Zoe at 2 1/2

Zoe turned 2 ½ on the 13th of this month. We marked the occasion by singing Happy Birthday a couple times. But then again, we sing that song on many days for no reason at all as it is one of Zoe’s favourites.

We will belatedly log the occasion on our blog (a.k.a. Zoe’s baby journal) with a post of Zoe-isms as a way of documenting her continuing and amazing development. There are so many times we sit back and marvel at how this child (or any other child) can absorb so much, file it away and spit it back out in the form of phrases and games that portray her amazing interpretation and understanding of the world she inhabits. Not a day goes by that we are not laughing at some new phrase or antic.

In no particular order, here are the highlights that make Zoe our 2 ½ year old Zoe at this point in time. (Warning: long post. Skip to bottom if you are just here for the pictures!)

On July 13, our petite Zoe was 33.5 inches tall and weighed 24 lbs (measurements taken at home). Depending on the brand, her clothing sizes currently range from 12 mo to 2T with the smaller sizes required for pants/shorts and slightly larger for tops. She still has several pair of size 6 mo shorts that fit her perfectly!

On the topic of birthdays, Zoe will frequently present us with random objects, often pretend ones, with the announcement that the object is a Happy Birthday for whoever the recipient is. This most often occurs when she is playing kitchen or cooking, in which case she “makes Happy Birthdays.”

Zoe couches the world around her in terms of Mama ones and Baby ones. Wherever there are two of something, whether it be carrots on her plate to trucks on the highway to illustrations in a book, she always points them out and refers to the larger one as a Mama one and the smaller as a Baby one. She has been doing this for many months.

In the same way that she notices size differences between like objects, she has begun to notice similarities between non-like objects. These similarities are mostly colour and shape but every now and then she comes up with a similarity that makes us scratch our heads and wonder how she noticed that, a tribute to the level of acute attention she gives things. By the way, all of this is strictly unprompted.

Along similar lines, our computer sits in the dining room most of the time. The screensaver is a random rotation of our photos which Zoe loves to watch. There are times when she will suddenly say, “that’s the same” and be pointing to one of our shirts. It took us a while to figure out that whenever she says this, a photo has just appeared where we are wearing the same shirt that is currently being worn at the table. Perhaps it is a sign that we need more diverse wardrobes?

Zoe’s new favourite number is fourteen. She can count to ten, often with all ten numbers accounted for and in the correct order. She can also name some of the numbers following ten, sometimes in the correct order.

Her current affirmative response is “yah okay.”

Phrases of self recognition are beginning to turn from third person to first person with more and more frequent sprinklings of I, me and my.

Zoe loves birds. And fish. On our way to the zoo each time, I always ask Zoe what animal(s) she wants to see. She always says fish. As for birds, she has always loved watching them and feeding them. This spring we had a robin nesting on our front porch and Zoe would sit at the window watching, waving and saying hi to “Mama Bird.” Whenever Mama Bird was absent from the nest, Zoe had to know where she was. Our answer was always that she was out getting food. One day in a parking lot, I brushed some crumbs from the car onto the ground. There happened to be some birds nearby. When Zoe expressed concern over losing the crumbs, I said that the birds would eat them. Zoe asked if Mama Bird would eat them too. I said yes. From that point on, whenever we have crumbs, Zoe has to put them outside for Mama Bird. And whenever we see a bird anywhere (across town, Nashville, Germany, etc.), she is always thrilled to see Mama Bird. A footnote to the robin nesting on our porch: the nest appeared on the ground one morning and there were raccoon tracks all around it. We told Zoe that Mama Bird went to find a new house (similarly to a bird in one of her favourite books), which was the truth. For weeks, however, Zoe always asked where Mama Bird was.

From our time in Kazakhstan, Zoe has loved playing variations of peek-a-boo. This is still the case. She will pull a blanket or article of clothing over her eyes and yell, “Where’s Zoe?” Her newest variation is, in the absence of anything else, to simply close her eyes and yell, “Where’s Zoe?”

A favourite game is “be right back.” Zoe will begin to exit whatever room we are in, get halfway to the door before turning and stating, “Zoe be right back” complete with a stern hand gesture indicating that we are not to follow. If one of us makes an attempt to follow, we are usually met with a “Mommy/Daddy STAY!” (Mum/Mummy is morphing into Mom/Mommy)

An extension of the same game is where Zoe will leave a room with an announcement that she is going on a trip – usually to Germany or Grandma’s house or a location recently discussed – and will be back in “a couple days” or “a couple weeks.” Sometimes she will add that she will send a postcard. She’s a traveller already!

A continuation from her early days of talking is the naming and inclusion of all family members in the comings and goings of each day. For example, if Julian goes out she forecasts “Daddy come home, see Zoe, see Chengis, see Mommy.” If we let her know that we are going for a walk she announces, “Zoe go for walk, Daddy go, Mummy go, Chengis go too.” There are many variations, but the one consistency is that all family members are named and accounted for. Perhaps an assurance or acknowledgment that she is indeed a member of this family.

“Special” is a word that entered her vocabulary this week. She has begun to describe particular books and toys as “my special book/toy.”

Our little toddler is increasingly active. While she has never been sedentary, we are seeing more and more running, jumping, fidgeting and climbing. The level has ratcheted up noticeably. Oh the fun!

Little Miss Manners regularly uses “please” and “thank you.” She also uses “excuse me” and “sorry,” sometimes as a free ticket to push us out of her way. A new game is for her to say “thank you” with the sole expectation of a “you’re welcome” in return. Early on she learned to cover her mouth when she coughs. Sometimes when she forgets, she takes it upon herself to cough again just so she can cover her mouth. We are still working on covering when we sneeze.

We are now in the midst of the terrible twos. For the last several weeks Zoe has been able to go from laughing to raging faster than a German ICE train! We keep reminding ourselves that this is normal and healthy... and will pass.

Potty training
One day way back in December Zoe announced that she wanted to have her diaper removed and sit on the potty. We obliged and she peed. When this happened three times in a row, we thought she might just well be training herself. Anticipatory hoorays all around! Well, that turned out not to be the case. Mostly because of her age (not quite 2 at the time), we decided to follow her lead but not to push. She did not lead far. The potty turned out to be a toy and seven months later she is still in diapers, though we in no way consider this a failed potty training. The December episode was her just trying out something new (on her own terms) and deciding she wasn’t ready.

Meanwhile, though Zoe is far from potty trained, we have incorporated the potty into our regular bathtime, naptime and bedtime routines. On top of that, we have not had a “dirty” (as opposed to just wet) diaper since February or March. So it is clearly not a foreign concept to her. And all without the slightest parental stress (by design!).

Fast forward to this summer and Zoe decides that she likes running around as a “naked baby” as she refers to it. The first time we let her run around fully naked (sans diaper), we were in the backyard and she was playing in her wading pool. At one point she stood up and exclaimed, to our surprise, “pee coming!” So we escorted her to the nearest potty and she peed. We are now to the point where she runs around as a naked baby, inside and outside, almost every evening and she proudly and accurately announces when “pee is coming” (she chose the phrase!). We have yet to have a single accident in spite of our lack of attention to monitoring.

With all of her practice, we feel Zoe could easily be trained if we just removed the diapers and kept them off. Though, when we have chats with her about doing that, she is still slightly hesitant. For all intents and purposes, she is well on her way if not almost there. Instead of the popular “3-day” method, we are implementing and highly recommending the “multi-month, no stress” method. We have several trips coming up in the next couple months. Once we are at home and in a steady routine, we will attempt the last big push. Until then, we are recognizing and appreciating all the conveniences of diapers, especially when out of the house!

We cannot leave the potty topic without a funny story (there are so many when the potty is involved). Recently, during one of our “naked baby” dinners, Zoe announced that pee was coming. We helped her to the little training potty that we keep downstairs. After finishing her business, we returned to the table to finish the meal. Since our only bathroom is upstairs, we simply closed the lid on the potty, left it where it was until after the meal, and temporarily put it out of our minds. As usual, Zoe left the table early to play. Before we had time to react, Zoe had marched straight to the training potty, hoisted it high to move it somewhere, and proceeded to empty it all over herself and the kitchen floor. We have yet to have a quicker transition from dinner to bath!

Sleeping and Eating
For the record, Zoe is not a great eater. She is relatively picky and eats only small quantities of anything. Foods that she likes and we always stock include pasta, hot dogs (we buy the soy ones), avocados, black beans (and legumes of most kinds), oatmeal, cereal, many fruits, tortillas (and many breads), cheese, tofu and eggs. She loves sushi, is tolerant of spicy food, and will do almost anything for Smarties (Canadian ones), marshmallows, and TimBits. She is not keen on most vegetables and does not drink much milk at all.

On the sleep front, Zoe does sleep through the night on occasion. Unfortunately (for us) it is more common for her to wake at least once or twice in the night. Usually she just wants a drink or a cuddle and she goes right back to sleep. It is not uncommon for her to wake crying from what we assume is a bad dream of some sort. Julian takes the brunt of this since he is the only one that hears her in the night.

Zoe is still in a crib; we are in no hurry for her to leave it. She still naps for two hours every day after lunch. At night she averages 11 hours of sleep.

As with anything toddler related, just when you think you have conquered the latest phase, a new phase begins. It has taken several sittings to write this post (mostly just to recall the items we want to record). Now that we have exhausted the list, it is already almost out of date. For example, Zoe has refused to nap for the last six days and just yesterday decided that she liked cauliflower. We are already resigned to the probability that naps may now be in our past, but if the possibility of more vegetables is the trade off, we can live with it.

Similarly, in reading over what now seems like a disjointed list, one feels it hardly does justice to the cute, funny, smart, vibrant, sweet, happy, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful little girl that shares our lives.

And now for some recent photos.

Like a monkey in the zoo!

Zoe in her new body-building swim suit!