Happy birthday, darling Minnie

 How can she already be two? And also, how can she be anything but 2? She is the quintessential 2-year-old.

She is SUCH a good talker, and that’s something that always worries me after we had 2 late talkers who had early intervention therapy. She’s saying simple sentences and leaped from saying 2 words together to 3 and 4 and more. She could still use more verbs, but she has a lot of adjectives for a baby (heavy, light, tall, loud, quiet, plus all the colors— orange is my favorite because she says “ormee”). She knows all her letters and is starting to be able to tell us what letters words start with (thank you, Super Why). We are working on numbers 1-9, but so far she only knows 0, 1, 2 and 9– her favorite.

The other day at dinner on the Memorial Union Terrace, she said “Bee scare Ninnie.” She also surprised me on campus when she first saw the lake and screamed “Ducks on pond!” Of her terrifying Elmo birthday balloon, she said “Elmo balloon sceddy. Elmo balloon gone?” The other night, we got her a cup to catch the inevitable drips from her ice cream cone because she absolutely cannot eat it fast enough. We suggested that she use the cup (meaning she should put her ice cream in it), and she looked in the cup and said “Oh no! I-meam all gone!” She is huge into the MINE phase, and she calls everyone baby. When she wants to be carried she says “ceddy.” She still drinks a bottle (baba) and specifies if she wants pink or white. She tells us when her diaper is wet or dirty (and she says dirty or sticky when her hands are messy). For some reason, she doesn’t like 2-piece bathing suits but I always ask her if she wants to wear one just to hear her say “no keeny.”

She really loves Disney princesses— all of them, especially Anna and “Rella,” and she got a huge kick out of her birthday, which we celebrated early in advance of a travel day (HER FIRST VACATION).

She LOVES her bike from her grandparents

OMG that smile

She got a Mr. Potato Head from our sweet next door neighbors

This slide might be the highlight

She’s getting so good at opening gifts

Here she is seeing her birthday set up

Sesame Street blowers: huge hit

Cheers!

Dorothy was an excellent helper

Cutest cake!

Oh the concentration

MASSACRE

We love a good theme

Yay!

Random pics in random order

He actually felt crappy here and would test positive for COVID in just a few short hours

THESE SHOES

I tried to do a birthday thing, but she was not having it

So scary.

We are so lucky to have a Minnie.  She has been a delight since before she was even here.

I laughed her into the world, for goodness sake.

And let’s not forget the cutest little one-year-old.