pray for butt and poop.   It was one of those I tried to skim past, I know I'm editing her prayers, gasp!  But we prayed for them once... I figured it was enough.  No we prayed for them several times.   This went on for a few days - who knows if it will return.   It's adorable and I love that she wants to talk to Jesus every time she lays down for a nap or to go to bed for the night.  

Speaking of sleep this is where the * comes in.   Yes, I know I have blogged once upon a time in Mae's existence that she slept through the night... but it's been soooo long I feel we've reset and so I am going to happily celebrate the fact that she was asleep last week for 12 hours straight.   Put her to bed and she talked to herself for a bit and then she was asleep and I awoke before her to by an hour - insured she was breathing and went back to lay in bed for another free hour!   BLISS... looking forward to when that ever becomes consistent.  Most nights she's awake every 3 to 4 hours.  No milk breaks but still very much wanting it and so the wake ups are often more time consuming then when she was nursing.    She's slowly getting there and heck even if she's on her brother's time line of independent sleep we only have 14 more  months to go.  I think I can, I think I can...

Mae has really started to take a liking to certain things - she for a while was very much in mommy-mode and was loving on her babies and feeding them a lot.    This month she has been very attached to 'printhesses'  which is cute.  She does NOT like Cinderella (not sure why)  and she isn't a huge fan of Merida - but she loves Rapunzel, Belle, and Aerial.   It's cute she lugs around her 20" stuffed princesses and loves them.  If she sees one on tv or in a book - her eyes get wide and she screams "Printhess!"  it's cute - and as Loving Husband pointed out an expensive love.  :)   We'll see.   Her main focus might shift once again.  :)  We haven't even begun to explore My Little Ponies!

In Mae's 22nd month of life and Pixel's 6th month - Mae broke the dog.   I sound dramatic?  No really... she broke the dog.  Fractured his left knee at the growth plate - so to be fair it was a softer bone area that is more prone to injury - but Mae has once again proven she's freakishly strong.  The thing is that she wasn't trying to hurt Pixel.  She was trying to get him up on the couch... by his hind leg.  It didn't work out.   Pixel is on the mend after xrays, a visit to an orthopedic team of doctors and some good narcotics for the pain.  No major intervention was required and we now have pet insurance as he's proven to be a tad too fragile for Mae.     NO hard feelings are left between the two of them - in fact much to our dismay - Mae and Pixel like to enjoy kisses.  She sticks her face down close and puckers her open mouth and says "kuuusssss' and Pixel licks her and then she covers her mouth and giggles and says "Awww coote'  (cute) over and over again.   It would be sweet if not totally gross.  ;)

Mae and her brother are doing well and more often than not are a great pair - she misses him when we drop him off at school and often requires giving him a hug and a kiss before we leave.  In fact she just assume stay and often toddles over to a table or the play bins and just joins the fun with out a care in the world as to what mommy is doing.  :)   Ace and Mae still have the more traditional relationship of siblings where Mae has found her voice (read screaming high pitched yell) and her brother screaming "That's hurting my ears, sister!!!"   It's delightful to discuss patience and lovingingness and kindness in those times.      They play well together and she of course wants to do everything that Bruder is doing.   Including going down the stairs on a broken down cardboard box... "Watch this sister!"   Oh boy!   

Size wise M is growing and getting bigger each day it seems - although she's still super tiny.   We love to watch her grow and develop today she even said a compound word (sunshine) and we were so proud as often any phrase that we say to her she often only repeats one of the words.   She's really getting quite the personality and is adorable.    We love her and I can't wait to see how she enjoys the holiday season this year!