Miss Hadleigh Claire is 26 Months

Today Miss Hadleigh Claire is 26 months old. She has reached many milestones this month it seems. She is now talking in more than 2 word sentences. Yesterday she told Dave, "Now I jump in bath". And she regularly asks to "sing a song...winkle, winkle, little tar" or "jesus loves me". We are going to start potty training in a couple weeks and Brooke put me onto Potty Boot Camp. There is some prep work involved which I think for the most part we have done. Hadleigh is in no way scared of the potty, and has pooped and peed in the potty for the last year. One of the things it tells us is to teach the child that poop and pee go in the potty. So, yesterday I asked Hadleigh "where does poopoo go?" and totally uncoached she answered, "in the potty" of course! She also says "H is for Hadleigh" though she will still occassionaly call herself "you". It is fun to see her language develop.

So, as I mentioned we are going to be starting Potty Boot Camp in about 10 days. I am not up to the challenge, but she is so ready to be out of diapers, so onward and upward. I hope it is a fairly easy transition. As I was reading the info Dave asked what I was going to do with Annelise while I potty trained. I don't know! That is my main concern...how do I do this with a baby that is a bit demanding? Hopefully Annelise will be a little doll that day. Speacial shout out to Kris who gave me 6 little potties. I have given several away, but now have a potty on every split level of our house and in the car. I just have to get big girl underpants...exciting!

She is still my little tough cookie. Her knees are usually scraped up and never cries. The only time she gest upset is when someone else is roughing her up...and in that case it seems to be more like her feelings are hurt. She has fallen out of bed a couple of times, but has not cried.

She loves playing catch...special thanks to Todd for introducing her to the wonders of catch! She loves all types of vehicles. I probably need to teach her all the cool names of trucks (like dump truck, etc).

We still read a lot, but she is not as obsessed with reading as she was. Now we love to spend time outside playing in our wonderful yard. We blow bubbles and find bugs of all sorts and run around and play catch. She could be out there all day. Did I mention that she likes to wear her winter hat and mittens outside...don't know what that is about.

As soon as breakfast is finished she asks to go outside or to just go somewhere. She makes sure that we have everything we might need and helps get Annelise all settled and then runs to the door.

She names her friends Jacob Brennan. She regularly uses the word "Mine". She sings wonderful songs. She counts to 10, and is able to recgonize some of the alphabet. The letters she does know she knows what word is associated with it. H is for Hadleigh. R is for Rabbit. M is for Mama.

She asks to pray often. Her favorite bedtime song is "In Christ Alone", she asks to sing it and knows some of the words (that was impressive). She knows all the words to Twinkle, Twinkle and Jesus Loves Me and it is HILARIOUS to watch her sing it. She likes to emphasize the last word in the line..."pup pup pove world so HIGH, yike a mimond in SKY" and when she says the emphasized word she makes this really earnest singing face that is hilarious. It is hard not to laugh. She LOVES to cuddle in her new big girl bed. That is one of my favorite things.

Oh, this is a fun new toddler thing. She can whine. This drives me NUTS. I cannot handle whining. This action often results in some sort of time out...I swear I am not having a whiny child...too much!

She is just full of life and a full of joy and generally fun to be around. I love my big girl.