2.25 years!!

Samara is two and a quarter years old today. She is such a little spitfire and keeps us on our toes. She is the sweetest little thing most of the time and other times, completely rotten! Ah, the joys of being 2!

Some highlights:

- is still completely potty trained. She has an accident maybe once a month. She is 90% dry during naps but not night trained yet.

- is a superstar bike rider. She has really mastered her tricycle. We go every day and she'll go for an hour without tiring.

- is sleeping in a big girl bed. She stays in her room until we get her (after a short bout of wandering the house whenever she wanted). It's quite possibly one of the easiest transitions we've had (can you believe I actually put that out there?! Expect a post shortly about all that going downhill).

- is really independent. She likes to do everything herself, include picking out her outfits and getting dressed. She can do shirts, pants, shoes, everything.

- loves being a helper and can actually set the table properly with no prompting. She enjoys feeding Presley, baking, putting dishes away and putting clothes in the washing machine.

- while independent at times, she is very shy around new people. In public, she can usually be found buried in my legs until she warms up to the situation.

- has developed new fears that last for a week or so before moving on to something new. Some include men, grass and lawnmowers.

- has finally mastered opening doors. This is not always a good thing!

- has gotten better aim when throwing and can now catch.

- can count, when she feels like it. She can do to 5 no problem and then it depends on her mood how the numbers go from there. Same with letters. She recognizes a few but if she doesn't feel like telling you, everything is "C". Colours, on the other hand, she has mastered.

- is speaking really well. She is attempting longer sentences now and is becoming quite easy to understand. We no longer have to "interpret" for people when she speaks. We had an undesirable introduction to swearing but thankfully that has passed, for now!

- is such a good sister to Presley. She now calls her "Presey" instead of "Esey". She's typically very gentle with her, gives her snacks and water, consoles her when she's crying and tells her she's pretty. She is helping her learn how to speak as well...it is so cute to walk in the room and they are face to face with Presley babbling away and Samara saying, "mama, mama"! She is also signing to Presley.

Favorite things lately:

- bike rides, wagon rides, walking...being outside, any way she can take it!

- colouring.

- her friend, Casey. She talks about her every day. It's very sweet!

- having showers. There is no way to turn on the shower when she's awake without her making a run for the bathroom.

Things I never want to forget:

- how she calls me Mommagy. Shawn sometimes adds the "agy" to everyone's names...Samagy, Presagy, Mommagy, etc. Sammy picked up on it and now that's my new name.

- how when she laughs right now, she actually says, "tee hee hee".

- when she yawns, she comments, "aaaaahhhh, tired".

- how she prounces guacamole (guaceemolee) and pajamas (chanamees). It's too cute to correct.

- how she responds so things. I'll comment on how hot/windy/sunny it is and she'll say, "sure is!".