Why 2 year old's shouldn't shave!

This was something that she and Courtney did one day. Courtney said she loved it! She certainly fakes it well if she didn't love it. You gotta love that smile. Actually, she's turning into quite a ham for the camera. She'll sit for just a few seconds to have her pictures made if you ask her to. But a few seconds is all you get so you better be ready.

Our big news over the last week is the job offer I received to work with my instructor from the web design class I took this past fall. I will be working 1-2 days per week at the hospital then 2 days per week at Locust Creek (the web design company). Once I'm through training at Locust Creek, then I will be able to do some of the work from home. The other great thing about this is that I will be able to bring Dillon with me when I am working in the office. For the time being, Courtney is still going to be coming 2 days a week. One of the days I'll be working at the hospital, then one of the days at Locust Creek. The other day at Locust Creek, Dillon will be with me. I'm really excited about this and think that it could work into a really good situation for us, even long-term.

I hosted a home party thing on Sunday with all kinds of child-related products. There were some really cute barrettes that I wanted to try in Dillon's hair since it is finally getting long enough to be in her eyes. As I came toward her with the barrette, she told me loudly "Don't like it! Don't like it!" So, no cute barrettes in Dillon's hair, I suppose. I trimmed her bangs just a little this morning. She was starting to look like such a little ragamuffin, that I had to trim them a bit. She did great with it and her hair looks so much better already.

We got about a foot of snow Saturday night with about another 3 inches falling today. She's fascinated with the snow plows-- only when she says snow plow, it comes out sounding much more like snow gow. The are lots of "Snow gow doin'?" and "Snow gow go?" going on around here. Fortunately she didn't tack the "stupid" to the front of snow plow when hearing us label it as such Saturday night after finding that the stupid snow plow knocked the door off of our mailbox and scattered the mail on the road. The city is going to replace it, but since it is still standing and it was just the door that was knocked off, then we'll be put on a list for replacement. I got the distinct feeling that this was not a new occurence for them.

Naptime is over today, and there is playing and dancing and chasing around to be done. We'd go play outside if it weren't 15 degrees outside!

23 months

How did she get to be 23 months old?! I find myself more often lately describing her as being almost 2. Wait! How can she be almost 2? Can it really be 2 years ago that I was 8 months pregnant and ready to pop?

To watch her now is amazing as it has always been. I've been working on framing some pictures of her from the first year of her life. She's changed so much! I suppose it's cliche to comment on how they are little sponges at this age and just soak up everything. She really does, though. She spouts off random numbers and letters and sometimes even gets them right. She knows right foot and left foot. She has her own set of "rules" (babies must not wear clothes being one). She has her own opinions. She has favorites. She is becoming more and more of her own person.

Wow.

I suppose I should warn that there's the possiblilty of nostalgia overkill over the next month as her birthday looms closer. The plans are for a small celebration because it feels like the right thing to do rather than a larger party. We've talked about getting her a good-quality toy xylophone or maybe some wooden food to "cook" with on the cardboard stove that I made for her months ago and she STILL plays with. Maybe a couple of books. Definitely some chocolate cake as it is something she has developed an affinity for since her last birthday. She'll now zero in on chocolate and tell you "Want choc-ate!"

Still don't know if it's a good idea to have real candles on the cake, though. A 2 year old and fire just doesn't seem like a good idea!

Dillon do it

She has learned what has to be the second most popular phrase of toddlerhood-- "Dillon do it." I would think that it could only be beaten by "No" in the frequency of use in the typical toddler vocabulary. I think for Dillon, it is actually for popular than "no." Her favorite activity to do on her own is putting on her pants. In fact, I noticed that she was quiet the other morning, checked on her to find her happily going through a basket of clean laundry, trying to put on every pair of her pants she could find. So, all told, when I found her doing this, the she had on the pants I dressed her in, a second pair of pants, a pair of tights and a pair of socks. A fashion statement all it's own! It was absolutely hysterically funny!

I have learned to use this need to dress herself to my advantage. If I need for her to be busy for a few minutes, I just give her a pair of pants and let her go to work :-)

We went, very briefly, to a birthday party today for one of the little boys in our playgroup. Her turned one yesterday. He is Indian and it must be a part of their culture to celebrate birthdays in a big way. There must have been seating and food for 50-75 people. We went early and left after about 1/2 hour because the party started at just about her naptime. Between a huge group of people, loud music, a bunch of ballons that kept getting popped and the proximty to naptime, it was pretty easy to bow out of the party early. I'm glad we made an appearance, but it was really just WAY too much for my personal taste. As fun as all the stuff was to her, she definitely had a look of just being overwhelmed by it all.

We also had the issue of the snow to deal with. We got probably on the order of 6 inches of snow today. It is gorgeous! I'm not sure how much she'll like walking in it since it's so deep. We'll see tomorrow as there will be a request to "Walk in snow!" followed by a request of "Dillon do it!" when it comes time to zip up her coat.

So when will there be a request to do all the snow shoveling?

Tower building

She loves crawling up on ths table! She also loves to jump off of it onto a pillow. Thus far she has waited until someone is sitting on the floor by the table to catch her. Hopefully she won't get a lot braver for a little while- at least until she can land a little more steadily on her feet.

She surprised us the other day by rattling off about 70% of the alphabet. It wasn't all in order, but it was definitely the alphabet. Up until then, all she'd really said was ABC and EFR. She's also learning the motions to that little song "Head and Shoulder (Knees and Toes..)" Dave got her one of the Baby Einstein videos that has several kids singing this song in it. She just grins from ear to ear, touches her head then bends down and touches her toes.

She's really enjoying all of her Christmas presents. I really need to go through and put away some of the older toys that she is no longer interested in. The tough part, of course, is that she suddenly becomes interested as soon as I try to put them up. Or she spots them wherever I have them put up and insists on seeing them. Yeah, that's why they never get put up....