I think I love Two

M is quite a kid. She is at that precocious nearly verbal stage. She calls her siblings (in age order): Sissy, Yackie, Ella, and Papul. The other day, Bam was growling (because really, why shouldn't you growl when you're 4 and a boy) when M woke up from her nap. She was waiting for me when I opened the door and asked me "What Papul saying? What Papul saying?" When I told her he was growling, she spent the next several minutes (and even hours later for her father's benefit) saying "Papul say rowr."

She loves to dance, especially to the Do-re-mi number from The Sound of Music. She loves Sesame Street and sleeps with Elmo and Zoey dolls. (except she calls the Zoey doll "shoey"--took us a while to figure that out). She is ALL girl: she loves shoes, purses and prancing about with them. And she prefers dresses to wearing almost anything else. Really, I think this being two thing is lovely.

For whatever reason, for two year old birthdays in our family, I always make chocolate chip cake. I think, originally, it was my attempt to slowly introduce them to the world of heavy sugar and chocolate. M sniffed out the Halloween candy remnants on her own this year and could often be found dragging a chair to the hiding place for some "canny," so really there is no delusion that she hasn't had plenty of chocolate and sugar already. But a tradition is a tradition. I think, really, by this point in my family the chocolate chip cake is because the birthday child is still too young to successfully articulate a cake theme of his/her own.

M got into her cake just a bit (she's already quite a climber), so I had to make the drizzly glaze extra stiff to cover up the finger holes. What I didn't expect though was for M to be terrified by the lit candles:




Gratefully, big sister CE was able to calm her a bit.



And so now we have a two year old (although, when asked she says she's three). And on we go.