The sweetest thing happened yesterday. While I was doing my daily 5:50 PM routine (trying to get dinner cooked with two grouchy girls, both wanting to simultaneously be held, eat a snack, play outside, go potty, and push a babydoll stroller), Quinn was following me around, arms upstretched, wanting to be held. Usually, I am conditioned to drop what I am doing in order to give good hugs... but it was 5:50 and I had just put hamburger in the skillet to brown, and I could not immediately stoop down to scoop her up.
To me, Quinn was announcing, "Hold me!". When I didn't, she went straight to Cora, saying, "Hold me!". Cora obliged. My heart melted.
At dinner, she kept saying to Cora, "Sissy!!!", then would out-stretch her arms, and insist Cora come and hug her. It happened so many times that Cora started setting limits, "This is the last time, Quinny, OK? Not again." Then it would happen again, and they'd repeat the pattern.
At nearly 2, Quinn's cuteness is at an all-time high.
She isn't tall enough to see over the counter in the kitchen or the bathroom, but that doesn't keep her from checking out her landscape. Quinn totes around a stool and/or one of the chairs that go with her little table, following me around to see what I'm doing. She doesn't let her size hold her back. I found these pics on the camera card from October - I don't think I ever posted them. Look at how proud she is of this old stool I keep in the laundry room.
She is loving the rhyme and motions to:
Five little monkies swinging from a tree.
Said to Mr. Alligator Can't Catch Me (Quinn takes her index fingers and buries them her cheeks)
Along came the alligator quiet as can be... shhhh (Quinn thinks she is making the shhh motion, but instead she just points to her nose)...
AND SMACK THAT MONKEY OUT OF THAT TREE!!!
(Quinn claps hard and cackles)
She also claps everytime at the end of "The Itsy Bitsy Spider", loves to do books that have noisy buttons to push, and would push a babydoll stroller or shopping cart for hours.
In the last two weeks, her language has improved dramatically. We're frequently getting "I want a snack", and she has gotten much better at communicating what she wants rather than just crying (e.g., coming into the kitchen to get her own fork, spoon, bib, etc. She now says, "I'm hungry".
We have a colorful baby animal book. When Cora was Quinn's age, we would go through the book identifying the animals (e.g., Which one is the monkey? Where is the macaw?). Landon was putting Cora to bed last week, so I had Quinn one-on-one (admittedly, this isn't usually how it happens). I had the chance to get the baby animal book out, and was expecting a tinge of guilt at how few of the animals Quinny would know. To my surprise, she knew almost everyone! Either Landon has been practicing the book with Quinny, or she is destined to be a zoo-ologist someday!
Quinn is very into jumping right now. She will run a few steps, then leap, land on both feet, and yell "BOOM!" then laugh. She also prefers to take a two-footed jump from the top of stairs.
In the bathtub she always wants to play with the yellow frog named "Alli" (Sorry Alli Turisk, but I think Cora named it after you, and the name has stuck).
She recently announced that her lovey's name is "Flower".
In Kentucky, mom's favorite memory of our last visit was of early mornings with Quinn. Quinn and Cora have little cots at my parent's house; this was Quinn's first time to move from the crib to the cot. Mom slept in the bedroom with the girls and the cots. When Quinn would wake, she would climb in bed with Mom. Mom said every few minutes her head would pop up, she would grab Mom's face, give her a big smacker, then lay her head back down and doze.
Mom let her bring back to SC mom's childhood babydoll. All plastic, with one arm missing and wearing one of my baby outfits (a two-big knitted outfit). It is nearly as big as Quinn - Quinn tries to carry it with us a lot.
She is starting to play more with blocks, and she is starting to play make-believe. One of her favorite things is the little tiny baby that came with the Loving Family dollhouse. We are losing it frequently, and it is because Quinn carries it off.
The girls' play kitchen is in the breakfast nook, and they often play there while I finish my dinner. Quinn has started pulling the kitchen away from the wall so she can peek behind it and put her head through the "window" above the sink, smiling and screaming, "hi".
Quinn is a very happy girl.
But she's a tough girl, too. Everyone comments that Quinn can take a pretty hard knock with practically no reaction. A few weeks ago she came home from daycare with a big bite bruise on her arm. I noted it with her teacher the next day, in case Q decided to retaliate. Her teacher was surprised, but said that Q may have reacted with a mad cry, but not a hurt cry. That didn't surprise me - she holds her own.
Speaking of tough... I took these pics the day after I started this blog post. This is a few minutes before Quinny's second birthday party. She had just woken up from her nap, and all-of-the-sudden went from happy to furious over the birthday dress. I decided to not try to get her dressed, and instead tried to put her head in piggies. That didn't go well, either. I returned to getting her dressed - and this is what happened.
I grabbed my camera seconds before she flung herself on the ground in an all-out tantrum.
Well, Hello There, Terrible Two's! It's so great that you decided to arrive. I am impressed by your punctuality!
It's my party and I can cry if I want to!
Happy 2nd Quinny! We can't wait for your party, even if you aren't so sure about this dress.
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