Two Years Old

Kathleen turned two years old on Monday. In some ways it seems like she has been two for quite a while now. In fact sometimes I have to remind myself that she's still only little. Having Victoria around now and her being so little, Kathleen seems very big and grown up in comparison. But it is Kathleen's speech that makes her seem so much older. She talks in fully formed sentences now, sometimes quite long and complicated. She may miss out little words like "is" (e.g. "baby talkee on da phone") but her speech is for the most part intelligible and intelligent. She knows all her colours and is getting better at numbers, able to count to five in both English and Spanish.

Kat's birthday was on Monday. This also happened to be Wellington Anniversary Day so Peter had the day off work. We began the day by singing "Kiki's Special Day" song (from Dora the Explorer, Boots Special Day episode). She then wanted "stamps" on her hands, so we drew pictures on her hands with marker pens. Kiki and Daddy then enjoyed watching cartoons over breakfast.

Then it was time for presents. Kathleen got a bit spoiled, although we only bought her a couple of presents. There were also a couple of presents from family and friends. And a couple of presents left over from her birthday last year. These were things that she just wasn't ready for at the time (a tea-set and some Playdoh). So I put them away until she was older and then kinda forgot about them. We could have given these to her a couple of months ago but with Christmas coming up I decided to keep them until her birthday, as she had quite enough Christmas presents as it was.

Her favourite presents would have to be the set of Little People building blocks, and the tea-set. Every day since her birthday she has dragged these out to play with, making tea for the Little People or for Mummy, and stacking the blocks and toys up.

She also got a blackboard, which is great because she can pick up the chalk at any time and draw pictures without bugging Mummy to get the pens and paper out. And even better, Mummy doesn't have to supervise to stop her drawing all over herself or worse. If she wants to draw on herself with chalk she can...

After all the presents were opened and played with, we brought out Kathleen's birthday cake. A Very Hungry Caterpillar cake which looked pretty good even if I do say so myself. Neither Kathleen or I have made many friends since we moved back to Wellington, so we didn't have a birthday party for her. It was just Mummy and Daddy and Kiki (Victoria was sleeping).

Later on we took Kat and Vicky out to the park to play, and had a picnic lunch under a tree. Then that evening we went out to dinner at McDonald's and once again Kathleen had a great time playing in the playground.

To top it all off, today we took her to Little Monkeys indoor playground for her "party". Only one of the five sets of parents we invited were able to make it. But that didn't matter anyway as Kathleen didn't even notice or care. She had a wonderful time playing and didn't want to leave.

So now my baby is two years old. It doesn't seem that long ago that I was posting about her first birthday. In that year she has grown up a lot - learnt to walk; learnt to talk; learnt to jump and climb; learnt to draw; discovered Dora and Barney and The Wiggles. Some things haven't changed - she still wants to get into everything, she still loves being the centre of attention. Tantrums are becoming more frequent, and are an almost daily occurrence.

In the next year I expect she will continue to build on the skills she already has, will get better at drawing and throwing/catching, will continue learning to use the potty, will learn to dress herself. She will also continue to become more independent, and will soon be attending creche one morning a week all on her own. I will certainly miss her, even if it is only for three hours a week.

-Megz