HOW…I repeat, HOW, are we almost at the two year mark? It blows my mind to realize that our little Nora is 22 months old today. What a busy month our precious little girl has had!

Weight and Height: 27 pounds, 34 1/2 inches

Clothes: 2T, size 6 shoes, size 2T/3T undeeze

Sleep: Very sporadic bedtimes, unfortunately. Usually Nora is in bed by about 9:30pm. She continues to do wonderful in her big girl bed! She wakes up around 9am. She has a few favorite toys she likes to sleep with – any of her baby dolls, her 2 pink bears and her lamb.

Food: Nora continues to eat… All the time. She loves her fruit and veggies and will usually choose fruit over dessert when given the choice. Meat continues to be a challenge on some days, but she will usually take at least a few bites of what we offer her. Nora has started drinking less milk this month. Although I know she still needs a considerate amount during the day, she has significantly increased the amount of water she drinks during these summer months. She loves juice and has her Daddy’s hankering for sweet tea and lemonade. But Nora’s favorite thing of all…popsicles and watermelon. The child could live on them if I let her. Her favorite snacks are rounded out at (of course) fruit snacks, fruit, string cheese, animal crackers, apple slices and grapes.

Play: We got a pool pass for the summer and Nora is a little fish! She loves splashing and dumping any type of water she can get her hands on, and when she is playing in the water, you can normally find her in the dirt and sand as well. Nora is a fiend on the trampoline, hopping in circles and doing summersaults. I love watching her on there! She enjoys going to the park and is a master at climbing the rock wall. Nora still has an odd obsession with trains and loves to “Toot! Toot!” at them as we drive by. She loves all kinds of animals and we frequently slow down or stop on the side of the road so she can watch them in the fields. Her imagination is really taking off, and I love watching her talk with her baby dolls, playing in her doll house and having her dollies “talk” to each other. She finally started enjoying coloring this month and loves peeling off and placing stickers on paper (and me). It’s been a fun month of play for this girl!

Words: There are too many new words to count this month! She has been putting two words together and is starting to understand the fine art of communication 🙂 This has significantly decreased the number of temper tantrums that she has because we can finally talk back and forth to each other and she can tell me what she needs. Some cute things she has been saying this month: “I see!” when she wants to look at pictures on our phone or computers, “Watch!” when she wants our attention while she does something, “I peed!” that one is pretty obvious, “Want pop-pop!” when she wants a popsicle. We are no where near complete sentences yet, but it’s SO FUN hearing her tell us what she wants.

Potty Training: Nora is completely potty trained at home! YIPPEE!!!!! Our problem is when we go out in public restrooms. She is scared of the potty chairs. She will always tell us when she has to go, but once we get her on the potty chair, she starts to cry. But when we get her home, she will go either on her little potty chair or on our big one. So we still wear diapers when we go out places, but she normally can stay dry until we get home. She usually stays dry over night and during naps, which I am so proud of her for! It’s for sure been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but it’s so worth it!

Teeth: Nora had her two canine teeth finally pop through this month! She is up to 14 teeth now and by the amount of drool she has had this week I have the feeling her 2 year molars are starting to move around back there.

We really have had such a fun time growing together this month. I am getting less apprehensive about her baby sister coming in a couple of months as Nora continues to change and mature and I really think she is going to do a great job with her! Side note…she has a 2cm lump on the left, back side of her neck that has been growing the past couple of weeks. She has had this lump for over a year now, but it has always been much smaller, so she is on some antibiotics to hopefully make it go down, as they think it’s a swollen lymph node. Of course, my Mommy heart gets nervous about any lump or bump, but I’m honestly assuming it’s nothing. Other than her “lump” she is healthy and as happy as a horse. We have another fun month ahead of us, and birthday party planning is in full swing! We are doing a cowgirl-bonfire theme, complete with pony rides! Hopefully I’ll have more posts on that as the time grows closer 🙂