I covered Claire's language explosion in another post. Here are other areas of development for Claire's first few months of being 2!
We have some new concepts:
Possessive - somewhere along the way she picked up the concept of possessive (Claire's, mama's, mine)
Counting - We are making some progress here. 1,2,3,6,7,8 is typical. Just can't get 4 and 5 yet! She can also count/identify quantities of 1, 2, and sometimes 3.
Time out - She is understanding the concept of time out and also the verbal label. She isn't 100% with her understanding of the process yet. Especially if you threaten with time out in an attempt to get her to comply. She'll either say that she wants to go to timeout or put herself there and start crying before I've actually told her to go to timeout. She's pretty good with behavior and following directions, for a 2 year old, so we don't have to use timeout too much. Maybe a few times a week. Sometimes it's 3 times in one day and then none at all for days. Just depends on her mood and how many demands we place on her.
Fears:
Our fearless little girl has become a bit of a scaredy cat! I know it's due to her developing little mind being more aware of the world and all the unknown things out there. She is very tuned into any little noise and wants to know what it is. She doesn't like loud, unexpected noises and really doesn't like thunder. She'll say "I no like it thunder." She also freaks out a little bit with bugs. There was one day she wouldn't go outside because there was a bee flying around the deck. I had to carry her out past the deck. The fluorescent light in our closet makes a buzzing sound that she doesn't like. A few flies that got into our house terrorize her. If she heard or saw one, she'd cover her eyes and whine. I think may have been precipitated by something biting her ear on a trip to the botanic garden. We aren't sure what happened, but she started crying suddenly and grabbing her ear and later that day she had a little red spot on the top of her ear. But even dead bugs floating in the pool give her pause.
She is still pretty fearless physically as far as climbing. She is timid around water though, which is a double edged sword. I don't have to worry too much about her running right into the water, but it's also hard to get her into a pool.
Some of her recent interests:
More tunnel/airplane - on our many trips down to our parents' houses we go under "tunnels" (overpasses) and pass by the airport. She loves finding the airplanes in the sky but always asks for more.
She is loving music and singing. For a while her favorite was "bum ba way" (Lion sleeps tonight). Jeff would sing it for her or play it on the computer or his phone. Of course, she would always ask for more. We sing her songs at bedtime. She always want more! But my favorite is her developing singing skills. She now has enough language skills to attempt to sing herself! It is so adorable! She is also better at recognizing tunes she knows than I am!
She also is developing some pretend play skills. She will feed her babies or animals or pretend cook in her kitchen. One day she was feeding a stuffed sheep and asked it "Iss good Baa?"
Swimming:
We did a few weeks of swimming lessons at the Y. The first lesson went great! She did great getting into the water, did all the requested tasks, followed directions, no screaming or crying like a few others. It went a little downhill after that. I guess the novelty wore off. She started being more resistant to getting into the water to practice a skill, yelling "back to the wall, back to the wall." When sitting on the wall awaiting instructions, she didn't want to sit with the other kids. She wanted to run on the pool deck. So it could be a little frustrating at times. But she did practice some skills. She liked the Humpty Dumpty rhyme we sang to go into the pool. Except she said "bumpty bumpty." She didn't want to blow bubbles after the first day, but she would practice kicking and "ice cream scoop" arms. I really just wanted her to be comfortable in the water and not be afraid to get in. We had pretty good success on that front, or so I thought.
Food:
We've
had some developments in the eating category. She is still a good
eater but exhibiting some changing tastes. She's added a few "kid
foods" to the like category that she previously refused: chicken
nuggets, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese. She's also become a shrimp lover! Unfortunately she has stopped eating some things she used to, like various squashes and oatmeal. She has taken a couple bites of egg without spitting it out but still proclaims "I no like it egg!"
Bed transitions:
On April 1st we changed her crib to a toddler bed. On May 15th we put her in a new big girl bed in a new room. There were some ups and downs with both changes, but overall the transitions went better than I had expected.
Diapering and potty training:
Claire has become resistant to diaper changes for the most part. Which is great fun, especially when very pregnant! I have learned a trick though. I ask her to bring a stuffed animal over for a diaper change and then can get her to lay down too.
We also have had some potty success! We aren't fully potty training. Just following her lead in interest in sitting on the potty. Sometimes she's eager to sit on it, other times she refuses. Jeff is better about pushing the issue a bit and convincing her to do it. I don't have the energy for that so I will let it go if she says she doesn't want to. We started out with both a little potty and a potty ring for the big potty. At first she only liked the little one. Now she is fine with either option.
So far we've had numerous pees on the potty. She doesn't really get the concept of holding her pee but if you catch her at the right time, she understands putting her pee pee in the potty. We've had one accidental poop on the potty. On April 30, I put her on the little potty before bed so she could pee and surprise! She had poop instead. But if we catch her in the act of pooping she does not want to do it on the potty. So we still have a ways to go. But it's better than when she was afraid of the potty!
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| Potty time! |
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