au revoir months

Today was Maisie's last day of being aged in months. Tomorrow, my sweet girl will be 2 (oy vey).  I have been meaning to write a post on all her little happenings for quite some time, but I think this will be a sweet farewell to my 23 month old and to now celebrate my (almost) two year old.

Maisie is currently in such a strange stage. It's like all of her emotions have been heightened to the nth degree . When she is sweet, she is beyond cuddly. When she is happy, she is the happiest little girl in the world. And when she's upset and mad, well... it's full on earth shaking, belly flop to the ground tantrum time. It's quite alright though because when I can snuggle her in my arms for over an hour without her squirming away or even a wimpier of a complaint, I will take the occasional tantrum. I think that's a fair trade off right?

Every day she cracks me up. She's quite the ham now (she always has been, but as of lately she has just been so silly). The best part? When she makes me laugh, she laughs with me. It makes my heart swell because she has put together the joy of making others happy. She's such a little person now and when did that happen? Her silly, stubborn, so full of light, little spirit has been such a joy to watch grow. I know without a doubt she was handpicked for Austin and I and I couldn't be more thankful.

firsts at 23 months: 

first piece of candy- a banana flavored lollipop that we both assumed she couldn't unwrap and boy, did she prove us wrong.

first thai food expirence- massaman curry and all. She loved the spicy peanut sauce over sticky rice and of course the pad thai.

first homemade strips- we hadn't made our homemade version of strips in over 2 years and we both decided it was time to make them again. Maisie mainly ate the cheese and the hot sauce (she's her fathers daughter right?)

first pair of saltwater sandals

first unprompted "love you" said as daddy was leaving to the store.

first time wearing size 4 diapers. They are still a little big, but I don't think we are going back to 3. This makes me sad, because she has been wearing size 3 diapers since she was 6 months old.

first bon fire at the beach complete with hot dogs roasted over the fire

first time riding a ride all by herself. Maisie fell in love with the fishy ride at Gilroy Gardens (pictures soon).

favorites at 23 months:

favorite songs- Kimbra- cameo lover (she loves the music video too), M83- Midnight city, Foster the People- Helena beat, FUN we are young

favorite food- raspberries, tortillini, nutella and toast, bananas, any kind of berry, cheese, oatmeal with greek yogurt, berries and almond butter, homemade spanish brown rice, Panera mac & cheese, any kind of soup, BBQ'd hebrew national hot dogs and of course her beloved milk (whole and almond milk. we do both). She pounds the stuff down. 

favorite nursery rhyme: twinkle twinkle little star

favorite toys- her baby doll (that was actually mine when I was a newborn) Rosie her pink puppy, duplos and "snakie" her very realistic looking snake.

favorite books- If you give a mouse a cookie, If you give a pig a party, If you give a moose a muffin. Pretty much any of the "if you give a..." titles. She loves them. Also, Hop on pop, Put me in the zoo, Theres a wocket in my pocket.

favorite movies- anything with Snoopy in it, Dumbo and Lady and the Tramp.

We go to Costco a lot. I'm more comfortable not mentioning how many times we actually we go there in a months time, but trust me it's a lot. Anyway, when we are driving home we pass a furniture place that has one of those inflatable dancing tube things. You know the strange things you see outside of car dealerships? Well Austin has dubbed him "crazy guy" and every time we head back to the car and make our way out of the parking lot Maisie yells "crazy guy! crazy guy! crazy guy!!"  and when she finally spots him she lets out the biggest chuckle. 

She loves having bows in her hair now. She wants one in her hair at all times and if it falls out, its the end of the world. I can't tell you how happy this makes me. Me and my sister are a tad bit obsessed with bows. We have been since we were little girls and it broke my heart when Maisie no longer wanted to wear any hair accessories including head bands, bows and hats. She's still not a fan of headbands, but loves her bows and hats. It makes her curly hair look styled now. Which is good because as much as I love her curly locks, 60% percent of the time they frizz or just looks unkempt, but with a bow to help keep things in place, it looks much less like a ragamuffin.

words & play at 23 months:
Who knows how many words she's up to now, but it's a lot. I used to write down every new word, but the list got crazy long, so I stopped, but she doesn't cease to amaze us with her vocabulary and comprehension. Example: the other day she said tassel while describing my bookmark. What in the world? Baby genius I tell you!

She is starting to put together the structure of family. She loves pointing out in books where there's a mama and dada of one the characters. Example: mama mouse and dada mouse in "if you give a mouse a cookie".

Maisie loves to pretend her toys are sleeping. She rocks them in her arms, sings them a song, tucks them in with a blanket and says "night night". Then she proceeds to shush us every time we make a sound. It's really sweet watching her become motherly to her "little ones". She will often pretend to feed them and make them dance as well.

She is really fascinated with anything that flies. Airplanes, kites and balloons are her favorite. She explains very enthusiastically "high high HIGH sky!!"

"hold you?" is currently her most used saying. We are trying to get her to say "hold me" but it still melts my heart every time she says "hold you?"

When Maisie wakes up I always ask her "did you have a good nap?" she says yeah. "Did you have good dreams?" yeah. "What did you dream about?" she used to always say "fan" as in our ceiling fan, but now she says mama and dada. Oh and sometimes it's about flowers too.

Cuddling has been one of her favorite activities lately. She will run full speed into my arms asking  "cuddle?" and no matter what I am doing I always oblige her.

"Here! Thank you!" Maisie loves to hand me things and say "Here!" and sometimes if I don't say thank you right away, she will say it for me. She is so polite sometimes. She loves to say thank you even for the smallest gesture.

Maisie doesn't know how to snap her fingers, but she has mastered the technique even though it doesn't produce any sound. So what does my little genius baby do? She clicks her tongue to make the snapping sound. When she first did this it blew our minds. So if you can't see her mouth, you would totally think she were really snapping her fingers.

Maisie is starting to sing even more. When I sing "twinkle twinkle" she always sings the last word in the sentence. Example she would sing the words star, are, high, sky, star and are. She also does this with "you are my sunshine" and "the ABCS"

She can count to 8 all by herself and 10 if we assist, but her favorite number is 2. Sometimes she will count like this:

1...2...2...2...3...4...5...2 or just 2...2...2... 

She knows all of her colors now. Including gray, brown, black and white. And for some reason when she says white she whispers it ever so softly. It's so cute.

We got her a wagon complete with umbrella as an early 2nd birthday present. She adores it! Not only does she love going on rides, but one of the sides flips up, turning it into a bench and she loves to sit in it outside on our balcony. She brings some of her toys and blankets out there and makes a little bed in the sunshine.

This little girl loves to pray and you bet she keeps us accountable. If we even think about eating before blessing the food, she calls us out. The only thing is, once is not good enough for little Maisie. She isn't satisfied with just one prayer and will want stop us to say another (or 5) through out our meal. When she's really excited to eat she will stare down her food, but for the most part her eyes are shut and head bowed.

Maisie can sing this whole song by herself:
night, night
night, night
go to sleep
go to sleep
night, night
night, night
close your eyes, go to sleep.

That's all for now. Time to prepare myself for being the mother of a 2 year old. We have been celebrating her all weekend long, but those posts will come soon. Tomorrow we are going to meet friends at the park to celebrate with pizza, root beer floats and of course cake!