a pinch of whimsy.: a bit about bea pt. 3

with all of our holiday traveling, announcing the pregnancy and the gender, and recounting bea's birthday, i am realizing now that i haven't chronicled beatrice's little isms and developments lately! it seems like the time. i mean, the girl is TWO for crying out loud. where does the time go??

-bea has discovered princesses. she has liked frozen for a while but she has now moved on to cinderella, ariel {where i must fast forward all the ursula scenes to avoid certain tears}, and disney jr's sofia the first {fia-lella}. whenever she sees one of them in a pretty dress she says "she's a princess!!!!!" other favorite movies include the ever-popular nemo, toy story, and the aristocats. that last one is a big favorite.

-she has pretty much moved on to almost always speaking in complete sentences. if she whines or doesn't use a sentence, we will usually correct her and she'll use a sentence. they are missing articles or pronouns sometimes, but it's always very clear what she means.

-she is still all about dancing. she goes to a 2 year old ballet class on wednesdays, and my oh my is that too cute to behold. it is her favorite day of the week. she hops around the house singing "chasse, chasse, chasse!" and always asks when she can go to "ballyay?!" she loves her friends from the class and her teacher, miss monique. we bought just dance 2015 for her for christmas and she asks to play "the dancing game!" alllllll the time. we definitely got our money's worth out of that one. she observes for the first minute or so of each song and then gets in there and tries to do the moves on the screen. i love watching her brain work.

-she is still sleeping with a binky and blankie. except now she has to have 2 blankies at a time each night. who even knows what goes on in her brain?

-her favorite phrase is "beebee do it!!" she loves to be independent and do things herself. she can get her slip on shoes on and off herself, and can zip up her jacket if i start it for her. she likes to buckle herself into her carseat, turn off all of the lights by herself, close doors before we leave, and put her own toys away which brings me tooooo....

-her strange neuroses for leaving things exactly as she found them. she MUST put things back where she got them from when she is done using them {which is a great quality!} but can be a bit challenging when something gets left out by accident. i.e, the other day we left her tea set on the couch in its bucket. she wanted to play tea party, so we did, and when we were done she put everything back in the bucket and put it back on the couch. when i told her we should probably just put it where it goes she FLIPPED HER LID! no mom, we have to put things back where we find them. duh. same thing goes for her shoes. every day when we get home from somewhere, she goes to her room, turns on her lights, sits on the same spot on the floor, takes off her shoes, opens her drawer, puts them away, shuts the drawer, turns out the lights, and closes her door and comes back to the front entry to take off her coat and put it in the closet. i love how meticulous she is.

-aside from weekly dance class, we also go to 2 weekly story times {usually} at the 2 libraries in our neighborhood. bea LOVES story time. they do lots of songs and sometimes they get out a parachute and bubble machines and all kinds of good stuff. it's not like the ritz carlton of story times or anything but it's fun and low key and she loves it.

-bea has learned that the baby in my tummy is a boy baby, and for now he is named "baby brother" {"baby bedder!"}. she likes to help me pick out clothes for him and she can tell when i'm feeling tired and associates the two together now, and will come over and say "mommy tired. mommy has a baby tummy!"

-she's noticed me saying a lot of the same things the past few months bc of the pregnancy and has picked some up. so like, now if she doesnt want to do something she'll say, "i can't. i'm too tired." or "nope, i can't take a bath. i'm sick!" also, if you offer her something she's not interested in, she says "no thanks, i'm good." hahahaha i love that.

-bea now poops 90% of her poops on the potty, even when we are out and about. she really doesn't like pooping in her diaper so she always just tells me when she needs to poop and she goes on the potty. getting her to do more than 20% of her peeing in the potty is another story. i was reading through old posts today and saw that we started with the potty back in august. what a long road it's been....and we aren't done yet...i keep telling myself each case of diapers we buy is the last one but then it's not. oh well. we still have 4 months! one of these days i'll just have to let her pee in underwear a million times and maybe she'll get it. i mean i've tried it before and it hasn't worked but maybe i was doing it wrong? if anyone has any tips....they are welcome.

-she seems to have leveled out heightwise. at her last checkup she was in the 42nd percentile for height and 57th for weight, when normally it's 75th and 50th, respectively. but she eats all her fruits and veggies {and lovvvves to "dippit? dippit?" in ranch} so i'm not too worried. maybe she won't be super tall after all. who knows?!

-all her watching of aristocats has gotten her into the habit of saying "mama" after everything lately, as the aristocats do. "i need help, mama!", "i made a dinosaur, mama!" {during play-doh sessions. she lovvvves play-doh}, "i need to go potty, mama!" "i need a tissue, mama!" you get the idea. it was really cute for like a day and now i'm like...bea. we don't need to say it every time we say anything.

-just today she started talking to an imaginary "dory" after dinner, and was ushering her from room to room. it was weird. i don't know if it will become a habit or not but it was kind of funny.

-when we got back from utah, we were having crazy issues with her wanting to be held on the entire {long} walk from the garage to our apartment, which i really can't do now that i'm big and pregnant and usually have a lot of things to carry as well. after a ton of temper tantrums and lots of tears i finally sat her down and had a talk with her, and reminded her of our talk each time we were about to get out of the car, and that basically solved the problem by some miracle. so now whenever we're in the hallway, she reminds me "i don't cry in the hallway! i don't hold you in the hallway! i run run! i walk like a big girl!" it's very cute. i love how she really wants to be obedient and make us happy.

-bea loves to count and can count to ten on her own. she also knows several letters by sight and can sing her ABCs all by herself. she was eating a donut the other day and said "look, mommy! O!!!"

-she also knows most of her shapes, and likes to point them out. her favorites are triangles. we ate pizza today and she pointed to my slice and said "it's a triangle mama!!!"

-she lovvves to say prayers. she declares it her turn to pray each night for family prayer. she knows to include abby on her mission and always says how thankful she is for mommy and daddy and the "baby tummy". sometimes she'll throw in something she's thankful for that is way out of left field and really cracks us up. like "chickens", or "debbie's house" or something like that. she likes to fold her fingers and lace them together while she prays but always wants us to fold our arms. if we try to lace our hands, she corrects us immediately and won't continue until it's rectified. she is also the eyes police and makes sure we are always closing our eyes during prayers. she makes sure daddy is always on his knees but gives me an excuse because "mommy has a baby tummy. it's ok."

-bea is now able to really grasp complex stories whether they're movies or books. she has developed a recent love for frog and toad and it is super cute. we read our entire frog and toad treasury in a week and she was enthralled the whole time. i'm realizing now that we need to get more and more library books each week because her board books are just not cutting it for bedtime stories anymore!

that's all i've got for now. i love life with this girl. i can't wait to introduce her to her new brother, but i sure am grateful for all the one on one time we've been able to enjoy these 2 years (: