This slideshow requires JavaScript.
Ok, I couldn’t justify just doing the 21 questions as an update for Megan, especially after I just did a long update for Owen. Megan has, after all, done a tremendous amount of growing up over the past few months and needs to be recognized for it. In a blink of an eye, Megan turned from being a toddler into a little girl. I guess the change has been gradual over the past few months, but I’m amazed at how mature she’s grown.
So, on to some of her biggest accomplishments early into 2012:
- She’s officially in her underwear! No more night time pull ups! We’ve known that she could do it, and just one day she decided that she was going to be a big girl, give the rest of her pull ups to Lily and wear underwear at night. The downside is that she’ll wake us up to go potty a few times a night.
- She’s in her big girl bed now! She’s actually been in her big girl bed for a few months now. But since we have a crib in her room right beside her big girl bed, the next morning she often can be found in a different bed from where she started.
- She puts herself to sleep! Up until last week, Megan would always cry out after we put her to bed (wanting water, to go pee, to keep the lights on, and another kiss.) It would take her such a long time to get to sleep with all those disturbances. Then, just one day out of the blue, she told us that she was going to turn the lights off, close the door and tuck herself in. It’s been really nice since she doesn’t call out anymore. She likes to leave the sliding door open and I often catch her peeking out at us or I hear her walking out of her bed to get a sip of water from her water bottle. She’s still only getting to sleep anywhere from 30 min-1hr after she puts herself to bed though. Sometimes we only hear her start to snore at 9:30/10 pm (yes, she snores.) Hmm… maybe it’s almost time to drop her afternoon nap completely!
- Just like Momma: Megan likes to do stuff just like momma does. Every morning she fumbles for her imaginary glasses and every night she takes off her imaginary bra (in a multitude of colours) right before showering or bathing. She likes writing lists and her squiggles on the paper almost resemble writing in small font (no legible letters yet).
- Favorite things to do: Puzzles are still a daily pastime for Megan and she’s getting quicker and quicker every day. She loves to build stuff, whether it’s a pretend house at home or a fun toobeez house at Nora’s place. Although not as frequently anymore, she still takes care of her son, Joshua, and makes sure to ask me to buy him avocados and butternut squash all the time. Lately she’s been really into imaginative play, like having sleepovers with Coco or birthday parties with so and so (the birthday people change all the time). And lastly, like most girls, she likes to do arts and crafts.
- Helping around the house: Part of being a big girl is to help around the house. Megan almost always offers to help wash the rice and veggies, and to wipe the floors after dinner (since Owen makes such a royal mess.) She’s generally a very neat and orderly girl and will clean up after her own food spills. It’s really neat to see that she does it all by herself without me asking her to. She’s a mini-me in the making!
- Less tantrums, more reasoning: Knock on wood, but lately there have been fewer tantrums around the house. There’s probably at least a few a day, but it’s been a little easier to nip it in the bud now that she’s older and we can reason with her more. However, she is our daughter and has taken Steve and my bad traits (my stubborness, and Steve’s “will do the opposite of what’s she’s being told to do” – she absolutely hates being told what to do.) Sometimes I feel like she’s just knows which buttons to push though. But, I just have to remember not to add fuel to the fire and just approach her calmly and remember not overreact. It doesn’t work all the time, but it’s getting better.
I just find this stage to be so much fun. It’s non-stop question-asking, order-giving, singing and yelling from the time she wakes up to the time she goes to bed and we love it.
Oh – and I just won a hundred bucks from myself to myself. I had told family that I would give $100 to anyone who could feed her any fruit multiple times and I did it! She’s eaten a few thin slices of apple (think 2 mm thick) on a few occasions. More often than not, she’ll ask for an apple and refuse to eat it, but there have been a few times when she’s eaten a few bites. Yay to Megan and yay to me!