Happy Birthday, 2 for 2 on the birthdays

Maya turned two on February 22nd. I was kind of in denial about the whole thing. We had planned to have just a small party with some friends from church on Saturday, the 23rd. But in true Maya fashion (you may remember the croup from her first birthday), she started sneezing on Monday, the 18th. By Tuesday she was snotty. Wednesday, snotty with a little cough. It didn't seem to be anything other than a common cold. Thursday, she complained that her tummy hurt. When I asked her where she pointed to her chest. Around this time, we noticed (Derek was home sick also, he always seems to get/give colds with Maya) that she was having trouble breathing, complete with retractions. And she spiked a fever. So to the pediatrician we went.  Maya's pediatrician always seems to be booked when we need something so we saw someone new. Aside from a bit of a mixup initially when they thought we were there for a diaper rash, I thought it went ok. We had one breathing treatment in the office, waited around to have her oxygen saturation checked, and then we sent home with our very own nebulizer and prescription for like ten boxes of two different drugs. 

On Tuesday, the 26th, we went for Maya's 2 year "well" child checkup/followup with the other stuff.  She's 27 lbs 3 oz and 36 1/4 inches. She was still wheezing some so we are still doing both of her medications. We hope to be done with one of them tomorrow and then start weaning her off the other next week. We also  found out that the original guy had diagnosed it as asthma instead of bronchiolitis. I was a little annoyed about that. He even told me that they don't call it asthma until the third time. 

Maya "smoking" as she calls it on 2/21.

All of this sort of put a damper on the celebrating. But we still had cake, a balloon, and presents. Cake with animals. Maya was obsessed with the fondant animals. (Not bad for my first experiment with fondant) She wanted to hold them, play with them, and put them on the cake before I had frosted it. She helped me pipe the grass and name. She also put on the clouds, the animals (with minimal help) and the candles.

After the cake was decorated we snuck outside of a few birthday pictures. It's nearly impossible to get anything with an active two year old. Even though she was sick, she was still her usual happy/active self.

We then rushed back inside to have a virtual party with the grandparents. We had presents. Lots of presents. She got "wegos", a book, a doll bed, a doll high chair, pots and pans, and the mysterious "project" that we've been working on for what feels forever now.

Here is Maya unwrapping her new kitchen. She had no idea what we were making the whole time. We kept it hidden after it started to really take shape. She keeps telling me "we painted it blue then brought it inside". I think it's really more of a green but I digress. I'll post some in the making and action shots of it sometime. I'm happy with the way it turned out.

After the presents we all sang happy birthday, Maya blew out her candles, and we had cake. Conveniently, the grandparents all had cake in house too. Not quite like having them here but it was nice.

2/24 I tried again to get some "birthday" pictures with her bear.

2/25 Maya wasn't sleeping well while she was sick. She was acting fairly normal in general. But she did fall asleep during lunch which has never happened before.

2/27 I finally finished a dress for Maya's birthday and she wore it to Bible study. She "woves" it.

 We rescheduled the party for 3/2. The weather was great, mid 70s so we grilled burger and hot dogs out back. I'm not sure Maya's really ever had a hot dog. She kept saying "dog? it doesn't say woof woof?" Now I've been trying to explain how hot dogs are not really dogs that's just their name all week. We had to have animals on the cake again. (This time I covered cake in fondant to make the barn. I started working on it and was having trouble. Midway through, holding rolled fondant, I turn to Derek and say quick google how to cover a square cake in fondant. He helped me out but proceeded to make fun of me for days about my trying new things/new recipes the night before.)

I love this one

Maya was again spoiled with presents: a puzzle, dishes and a tea set, playdoh, potato head.

23 Months

23 months. Less than a month now until Maya is two. In the last few weeks she has moved out of the saying no for everything phase. She will sometimes say no...yes or yes...no. Usually the latter is what she really means. She still talks all the time. She's up to around 14 or so word sentences now. She still has trouble with pronouns. She usually refers to herself as Maya or you. We frequently hear "you need it" when she means I want it. She also says things like "you want me to do it" meaning she wants me to do something. It sometimes gets a little confusing. She's adding new words/phrases. Friday, I was telling her something and she said oh well. She's also picked up though and actually this month to name a few. Friday we were sitting and playing on the kitchen floor. She crawled in my lap and asked for mom milk. I told her something like maybe I needed milk. She said "let me get it out" and started tugging on her shirt. I said, "I don't think you have any Maya milk." She looked at me like I was crazy and said "it's just pretend." Obviously. We bought little red chairs for little table in the kitchen this weekend so now we have somewhere other than the floor to sit. Maya was excited about it. She's been asking for chairs since we pulled the table out of the living room to replace to toilet box. Yes we had a toilet box in our kitchen for weeks. It was just the right height for a table. Plus you could draw right on the box.

One night recently, we were putting on a pair of pjs that we bought when we were at my mom's house. She asked if my mom was going to read to her. Maya insisted on wearing them the night we bought them and that night my mom had read to her. This weekend we were going out to play so we put on her jacket. She asked if we were going to play in the leaves at the farmers market, because she had worn the jacket months ago and we had done that. She also was randomly talking about the mouse we saw in the airport on our way home earlier this month. (If you ever find yourself in need of amusement in an airport, just find a mouse and watch the people scream/scatter.) 

Maya loves to help me cook, especially "muftins". Although, she doesn't like it when we use the muffin pan she has claimed for her own. She asked me to put the batter in it but then had a meltdown when I put it in the oven. "You need it. You NEED IT." She's been talking about it for days. "You need it. Mom said no. Maya cried." Note taken. I won't be doing that again.

She is a little ball of energy. She can't walk. She has to hop/skip or run. She loves to climb on her slide, drive her car, and run around the trees in our yard. She loves to go to gym, story time, and bible class. Tonight, she turned our living room into a "park". She took two cushions off of the couch and put them on the floor. She then would climb up, jump off onto the cushion, then jump onto the floor. Apparently there was another kid there and she had to wait her turn. Then she said get off the park boy. Then we had to talk about how that wasn't a very nice thing to say to the imaginary boy. She is actually pretty good for her age with taking turns and sharing with other kids. I think she just hasn't had to fight for her stuff being the only kid. She did try to gently push another kid out of the way of "her" toys this weekend when we were shopping. I say gentle because I've seen some of the kids at gym really shove each other out of the way. 

One Tuesday, we started working a little harder on potty training. Maya wore panties all day and only had 3 accidents. She even went potty at the library. The next day was only a single accident and she went potty at church. Thursday she had a bit of tummy troubles so she wore diapers part of the day. She didn't have any accidents on Friday. The weekend was hard because we were out quite a bit. We will see how it goes this week.   

She still loves to sing. She often walks around singing and saying nursery rhymes. Sometimes she will request a song by a random line or phrase in it. Once she asked me to sing one day. That is Mary had a little lamb. Tonight she told us she wanted to sing ding dong. Derek and I were trying to figure out what song she meant. She was like you know farmers dog. Ding dong, bingo, close enough. 

Home Again

We got home on 1/6. We spent week trying to recover/get Maya to sleep mostly through the night again. Derek and I celebrated our 9th anniversary on the 10th. We had cheese fondue with sourdough, apples, and chicken sausage for supper. Maya had never had it before but was a fan. Apples dipped in it were her favorite I think. She really liked the sausage but only without cheese. She kept/keeps asking for more sausage. This from a kid that generally won't eat more than a bite of meat. I was surprised. 

1/11 Maya and I made cake pops for the first time. They were ginger bread men (ginger spice cake, vanilla frosting, cinnamon candy melts). They were a pretty tasty but perhaps a sad looking lot. Maya had a blast helping cut them out and putting sprinkles on them/eating sprinkles. When she would eat them she would take a bite and then say poor ginger bread man.

Also being silly during snack time

Maya had complained of her ear hurting the day we got home and the day after. Then nothing for a few days. Then the following weekend she complained again several times. I took her into the doctor on Monday 1/14. I tried to prep her for it by telling her where we were going and what they would do. She asked if she would get a shot. I said no, probably not. She then asked if she would get a lollipop and sticker. I said I didn't know. She did really well. Let them weigh her on the regular scale rather than the infant one. She let the doctor look in her ears without crying. He declared her as healing up without intervention. And she got a lollipop and sticker. She was happy. Well at least until she finished the lollipop and wanted to go back to the doctor to ask for another. I was a little surprise at her memory. While we were waiting she kept asking about the examination table. I was trying to explain it to her and she said it's where they measure you. Yes, yes it is. At her usual pediatrician it is where they measure you when you come in for well baby checks. Well baby checks that she hasn't had since 18 months.

1/18 Maya and I went shopping to pick up some stuff for our "project" formerly known as Maya's Christmas present. While we were out we stopped at good will. We found a dress for Maya's new baby doll she got for Christmas. She's really into dolls right now. I spend a large chunk of the day helping rediaper her doll. Five seconds after you get it on you hear "on no, she pooped again". Those dolls are worse than a newborn but at least they use the potty sometimes. Maya also picked out a dress for herself and wanted to wear it all day, over her other clothes. She is quite the fashion queen. She wore the top her Christmas jammies, that I scored on clearance after Christmas, when we went shopping. In other news, stealing more than one tissue out of the box is hilarious. Or at least in our house.

Christmas Travels, Celebrations 1-4, and 22 Months

12/22 22 Months/Christmas celebration 1: We opened gifts with my family. Maya wasn't quite sure what was going on. She opened a few gifts and then just wanted to play with them rather than opening anything else.

12/23 Making Christmas cookies with the cousins. It was Maya's first time "making" sugar cookies. 

Maya made one and then kept eating the dough and asking for more. My grandma enjoyed watching her.

12/25 am Christmas morning, Celebration 2. Maya Started pulling stuff out of her stocking. 

Then got distracted... 

by the rooster, hen, and cats on the porch.

She was distracted by her ABCs

Then she found chocolate and candy canes which had to eat them right away

Finally decided to open the rest

12/25 pm Christmas celebration 3. We had lunch at grandma's then opened more gifts.

Since a holiday isn't complete without puke, Maya picked up a stomach virus. At least it waited until Christmas night. We had planed to leave town on the 12/26 but between Maya getting sick and the weather we stuck around for another day.

12/27 We drove all day, at least it felt like it. We went the long way, rather than the shorter back roads through the middle of nowhere, because we were afraid that the roads might be icy/snowy. Maya did really well on the drive. Maya loved the snow, until her hands got too cold. I wish we had brought all of her snow gear but it's just so bulky. We had a great visit with Auntie J, Uncle J, G and E. Derek felt sick one day and I did the next but at least there was no puke this year. When we left Maya was upset, asking for "two friends" G and E.

12/31 New years eve/Christmas celebration 4. We started opening gifts with Derek's family in the evening. We took an intermission when some friends came over. Then continued the next day. It worked out well since Maya was still getting too distracted to open more than a few at a time anyway.

It is necessary to immediately try on any new clothes

Derek and I made it to midnight but just barely. Maya didn't really sleep well the entire trip.

1/2 More snow fun. I tried to find a pair of snow boots for Maya but couldn't find any in her size. Instead I got rain boots. They were a little big and she kept losing them in the snow, accidentally at first. Then it was so funny she had to do it on "purfose".