The (not so) terrible twos

I think it's been almost a year since my last blog post, so what better time to update than a during a sick day from work? I feel like I have been sick a lot this school year, which is especially fun while pregnant, and with a two-year-old -- but between day care issues and Autumn's day care-related illnesses, I've had to take a few days for her, and have subsequently gone to work on days I shouldn't have. I like to think I'm helping people build stronger immune systems by gracing them with my presence.

October 2012

Pre-Halloween 2012

But anyway, Autumn turned two almost two months ago! And she has been non-stop ever since. Unfortunately, I don't have many great pics or videos to share as my phone is almost always full. I'll get the hang of this one day.

Current favorites:
--Spinning, while saying "I'm spinning around!", obviously.
--Wearing tutus -- sometimes I wonder if she was switched at birth
--Being "nakey". She recently started stripping and running wild around the house. I asked my mom if this is normal for a two-year-old. Her response was, "yeah I think so...and for my severe/profound special education kids." The video below is of Autumn looking like a muppet (haircut time), and being a naked elephant.

--Winnie the Pooh. Everything Pooh. She really likes to create stories with her little Pooh characters that live at my parents house. She's still terrible at playing by herself, but every once in a while we'll hear her occupied in a scenario with her Pooh toys ("No Tigger! Don't go up there, it's dangerous!"). Also, Autumn insists that Baby Brother's name will be Piglet.
--Speaking of dangerous, we have a safety-first Ned Flanders on our hands. Autumn loves talking about things that are dangerous ("don't go in the street, it's dangerous!", "don't climb the tree Big E, it's dangerous!", etc.). She usually exclaims these things right before jumping of the couch, bed, kitchen chair, etc., and/or running headfirst into a wall.
--Singing. She's starting to request that we sing the Jewish songs with her that she learns at pre-school (she goes to the JCC three days a week, our little Jewish girl). Time to catch up.

Rhino in a tutu - Halloween 2012

--Entertaining people. We were at a party a couple of weeks ago and there were four middle school aged girls sitting on a bed watching ICarly (whatever that show is). I walked in to find Autumn right in front of them leaping and prancing (and spinning, of course). When she saw me she ran over and exclaimed, "Mom! I'm dancing for my friends!" I didn't point out to her that her "friends" didn't even seem to realize she existed, she has plenty of time to learn those tough life lessons. For the next ten minutes Autumn crawled on and off the bed, staring admirably at her new friends...and making sure to yell out to me every few seconds, "Mom! These are my friends, see?!"
--Being a unicorn. That's what the teachers at her school/daycare have nicknamed her. They said it's because everything she says is with so much enthusiasm, i.e. "I pooped! A big one!", or "Oh! I fell down!". I have to wonder if the nickname comes from the once popular YouTube cartoon about Charlie the Unicorn. YouTube that if you haven't seen it. Then pray for us.

Milestones...in no particular order since I can't remember them all anyway.

Very focused on painting at the Children's Museum

--Warning: this paragraph will be really uninteresting for most people to read. I just want to be able to reflect on this when we go through it with Baby Brother in a few years. Autumn is potty trained! Well, nearly. Knock on wood, but we haven't had an accident in 4-5 days I think, so that counts for something right? The week before my winter break the JCC was closed, so my parents had 5 full, exhausting days with her. It was really cold out, so I (half) jokingly told my mom she was welcome to potty train her if they were planning on being inside a lot. By the end of that first day Autumn was telling everyone, "I don't wear diapers anymore". The next day my mom bravely took her to the store and playground without a diaper...and we all lived happily ever after. Well, sort of. We've had our share of "almost" making it to the potty in public. If you've ever potty trained a kid you know that "almost" in this sense is nowhere near as useful as an "almost" in horseshoes. But I'll take the occasional accident over any rigid potty routine or prolonged potty training regimen any day. I had actually planned to follow some sort of quick and dirty tried and true method, but thankfully this go-with-the-flow thing worked for us. If you haven't read about potty training methods before, it can be quite enlightening to hear what the "experts" recommend. Putting a potty in the living room? Really? I know my school psych credentials don't cross over specifically to this subject, but I can only imagine that doing this would teach a toddler (especially mine) to just pop a squat in the living room without ever having to leave her beloved Little Einsteins episode. There are also methods that recommend not leaving your house for days, and wearing diapers when you do go out. Ripping off the bandaid, so to speak, worked better for Autumn. While we did have to change her pants, undies and socks at the Botanic Gardens and at a restaurant once, at least we got to go to those places -- and she didn't become used to only using a potty at home. In the end, I think this success has been a reflection of Autumn just being ready, not of anything we did amazingly right. Remind me of this when we are back here in a few years.

--She's sleeping in a big girl bed, and loving it. In preparation for getting Baby Brother's room together (maybe he'll have a name soon), we took apart Autumn's crib and bought her a twin bed. She loves it, and over the winter break was sleeping until after 8am almost every morning! She yells for us in the morning ("Mommy!!! I'm all done sleeping!"), and doesn't get out of bed until we come in for her.

--She's able to have (nearly) functional conversations with us. When I pick her up from school she can usually tell me something specific that happened that day. My most recent favorite --
Autumn: "...and Aoife (pronounced 'Eefa')  was crying because I took her spoon away...and teacher said 'no'"
Me: "Your teacher said no to you, or to Aoife?"
Autumn: "To me, Autumn...because... I took her spoon away...and Aoife was sad. She was crying"
Me: "That's not very nice, why did you take her spoon away?"
Autumn: "I don't know!" (In Unicorn voice). "Aoife's my friend...she was crying..."

Very functional, as you can see. She also likes to say things like, "remember, last night? When we were walking on the street? And we go to the playground, and it was dark outside?" Um, no. That didn't happen, but we can talk about it like it did.

--Another favorite milestone is actually one of Brian's. About a month ago, Autumn walked in on Brian peeing. She walked up to him, patted him on the back and said, "good job peeing, Daddy! I'm so proud of you!" We're all really proud of him.

In other news...
--I am 33+ weeks pregnant, feeling like 53. This pregnancy has been so different than it was with Autumn. From about 15 weeks on, I have been pretty uncomfortable, and not due to any specific health issues or excessive weight gain either. It's frustrating. I attribute part of it to having a toddler and not having as much time to be active (she no longer tolerates a stroller for even short amounts of time). So I fell out of shape pretty early on. I also can't hide the fact that between Thanksgiving and New Years, not a single day went by where I didn't eat dessert after dinner, and I'm not talking about a single cookie or a few bites of ice cream. It was awesome, but I think I'm paying for that as well. As of my appointment at 32 weeks I had gained 20 pounds, which is totally fine -- but with Autumn I think I only gained 23 total, so it's no wonder I already feel like I did with her at the very end. 
--Baby Boy is doing well. He was still breech at my last appointment, but Autumn was too until about 34 weeks too, so that shouldn't be much of an issue. He also measures big, as did she. One day, he'll have a name. That day might be the day he is born, but maybe sooner. We are bad at this part, but that doesn't mean we don't love him already.