My Almost 22 Month Old

We are fast approaching Mia's second birthday.  She has so many interests now that it's hard to keep up with all of them.  She's trying to sing but hasn't quite gotten the hang of it.  She likes songs with hand gestures and does them very well.  I'll have to video her doing "One Little Monkey Jumping on the Bed".  She loves it.  At the end of a song or a book she usually says, "Again!"  This could continue indefinitely, so usually I try to encourage her to do a different song or choose a different book after the second or third time.  It's so cute to watch her "read" right now.  She'll just sit quietly and flip the pages.  Everything she recognizes must be pointed out to Mommy and Daddy, though.  "Mommy! Elmo!"  "Daddy! Cow! Mooooo!"  I pulled out some old books of mine from the attic so that she would have some new stories to "read".  Looking at those Cabbage Patch and Dr. Seuss books from the 80s is a walk down memory lane.  I'm glad that Mia enjoys them as much as I did. 

One of Mia's current obsessions is taking off her shoes.  I guess she's just interested in the mechanics of it or something.  Just about every morning the socks and shoes are all off by the time we get to daycare.  She likes to run around barefoot at home, too.  These hardwood floors get cold in the wintertime, so I guess she'll break that habit when her toes start getting chilly.

Another thing her bossy little self likes to do is yell at the dog.  She walks around yelling, "Puppy, no! No! Mia's!"  Everything is Mia's right now.  She most definitely does not like to share with Xander.  She doesn't trust him because he always tries to steal whatever snack she has in her hand.  Mia wags her little finger at him and points to another room.  "Puppy! Go! Puppy! Go!"  I guess they have a kind of love/dislike (not hate) relationship.  This afternoon Mia walked up to where Xander was taking a nap.  When we want her to lower the volume a bit, we tell her to be quiet like a mouse.  She looked at me, put her finger to her mouth in a hushing gesture, and whispered, "Shhh, Mommy. Shhh, mouse."

My friend, Jill, and I went shopping yesterday with Mia.  We wanted to try to get some shopping done before the after-Thanksgiving madness commences.  Mia did well for awhile. However, when it was naptime, she had a full blown meltdown in Gymboree.  I took her outside to sit in a coin-operated racecar.  I was one quarter short to be able to turn the thing on, but Mia didn't even notice.  As far as she was concerned, she was driving that car all over the place.  Thank goodness for an imagination!

"Reading" her book

 Using Mommy's Christmas card projects box as a seat so that she can remove her shoes.

 "Hop in, Mommy! I'll take us for a spin!"

 The racecar was a little more her size than our Jeep.