THE GREEN(wald) HOUSE … (growing rosemary & raising a little wolf)

We are still adjusting to life with a 2 year old and a newborn….

Rosie is revelling in the joy of being a two year old….

This is the face she makes when I tell her to “smile” for the camera…
She has a full, adult extensive vocabulary now - I couldn’t even begin to count how many words she knows and uses on a regular basis. She doesn’t enunciate everything properly - she tends to shorten words and has a few cute names for things - like ladybug is “leggybug”. And, she sometimes confuses her pronouns, saying “pick my up” instead of “pick me up” or “NO, my do it” or “my want it”.

She has been getting better at keeping herself entertained, playing by herself and “reading” books by herself. It is so amusing to listen to her running dialogue when she is pretending. She loves to make “tea” in her little play kitchen and bring it to me and Joe to drink. And sometimes she will go upstairs and play in her room by herself and I can listen in on the monitor downstairs and it always makes me smile to hear her playing - it feels a bit sneaky though - like I am spying on her or something…

She has become a great sleeper in the past few months - she actually voluntarily goes to bed now - and climbs into her crib on her own (she loves to climb). Most nights she insists on “one more” book (adamantly holding up her index finger) again and again before actually going to bed - and she always has to have her “nursie milk” - warm milk with nutmeg in a sippy cup - to go to bed. But it has been pretty smooth sailing for the most part when it comes to sleeping - going from 8-9pm until usually around 7 the next morning…

Since I didn’t really do an extensive update last month - here are photos from her birthday celebration…

She had a ton of fun with cousin Ella - contrary to the look on her face here…

We took her out to a special birthday breakfast where she got pancakes and toast with jelly that she licked right off…

And she loved blowing out the candles on the special birthday cupcakes I made her…

We all had a great day…

Rosie still loves taking baths and loves to pretend to swim in the bathtub too. Lately I have been having her practice putting her face in the water and blowing bubbles to prepare her for further swim lessons.

Luckily, she still loves her baby brother. Every morning when I bring him downstairs, she gets all excited and says “look, its baby Sam!” and then she promptly asks “please hold the baby” and when she holds him she puts her face right next to his and says “hi, I’m Rosie” and “I love my baby brother” - but usually she tires of him pretty quickly and then says “you nurse him mommy”.

She loves to hug and kiss him and hold him. And, even when I am holding him, she will come up and put her hand on him and tell me “we’re holding him together”. Or she will grab his hand and tell me “he’s holding my hand!”

Although by the looks of things, Sam will be holding her before long. She looks so little next to him, or maybe he is just so big - or both - but he definitely looks like he is on track to outgrow her in just a few short months.

Rosie has just started to get a little jealous of Sam and the attention he gets. Some days she is really clingy - demanding “cuddle me” or “pick me up”, and occasionally if Sam is grunting and getting hungry and I say “I need to get the baby” she says “No mommy, don’t get the baby”. And when I try to share my lap and hold both of them at the same time, she usually insists that whatever side the baby is on is “her” side. Also, she has been in the “mine” phase - especially when we are riding in the car - she has been yelling “no baby, that’s my window” and “no baby, that’s not your book”. And I have to explain to her that the baby is not trying to take anything from her, and we all know that the ________ (whatever she is complaining about) belongs to her.

I have been wearing Sam a lot in my many varied slings, wraps and carriers, so Rosie wanted to have a sling to carry her baby doll in too… I made her a quick mei-tei style carrier and she loved it - we went to the mall and she walked around like this and got a ton of oohs and aahs from people walking around…

We have been tentatively starting the potty learning process… she is really not tolerating a wet or poopy diaper and asks to be changed most of the time when her diaper is dirty. She loves to go sit on the potty and try to go - but it is usually right after she goes in her diaper - or she will sit and try to go for 5 minutes, but just practices wiping and flushing an empty potty and then washes her hands, only to tell me 2 minutes later when we have just put a new diaper on her that “I’m poopin’”. Oh well, I am really trying to be casual and not push her too much - but it would be nice to have less diapers to wash.

Other things this month:
She loves to sing and pretty much knows all the words to ABCD, Twinkle Twinkle, Rock a Bye Baby, Ring Around the Rosie, and a bunch of others from a nursery rhyme CD we listen to - and she has a Dora book with an MP3 player attached that has Dora versions of songs that she sings too… She also knows how to manipulate the MP3 player to select and play whatever songs she likes.
She knows how to push play to play her music on the CD player, and can turn on and open the DVD player and change and start the DVD’s she wants to watch.
She counts to 20 - but most of the time skips one or more numbers from 15-19.
She loves to jump and will climb on the couches and tables and jump off for hours and laugh and keep herself entertained.
She really loves to help out around the house and loves to do dishes. We got her a Learning Tower
for her birthday so she could reach the sink to “help” do dishes and cook and she LOVES it - it also doubles as a fun fort for her to play in. Except now we can’t really leave anything on the countertops, because she just pushes her learning tower around and now has access to anything we were trying to keep out of reach.

She really is a big girl and a big helper - she will help and get me a burp cloth for Sam when I ask her (as I am constantly forgetting to have one handy), or she will hand me the phone or the remote control or any number of helpful things when my hands are full or I am nursing Sam. She obeys and is pretty polite and respectful for the most part - but occasionally acts out and has her moments of just being an obnoxious two year old, throwing things on the ground after we just cleaned up and doing it again after I ask her not to and we clean up for a second and third time…

But even those rough and frustrating times are no match for the love and complete bliss I feel when looking into her big green eyes and holding her sweet warmth on my lap - when she takes my arms and places them around her and says “I love my mommy”.