2 Years

From one to two in as many bites

"Ahp-a-tah!" (octopus)
"No actually, that's a dismembered, former gecko stuck to your pillow. Octopuses are found in water.
Nope, that's your drinking cup you're filling with noodles.
Oh, right. Like an octopus in water."

I'll tell you now that it's a struggle not to simply list her bodacious vocabulary instead of the fraught summary of the last six months I'm about to leave here.
And so, a compromise:

Favorite story: The ABCs
Favorite song: Happy Birthday,
(currently we're singing it to Uncle Bobby every day)
Worst habit: Running into the street
Celebrity idol: Elmo
Guilty pleasure: Attempting to drive without a license
Favorite lipstick color: Whatever's edible
Power play: Opening the fridge
Richest resource: Size 8 shoes
Scarcest resource: Juice boxes

Two years ago after an appropriate amount of thrashing and pushing, Noble appeared 100% alive. Big success. These days I look for ways to quantify her enormous changes, so I laid out all her baby blankets and meditated on the joy I can access just by looking at all the work by people who welcomed her to the world. At two, she is learning fast. Words have never proven themselves to be more powerful than when I ask her for a compound favor and get it delivered to the letter. She is fearless around cars, continues to stand in her high chair even after sustaining a skull-fracturing fall, friendly, and even more fancy free than she was at one, which is saying something.

This girl is often one shoe-ed, crusty- nosed, eager, helpful, and an absolute asset to her community. Much like Arya Stark, she holds fast to her holy list whenever she finds a quiet moment: "Mommy, Daddy, Gigi, Paw Paw, Grandma, Grandpa, Debbie, Wolfie, Sage, Wiley, Rush, Audrey, Amber, Bobby." (Hil - we're working on it.) Debbie, her doll, rarely gets top billing but it should be noted that she spent a little time with our friend Debbie and very organically chose the name for her baby. What she intends to do with this list remains to be seen.

Upon passing me in the hall this week she said, "Coo mee" (excuse me) and has continued to showcase the many uses for "thank you" and "don't bite". She peed on a pack of toilet paper the other day, and learned how to spit water into the mirror with just the right trajectory to feel a splash back. Tiny discoveries pop up every. damn. day, and we do our best to give her the play space to explore without hovering. It's amazing to watch her cruise around the farmers market completely on her own, walking well ahead of us and making connections like the mayor of her knee high society.  She likes painting the sink and tub in water color, using a green bingo dabber as a toothbrush and squirms bloody murder when I try to use an appropriate apparatus to clean her teeth,
trim her nails or suggest that we
ever stop painting.

Four months ago, she was awarded a little cousin, just as her on-again-off-again BFF Wiley got a little brother. Having two babies to choose from is just how she likes it. I am so tempted to arrange for her to sit on the couch and hold one of them, but it might turn into a "more juice" situation so I'm holding off. I feel especially lucky that she hasn't asked me for a baby of her own, and I'm banking on these two being small and all-engrossing to her for a long time.

Please join us in wishing her many more extra-diaper-on-the-outside occasions, and lots more birthdays full of friends and conveniently loaned bouncy houses. And Louie Anderson look-alike contests.

💗