The Resident Two Year Old

Zara is two.  The past six months have swished by so quickly there are days I cannot comprehend this. But all it takes is a few minutes of watching Zara and the truth is unmistakable.

She is definitely two.

I’ve absolutely loved watching our babies turn into little people with such distinct, individual personalities and Zara is no exception.  She is super independent most of the time. If I dare to pick her up to put her in her high chair, she yells a distressed, “Me! Me! ME,” that doesn’t let up until I put her back down on the floor and let her climb in by herself.  Choosing clothes for her to wear is best done quickly and strategically while she’s not looking, because if the dresser drawer is open, you can bet your bottom dollar she will have enormous opinions about what to wear.  Around February I had a few packs of diapers with XO’s on them for Valentines.  Zara loved them.  Every diaper change turned into an ordeal because she wanted the “E,O” ones and anything else produced huge alligator tears.  Speaking of clothes, it’s hysterical taking her shopping.  For the longest time, everything she saw was “dat TUTE, me, ME!” and there were huge tears when things had to be put back on the shelf.  But the other day she was in a mood and it wasn’t a pretty one.  She’d missed her nap for the second day in a row and I was actually looking for spring / summer clothes for her.  I thought she’d love it.  But oh, no.  It was not her day for shopping.  Every time I showed her something and said, “Look Zara, isn’t this cute?” she wrinkled up her nose and said, “Dat ewww.”  But the independence dissipates like mist under a July sun when it’s time to go out the door and she becomes completely incapable of walking.  She is terrified of Goldi.

Yes, Goldi, who has always been the docile golden retriever and is now showing her advanced age by lying in the sun and barely walking around.  Zara was fine with her until last fall when the neighbor’s dog came to visit and jumped all around and on Zara and now all dogs are to be feared like the bubonic plague.  She can’t wait to go bye bye, but the instant we get close to the front door she chants liturgically with shakes of the head for emphasis, “No, de doh.  No, de doh. No, de doh.”

She’s a girl of routine.  Months ago I gave her a toothbrush while combing her hair to help keep her distracted.  Now, even if it’s two minutes before lunch, she can’t get her hair combed without “teef.”  She’s also the girl with music in her veins.  She sang before she could talk and at twenty-one months held a pretty impressive repertoire of songs she could sing along with, including “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” “Little Drummer Boy,” “Miss Polly Had a Dolly,” “Jesus Loves Me,” and a host of other Christmas songs.  Now she sings “Dinkle Dinkle Little Star” all by herself and I still catch myself just stopping to listen as her little voice lilts through the words.

But the funniest thing about her currently is the dramatic expressions.  When I call her name from another room, she yells “what?” in the most grownup tone imaginable.  As soon as I tell her to come she says, “otay” in a baby voice.  If the boys were downstairs, she used to stand at the top of the stairs and yell, “Addie {Adam}! Tom!” in commanding mimicry.  It’s becoming more and more obvious there are big brothers in her life. Sometimes when I tell her to do something, she flounces her arms down against and gives me a huge sigh …. oops! You’re two, honey.  Not THAT age … yet. 😉  But my favorite is the facial expressions which seem to be impossible to catch on video because they’re so unpredictable and even more difficult to describe.  She can furrow her brow and throw her eyes in a quick move that has all of us erupting in laughter.  Or, in a current signature move that looks an awful lot like her Grandpa Beachy when he’s thinking about something you’ve said, she purses her lips to the side and gets uber thoughtful in an expression far, far beyond her years.

One of the best parts of being two is the vocabulary explosion.  I knew it seemed like she was saying new words every day but two weeks ago when David and I went to Life for our last training session, I was in shock at all the new things she was saying after three days of being away from her! It’s the dearest thing the way she brings things and says, “I nee’ elp.”  or the way she randomly gives me a hug and coos, “I uv ou.”  Most words are pretty decipherable, including her funny little “another” that starts with “a” and turns into a tongue swishing across her lips funny sound; but we’re still trying to figure out why a horse is a “ba ba” and a fish is a “wee wee.”  The other day we were heading into town when my phone beeped with a new message alert.  “Dat noise?” piped up a little voice from the back.  That was my phone. “Dat ‘nnoying.”

I thought for awhile she was going to potty train herself.  With all the hullabaloo of school and a few trips this spring, I wanted to wait until late May when we could really focus and then stay at home for awhile.  There is nothing more inconvenient than a recently potty trained child on a long trip who figures out they get out of their car seat every time they need to go to the bathroom.  But Zara was ready.  She begged to go so I bought a little potty to introduce the idea at bath time and let her get good and ready.  Twice in one day she told me she needs to go and sat down and went.  We still haven’t gotten serious about it.  I’m pretty sure she mostly goes when she wants candy.  “Me pee pee. Me tandy.”  There is no rhyme or reason and while I feel she’s close enough we’d probably get there in a day, I’m not willing to go through the recession I think is likely to happen on  a long trip so I try to ignore the subject as much as possible.

Meanwhile, she’s awash in a world mixed with routines and new discoveries.  Playing guitar with the purple pick (and only the purple one), wrapping her baby in a blanket and learning how to burp her after a bottle, making little beds with pillows and blankets and insisting Liam lie down and take a nap, helping to tear lettuce for salads, learning how to crawl into her crib, going bye bye with daddy, making rounds at chuckwagon with Liam to say hi to her favorite boys, singing the ABC song, needing paper and pen so she can write, counting to ten,and thinking hot tea should be a daily occurrence.  It’s a fun world, this world of being two.

• ← The “Perfect” Family
• What Would You Do? →