I can’t believe she’s already two years old!  The joy of so many of our days is getting so big.  I hardly remember our lives without her though.  Unfortunately I have no video this year…we…ummm…didn’t take nearly as many pictures this year as we did last year.

Lest I forget one day what she was like on her second birthday, here are some amazing things about her:

• Miss K. is 33 inches tall and weighs about 24 pounds, give or take half a pound.
• She knows her alphabet, can count to 11 (sometimes), knows her shapes, and knows her colors.  She can’t sing the ABC song all the way through but the amazing thing is we never spent any time teaching her lower case letters and yet she knows them all.  I think it’s Dr. Seuss’ ABC book that really worked for her.
• Miss K. likes to sing now and can sing a few songs in their entirety – twinkle twinkle little star, five little monkeys jumping on the bed and slippery fish are some of her favorite songs
• She tells people she loves them without abandon.  Now she says it unprompted and melts us all.
• Miss K. is getting three canine teeth right now and once she’s done with that, I think she’ll have all her teeth but the 2 year molars.
• Karina tries to jump every day but still can’t get airborne.
• She is able to complete the sentences of many of her books and picks this up very quickly.  She “reads” Brown Bear Brown Bear to us, meaning she recites the  repetitious book on her own
• Miss K. is almost potty trained.  She still wears a diaper at night but during the day, she’s been doing great with only the occasional accident.  She seldom has an accident outside the home and never poops in her pants.  We’re very proud of her.
• She can put on her underwear, pants, and jacket by herself.  While she still needs help with socks, shirts and shoes, she’s getting close.
• Miss K. is learning to drink from a regular cup.  She knows what to do but just gets excited and drinks too fast or impulsively pours out all the liquids onto the table for some reason
• She pretty much feeds herself anything we give her.  She is able to eat her oatmeal, chili, toast, fruit, anything with her hands, fork or spoon.
• Her vocabulary is pretty impressive.  She communicates well, in my opinion.  She’s able to form sentences and uses both the third person and the first person to refer to herself.
• She says “bless you” whenever she coughs or sneezes, even in her sleep
• She’s pretty zippy – runs fast, likes to hang off of bars, enjoys baths.
• She knows everyone in her family’s name (grandparents, aunts, uncles, parents) and title
• She loves loves LOVES going to Trader Joe’s.  Though she talks about it daily, the last few weeks have been particularly fun for her because she gets to use a little shopping cart there.  She actually goes and picks out groceries, talks about what we’re going to get next (eggs!  yogurt!) and puts the groceries from the cart onto the counter.  She also steers the cart back into its proper spot with the others.  It’s pretty adorable but it’s tough because sometimes the store is very crowded.  She stopped at the wines and meat sections yesterday, ready to pick some out so I had to let her know we didn’t need any.
• Her favorite show is Dinosaur Train right now.  We try to limit her tv watching but she loves that show.  She roars like the dinosaur in the intro.
• She does fabulously with her grandparents.  She loves all four of them deeply and talk about them.  She can spend the night at their homes without any real problems.  This is reassuring since we’re having a baby soon.
• Speaking of which, Miss K. knows that there is a baby in Mommy’s tummy, knows it’s her sister and says she will help with all kinds of things.  She saw ultrasound pictures and said “Sister!  Sister!”  We’re hoping that she’s happy when the baby arrives.
• Karina sleeps in her own bed.  Not a crib, not a toddler bed, but a full-on full sized bed.  The box spring is on the floor to keep her close to the ground.  We still stay with her when she’s falling asleep but I’m hoping to get her in the habit of falling asleep on her own again.
• Karina’s favorite person on the planet is her Daddy.  She asks for him all day when he’s at work, is thrilled when he’s home, keeps him company when he’s taking a shower (and unfortunately even when he just wants to pee in peace), wants him to read to her at night, is devastatingly disappointed when her dumb mom comes in to greet her in the morning instead of him, and just wants to be near him all the time.  It’s really the sweetest thing in the world.  And I’m not going to lie, it’s a refreshing break for me when she wants only him to take her to the potty when we’re out and about!
• Miss K. still loves books.  We read at least 3-5 books a day and she will happily flip through the pages of a book and occupy herself.
• She loves fruit of all kinds (but especially loves papaya, blueberries, persimmons, grapes, and bananas), pizza, chili (she scarfed some down the other night in a shocking manner), french toast, yogurt, applesauce, cheese, breads of all sorts, pasta, dried cranberries and raisins, and crackers.  If she could eat crackers all day, she would.  Really.  It’s crazy.
• I’m going to knock on wood with this one…she’s never had an ear infection.  Weird, right?  I’m so thankful!
• Miss K. is infuriating in public bathrooms.  She seems to actually like going in there.  She wants to touch everything and then touch my face and mouth, she always wants to flush, she often squats down to look to see who is in the stall next to us (and what’s going on in there), she often takes a long time to go and pull up her pants, which can be hard on my back these days since I’m eight months pregnant.  BUT she pretty much always tells us when she needs to go and always wants to wash her hands afterwards (and then will sing a little song “Wash, wash wash, that’s what a Neeni does!”).  So I suck it up.
• I think her baby sister loves her already.  It happens regularly that when Karina snuggles up to me and my stomach (especially at night), the baby will start moving.  In my mind, she’s trying to connect with Karina.  The thought of that makes me cry.

I love this little girl and am so very happy and thankful that she is in our lives.