Life with a toddler is hectic at best, and things just seem to keep barreling forward for us. I'm pretty sure life isn't going to slow down again until Anne moves out of our house, and even then it will still likely move at the speed of light. Just maybe not the speed of light times 10.
Anne is now obsessed with Dora the Explorer (pretty great kids' show), and has watched Lilo & Stitch more times than I care to count. Had to ban that one for awhile though; Anne started adopting Lilo's tantrum style and I am not okay with that. Cinderella, Tangled, and Peter Pan are also among her favorites that she has now made us watch a million times. Note to new parents: don't introduce movies to your kids that you don't like, or you will regret it. Thankfully I love all of those. I'm looking forward to the weather warming up and us getting outside more, though. I'd rather Anne not watch as much tv.
We've introduced the One Bite Rule in our house and have had amazing success with it. Sometimes it even makes her realize she wants to eat the entire serving of a particular food. I jump for joy if any of those foods happen to be green!
Anne still sleeps in our room on a mattress on the floor. Considering how often we either end up sleeping in her bed with her or she crawls into ours at night, we're still not ready to move her to own room. We have started talking about it with her, though. Maybe for her third birthday we'll attempt to start the transition. Mostly I want her to be able to get up and go to the bathroom in the middle of the night by herself first. She still needs help getting onto the toilet right now, but at least if she's by my bed and wakes up I can get her to the bathroom before she has an accident.
Anne loves stuffed animals but doesn't seem as drawn to dolls. She chose a Minnie Mouse at the Disney store over all of the beautiful character dolls for a gift recently. She has started climbing at the playground but still doesn't climb all over stuff the way some kids do. She really doesn't get into things she's not supposed to, either. Terrible Twos Meltdowns aside, she's a really well-behaved kid. So far anyway. She still loves books (hooray!!) and has started making up her own games ("The tiger is coming, mommy, get on the couch!!") She likes to color and paint, play on playgrounds, and run laps around our house. She likes to go for stroller rides to watch the cars zoom past on the busy street near our house. And, my favorite, she still loves to snuggle.
Kristian and I are doing better than ever. Sometime last year I started scheduling date nights for us and it has done wonders for our relationship.
