Hazel Turns 2

Hazel turned two on December 26th. She was sick on her birthday, but we celebrated anyway. We had our family dinner at Angela and Clint's that night and we sung to Hazel (and Angela and Clara) with dessert.

Two year olds are fun. Hazel loves to be a little stinker, and smiles and laughs when she is. However, when I'm patient/calm enough to give her two options and I'm not emotionally charged, she usually makes the good choice instead of choosing time out. It is so hard for me to sit back and let her make her choices. I imagine this will become immensely more difficult when she's a teenager. If you tell her to share, she doesn't always. If you tell her it makes people feel happy and it's nice and walk away, she'll do it. She's also started to notice these things without any prompting from us and I love seeing her notice someone that wants something and sharing. She thinks telling me she's happy will get her out of taking a nap or going to bed and when I tell her no, she quickly says just what she wants over and over instead of asking for it. For example, she begins with, "Mommy, banana please." If I tell her no, she'll ask again, I tell her no again and in a demanding voice she sternly says, "banana!" After everything I say. She loves to color, loves to wear shoes, still loves to destroy things (although she's getting better at helping me clean up) and loves to strut around the house. Her little walk alone makes me smile daily. She waddles, she puffs out her chest and walks around like she owns us. She eats well, sleeps well and is just all around a little ball, or string bean rather, of joy. 

She ate her cupcake from Clara's birthday in about 15 seconds.

Here are some of the funny things I've recorded Hazel doing/saying in the last few months.

Every morning for months she'd say, "Bitiful mow-neen!" I think she started this in the summer and I think it came from me singing, "Oh, what a beautiful morning!" at the top of my lungs (thanks, Dad).

For a while, she kept saying, "Fight-choo!" (fight you). This comes from reading The Grouchy Ladybug book.

Whenever I ask, "Where are you?" She says, "Hiding!"

She also says things that I don't have to look far to know where it came from...
"Minute, coming"
"Hurry, hurry" while breathing heavily, almost panting

She used to be the master of one word sentences: Walk. Inside. About two months ago, she moved on to full sentences.

The day after my birthday she came up to me and said: "Happy bir-day mama, cha, cha." (Clara always sings cha, cha, cha with Happy Birthday)

Mid-November, she started bounding/hopping and then running. It was scary since she's not so stable but it sure looks cute.

She says, "Stop it." whenever anyone is bothering her. A few weeks ago Jason was doing something obnoxious and I told him to stop and he wouldn't. So I said, "Jason, stop it." He still didn't stop and Hazel said, "Daddy, stop it." He kept doing it to get a reaction and Hazel said, "Jason, stop it!"

Two of her favorite words: no! and mine!

She's now grown out of this, but several months ago she would pull my hair or smack me and instantly hug me and/or rub it. Speaking of hair, she's recently become obsessed with brushing everyone else's hair - possibly because she doesn't have any of her own? :)

Also in November, she took up blaming James for everything that went missing. That lasted a week or two and then she started answering me with "front yard" if I ever wondered where something was.

Again in November, she saw me laying on the chair and said, "Momma sleeping tired night-night." That was her longest sentence at that point.

She has the funniest faces and presses her lips together and gets up in my face and stares at me. It makes me laugh so hard. She sucks her thumb to fall asleep, but only if she has her blankie with her. Since it's so minimal, I haven't cared enough to do anything about it. When I check on her at night, she's not sucking it so I'm not too worried. Almost every single time we are in the car, she switches her shoes from the correct feet to the wrong feet. Usually I don't switch them back because I know she will just do it again. She loves to sing and breaks out in song in the car, at church, while she's eating or anywhere else she feels like it. The best part about it is she has great pitch and rhythm. She loves reactions and when people laugh at her, she'll repeat whatever it was she did to make others laugh. Then she'll give you her smug little smirk with her lips tight together.

Hazel has such a great personality. She's pretty easy going most of the time, but definitely has her opinions. I love being her mother and we have absolutely loved having her in our home the last two years.