29 Months

Time flies when you're having fun. :)

At the zoo last week on a very lovely day

Her favorite restaurant (Chick-Fil-A), with one of her favorite buddies, Kyle

Going down the BIG slide at a local inside jump place

In her new BIG big girl bed

The artist at work

So, as you can see from the pictures, Zooey's quite the big girl now. She's getting more active and looking more like a big girl each day. She loves to run and climb. We moved her to a full size bed after we kept watching her roll out of her toddler bed, simply because there wasn't enough room for her. She sleeps really well now and has the room to roll.

Zooey loves:
~ice cream
~coloring
~her stuffed animals, which she plays with and rearranges to fall asleep at night
~putting her chapstick on in the morning

Zooey hates:
~She went through a phase where she HATED her jacket, but once we let her pick which one she got to wear, it got better.
~public restrooms (seriously, who doesn't?)

I've noticed this last month how much Zooey loves her routines. Every night, Ryan & Zooey play a game that he started where he gently tosses a stuffed turtle and her head and says boing, then she tosses it at him. It makes her giggle like crazy. There was one night when Ryan wasn't home to say good night. Zooey asked for Daddy, but she still went down fairly well. I looked at her on the video monitor, and she was patting the turtle on her head saying, "Boi." She's also gotten used to other things we do during the week, like going to Chick-Fil-A after the library storytime; she'll get in the car saying, "chicken." We usually watch TV while we have breakfast, and she always wants to watch Yo Gabba Gabba, followed by Dora ("Gabba" and "Doda"). I think it's really cute that she is figuring out her little world, and I love to hear her/see her tell me what's going to happen next.

Zooey's speech therapy is going really well. She is saying more words on the regular, and she has begun to put two words together, usually "MY" something. Typical two year old, right? :) She really loves her therapist, and when I say the therapist is coming over, she starts blowing kisses, which is something she does when she really likes something or someone. The biggest thing I'm learning is to let Zooey answer my questions and to give her at least two options as much as possible, then not giving her what she wants until she says the word. Zooey's receptive language is amazing, because I explain things really well to her (according to the ST :) not trying to brag here). On the downside, I have a tendency to ask a question, ie: "What did you find?" then immediately answer for her, "Oh, you found a stick." I'm trying to get better about both, and we really think it's helping. Ryan has been doing really well at increasing his narration of things, too.

I LOVE this stage. It is so much fun! I love rediscovering the world through my little girl's eyes. Everything is so full of wonder, and she has such contagious joy. I try to capture as much as I can on camera, because I know how fleeting it is. She is so amazing, and I cannot wait to see who she grows up to become.