2 year highlights

I still can't believe that I have a 2 year old! My how time flies. This post is mainly for Charlie and I, but it is a good read if you want to know about Maya's personality.

- Counting. Clearly Maya knows how to count to 10, but she refuses to actually count every number from 1 to 10. Instead, when I ask her to repeat the number I am saying, she will say the next number in queue. For example, I say "1" thinking she will repeat "1", but she says "2" instead. Then I say "3" and she says "4" and so on up to 10.

- Favorite holiday. Christmas wins. The day the tree went up, she has insisted on sitting right next to it. At Gigi's house one day, she told everyone how pretty the tree was (keep in mind there were no ornaments on there at the time). Since then it has been all about Santa and Ho, Ho, Ho's all day. Even after Christmas she is still saying "santa" and "ho ho ho".

- Making animal sounds. We have been teaching Maya various animals with their sounds. So far she has monkey, lion, duck, cow, and cat down. We say the animal's name, have her repeat it, and then ask her what sound that animal makes. We are still working on the sound for pig and frog. Right now she just laughs at those sounds.

- Medicine. Well the good thing is that she doesn't fight the medicine taking anymore. Prior to the visit to Salt Lake City in September, Maya's main medicine was sprinkles that we had to hide in her food. Since she fought that so much, we opted for the liquid version. Now she likes it so much that she has a fit when we are done giving her medicine, mainly in the evenings. She says "medicine" very well and often asks for it. Strange, huh?

- Clothes: Under two years old and already getting picky about the clothes she wears. Not everyday, but every now and again, Maya will fuss about what we are putting on her. She wants the red pants over the brown or the white socks over the black. I think these girls are starting earlier and earlier with the fashion!

- The affectionate one. Oh how our Maya is so loving. We often have rounds and rounds of family hugs and kisses. Now she will pull your face towards hers and put her arm around you when you are sleeping. It is just so cute (and comforting). We love taking naps with her. She will almost always end up right next to you even if she was in the middle of the bed to start with. She just wiggles towards you!
- Laptop. I must spend too much time on my laptop in front of Maya because one day she was playing with her pink Vtech laptop on her stander and I was on mine. She started moving her hands real fast around the play keyboard as I do when I am typing. Now everytime she gets on the laptop, be it hers or ours, she play types and has to make the sound that mommy makes like she is typing away!

- Dora chair: This is a marshmallow type chair that she started out liking at her Gigi's house. Oh my goodness, the drama if she can't sit in it. We ended up buying her two of them for Christmas just so she would have one in the living room and the playroom. We even had her Nani Renuka put a Dora pillow on the back of her wheelchair so that she would be interested in sitting in that too!

- "Gigi house" and "Gigi rock": Maya loves going to her Gigi's house. We will be driving in the subdivision and she will say "Gigi house". I just can't believe she already knows the entrance to the neighborhood! One day, we went there to pick something up real quick and didn't take her out of the car. She was so upset and cried. Kept on saying "Gigi" as we drove away. Sad (but Gigi secretly loves this show of affection!). The "Gigi rock" is also special to her grandmother's house. When you are putting her down for a nap or bedtime, she has to be rocked. And of course it has to be a certain rocking chair. One time Gayla sat in the other recliner and Maya said "No" and pointed to the other recliner. Oh and I can't rock her there. I tried and then 5 minutes later she says "Gigi rock?". Let me tell you that no rocking goes on at home. She goes right to "night night" at our house!

- The bootydance. So Maya loves to dance and unfortanately can't dance like we all can. Besides shaking her upper body, the best dance is her booty dance. When we change her diaper and tell her to dance, she shakes her booty.

- Elmo: Maya has a small Elmo beany she plays with ALL the time. A couple of weeks ago I was driving her somewhere and she started to say "No No Elmo" and "Ouch". I looked back there and she had her finger in Elmo's mouth and was making him "bite" her finger. She was saying ouch and telling him to stop even though she was the one that was doing it. Funny. She did it again with one of her baby dolls recently.

- Shy girl? Maya doesn't seem like the shy type, but recent events are showing this side of her. I've been noticing it more and more now. When Maya is in front of a crowd and we ask her to do something, like say pacifier or count to 10, she looks at me and grabs my hand and says "Hi". At her birthday celebration, I got it on video. We were asking her to blow out her candle and she was shy in front of all the people looking at her to blow it out, so you can see her grabbing my hand and saying "Hi". Its actually quite comical right now.

- Lollipop. Finally, after 2 years of going to the pediatrician, Maya had her first taste of a lollipop. We had to convince her to take the first lick, but when she did she went to town. We said "Maya, do you like it" and without a second, she said very clearly "I LIKE IT!" Then she immediately bit it and spit it on the floor. I'm not sure where she is learning about this spitting thing...Mimi.

Other tidbits:

- Measurements: 23 lbs 7 oz. (10th percentile) and 33 inches tall (25-50% percentile). She is still mostly wearing size 18 months, her shoe size is 4, and she just now started size 4 diapers. She almost has all her teeth - looks to be missing a few on the bottom.
- Favorite toys: Her favorite toys these days are the Little People dollhouse that she plays with from her stander or sitting in the Dora chair, she loves to color, she likes to "read" books, and play with stickers. She also loves to "wash" her hands in play sinks and her new play kitchen.
- Favorite DVDs: Anything Barney and Dora. We, of course, mix in some educational DVDs every day, too, like the learning to read one. Gotta do it!
- Favorite songs: I Love You by Barney. Over and over as many as 20 times. Never gets bored. You would think that she could sing it on her own by now! Itsy Bitsy Spider is still in the top 5, among a couple of Christmas jingles.
- Sleeping habits: Maya is sleeping at night from around 8:30-9 pm to 8-8:30 am. She is down to one nap a day.
- Likes and dislikes: hates changing her diaper lately, LOVES washing her hands, loves playing with Charlie's reminder bands (Madi's for leukemia and Maya's for SMA)
- Favorite foods - As many of you moms of toddlers know, food is now the most stressful part of the day so this section is rather long for a good reason. She still loves her Mexican food and Indian food, although she has moved on a bit from the quesadillas. Chicken enchiladas with verde sauce is the most favorite, while for Indian food it is usually all of what we can offer her. She is really into omelettes and sometimes she will even eat two a day! We just have to put cheese in it and sometimes salsa. We have "convinced" her to start eating some Gerber fruits again. We have to force the first bite which sometimes involves lots of tears and then the "more it" tells us that she just puts up a fight just because but really loves the fruit. She refuses to eat real fruit. She actually just grimaces at it like its the worst thing ever we put on her plate. Snacking wise, she loves popcorn and this greek yogurt that she eats with pita chips. Cross our fingers, she appears to be increasing her food choices in the past 2-3 weeks. Over the past few weeks, we got her to eat rotisserie chicken (by ITSELF!), chicken parmasean, plain yogurt, and pasta. AMAZING! She hadn't eaten like this since we got back from Costa Rica in July. She still will not drink milk, but she did resume the juice drinking again (she had stopped all but water for a couple of months) and now loves the V8 Fusion Mango/Peach flavor. She still doesn't like sweets all that much. Didn't even eat her own birthday cupcake!