Marlowe update: 2.5 years

You’re getting another Marlowe update before you get one about Jenson, because remember how I sucked at posting updates about Marlowe? So this will take us from 2-2.5 (through June 2018), and then I’ll probably forget to post her 3 year update until she’s 4.

Funny story about the dress above.  My mom made this dress in 1968ish for my oldest sister, and all 6 of her daughters, 2 nieces, and 5 granddaughters have worn it.  The first time we tried to get Marlowe to wear it was for Easter photos a few weeks before this.  It did not go well.

She was just at a stage where she often rejected the first 1-3 outfits you tried to get her to wear, so I finally started offering her my 2nd choice first, hoping to get back to my 1st choice.  But I took it with us when we went to my parents after Easter and luckily we were able to get her to wear it for an Easter Egg hunt, so we could get some better pictures.  She was perfectly happy to wear it that time.  She had to wear tights because she wrote with marker all over her legs.  That’s not unlike when I (well, or my sister…no one knows) wrote all over my face with a permanent black marker the night before Easter when I was 3 or 4.

AGE 2

Marlowe update: January 2018-June 2018
Age: 2.5+ years old
Weight: 26.6# on Feb 2
Length: 34.25 inches on Feb 2
Size: 2T-3T clothing in June

Marlowe’s 2nd Birthday: We were at my parent’s house over Marlowe’s birthday, and we had a small Minnie Mouse birthday party.  I was sick with a migraine all day, so after baking her cake, I went to bed for the rest of the day (minus trips to the bathroom for vomiting).  My sister Christine decorated the cake for me (which is great bc she’s way better at it than me), and the rest of her aunts and cousins decorated for the party.  I have a thing where I don’t want to buy cakes for my kids’ birthdays, no matter if I’m not that great at decorating the cakes.  For one thing, I’m picky about frosting (ie, it has to be true buttercream), and my mom always made our cakes when we were kids and they were awesome (but she was talented at that, soooo….). But anyway, she loved her cake because she was all obsessed with Minnie, and opening and playing with gifts.  About 3 weeks later, we celebrated with Lo’s family at her cousins’ birthday party with another little Minnie cake.  Her birthday is going to be tough over the holidays.  It’s never going to feel fair as far as who we celebrate with, and it’s hard for people to travel down here for a party in between Christmas and New Years – since they are exactly a week apart (so both weekends are taken up with actual holidays).  But we’ll do the best we can.

Age 2 milestones:

• Jumping off of 2 feet (rather well)
• Got rid of her binky!  She wasn’t using it much, and we finally just ditched it and hid them all.  It wasn’t as bad as we expected, since we’d been prepping her that it was time to give them to our friend’s baby, and she was kind of excited to help a baby.
• Climbing rock walls in our backyard playset and at play places (she was even doing these with support at 20 months)
• Recognizing colors, some letters, some numbers, counting to 20
• Close to being potty-trained.  She’s still not consistent if she’s wearing pants, but if she’s naked on the bottom, she doesn’t have many accidents – and often stops and runs to the bathroom.

Sleeping: She’s a good sleeper once she gets there, but we had to sit or lay in her room until she fell asleep usually.  Sometimes we could say we needed to go check on Jenson or Boof, and she’d allow it, but not always.  She normally slept from about 830pm – 630/7am, sometimes earlier, sometimes later.  She was waking early for the longest time and we finally set a downstairs light to come on at 630, so if she insisted on being up earlier than that and the light wasn’t on, she’d lay on the couch with one of us until then.  Once she realized she wasn’t going to get to watch TV until that time, she stopped waking early as much.  She naps once a day, for an average of 1.5 hours.  Here’s the old “fall asleep in the highchair” trick that both of my kids were fond of.

Eating: Marlowe LOOOVES to eat.  She’s a good eater and not very picky.  She’ll eat meat (especially sausage), vegetables, all fruit, yogurt, and carbs all day.  The only thing she doesn’t really like is cheese by itself – which is strange to me – but oh well.  She basically always wants to be eating (like literally wanting a piece of plain bread at regular intervals through the day).  The girl loves spicy salsa and beef jerky!  She has chips and salsa with Lo everyday after work!

Vacations: We’ve taken lots of little trips to visit family, a few weekend trips (Mansfield/Splash Harbor, Lancaster, Indy for Lo to run a 1/2 marathon), and in June went to Grand Haven, MI with Lo’s sister’s family, and then to Eastern MI for my nieces grad party for 2 nights.

Lake Michigan and the beach were a HUUUGE hit.  She didn’t care much for the water (it was 58 degrees), but she was like a sand mermaid.  She couldn’t stop rolling around in the sand.  I’m fairly certain she ate a fair share of it too.  She was basically covered head to toe most of the time.  We spent a couple of days at the beach, spent some time in the downtown area, drove to Holland, MI for part of a day, and she had tons of fun with her cousins.  When we went to Davison, MI, she had a blast playing in the hotel pool with my sisters, nieces, and parents.  She doesn’t even hesitate to jump off the side of the pool (with a puddle jumper).  She barely jumps outwards though, so I was basically always terrified she was going to hit the side.  We’ve also since visited Las Vegas again, and San Diego and had a blast, but that will be in her 3 year update that I’ll be 6 months late with. 🙂

Holiday Fun: She really enjoyed Easter this year.  We did lots of Easter Egg hunts and celebrated with family and at home.

Celebrity encounters: She met Big Bird at Sesame Street Live, and several superheros at The Wilds and the mall.  She loves superheroes because Jenson does.  Plus we found the elusive Crew Cat at a game.

Extracurriculars: She took Mommy/Daddy and Me swim classes, and Mommy and Me gymnastics classes through the YMCA.  She does really well in swim.  She got moved out the parent/me classes after her last session, but she’s not old enough to take lessons without a parent (age 3). Since we had a busy summer and fall, we decided to just wait until she was 3 anyway.  She liked the gymnastics too, but again, she was a little above the Mommy/me classes (where many of the kids just ran around, and their parents didn’t redirect them or keep them on task in any way), but wasn’t old enough for the regular classes.  I could enroll her in the studio that Jenson went to (which was more structured) but I’d rather wait to see if she takes to it.  I definitely plan to have her take gymnastics either in the 2nd fall session, or winter session, and probably the soccer program in the Spring that Jenson did too.  She’s definitely got the athletic gene.

Favorite things:

• Coloring – She LOVES coloring and is SO good at it!  She almost colors more neatly than Jenson – and definitely if comparing when he was her age.  She’s very deliberate and stays largely within the lines.  She often colors on herself or the wall, so we only use washable markers and crayons, and will eventually just repaint the dining room/play room because it’s an ugly flat yellowish color anyway.

• Cats and dogs – she lights up when she sees one.  And really all animals – she says “oh, its so cute” – even if its not….like a komodo dragon.  We once had a (beautiful) but feral cat on our side porch occasionally for a 1-2 days and she would look at him out the window and say – “he’s my favorite cat, I love him” in a sweet little sad voice.

• Puzzles – Like Jenson, she LOVES puzzles and is pretty good at them.  She’s not quite as into books as Jenson, but I didn’t have the liberty to sit and read with her for 3 hours at a time like I did with Jenson before Marlowe was born.
• Babies – she loves babies and will say “look, a baby” even if it’s a toddler that probably older than her.
• Playgrounds, swings, riding bikes and playing outside
• This striped winter hat that she wore no matter the temperature.  I finally had to hide it in June because she kept wearing it when it was 80.

• Favorite shows: Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Muppet Babies, Disney Lullabies (DaDaDaOohahhOoh is what she called it), Bob the Train, Mutts & Stuff, and whatever Jenson is watching.
• Grouping things together – she’ll sit and play more independently than Jenson does.  She put seemingly random things into the shopping cart or a basket or bucket and is very pleased with herself.  I’m sure there’s a method to her madness though.
• Tickles – She loves being tickled and will say – tickle me, tickle me!
• Kisses – she’s always loved kisses and still does.  It was the best when she started giving them back a lot.  She grabs my face and will kiss me on the cheeks or lips very deliberately, and then just look at me, and it’s so sweet.
• Dancing and music – from her love of musical cards, to her dance moves, she loves it!  Her hips move side-to-side in a way that doesn’t seem possible.
• Stuffed animals – it used to just be a specific Minnie Mouse, but now she has about 10 or so animals that she “needs” in her bed.  She’ll show me one (even if she never sleeps with it or plays with it) and will say – “it’s very special to me”.
• Captain America.  She spent  a lot of time carrying around one of Jenson’s Captain America figures, and would hug and kiss him, and feed him sandwiches.

Favorite sayings and misspoken words

• Whenever you ask her to do something that she already is planning on, she says “I mam”. Girl doesn’t want to be told what to do.
• Yes-TA-day. Everything happened yes-ta-day.  Doesn’t matter if it was last week or last year, but if it was in the past, it was yes-ta-day.
• Favorite (only) joke: “Knock Knock” (who’s there?) “Uh, jumpin’ monkey” (jumping monkey who?) “Jumpin’ Monkey Trashcan”.  I have no idea where this came from, why it’s the only one she tells, but its kind of funny every time.
• For her name, sometimes she says “Mywhoa” instead of Marlowe, so we are working on that.
• If you ask her what daddy’s name is, she says “Don” (or John?).  I have no idea.  Don is her Papaw’s name, and John is Lo’s middle name and my dad’s name, so could be either, but I don’t know why she thinks that.

Personality

Marlowe’s personality changed a lot around 18 months.  She was a rather difficult baby…very particular about things, demanding, clingy, LOUD, fussy.  Once she started being able to communicate better, things changed.  She also became less clingy to me after I was done nursing her, and she began to cling to her daddy, so maybe she just felt easier to me after that.  She still has her tantrums, but she became more sweet than spicy instead of vice versa.  She’s pretty easy going and is tough as nails.  She’s more sensitive and empathetic too now – and I wonder if she has modeled that after Jenson.  She notices if someone is sad or crying, and she feels bad about it.  She’s still so independent, assertive, and strong – which I’m glad for.  Even if it makes things harder on me while she’s growing up, I know she’ll be able to take care of herself as a woman in this ridiculous world.

She stands her ground about things sometimes.  Sometimes she doesn’t want kisses (but will give you one 3 minutes later), sometimes she doesn’t want anyone else to sing a particular song, sometimes she just has some sort of arbitrary rule.  Sometimes she just doesn’t want to wear a particular article of clothing. We’ve had some difficult moments – like the time we stayed in the parking lot the entire time Jenson was at preschool because she was fighting and screaming about getting in her car seat.  I was both afraid I’d accidentally hurt if I was trying to force her in, or someone in the church would come out or call someone bc she was screaming absolute bloody murder.  I tried everything I could think of, and I could not win. She was just being stubborn, and she defeated me for a bit that day.

But on the positive side, she is VERY sweet and loves kisses and hugs, and she’s generally always nice to other kids and people (she’s just difficult with us sometimes). She has really good manners and almost always says please, thank you, and your welcome – as well as bless you.  If she sneezes and you didn’t hear her (or just forgot to say Bless you), she keeps says “say bless you, say bless you”.

Since she is particular and used to being with me/us 24/7, we really haven’t had anyone other than family babysit her.  We’ve had occasional babysitters (people we know) come after she’s asleep, and she’s stayed with family, but we still worry it would be hard for most to work with her if she decides to be difficult.  That, and she isn’t fond of being without me or Lo, or with people she doesn’t know.  I’ve taken her to the gym child watch with Jenson a few times, and it went well about twice, but the other times they call me over the loudspeaker after 5-15 minutes because she’s just screaming.  Basically, if she’s screaming, it’s going to take me or Lo to calm her in most cases.  However, my niece moved in with us this August for college, and as Marlowe says, Emma is her best friend, so we have her as an option (but I still wouldn’t ask her to try to put her to bed).

Dislikes

Being told “no” about anything.  She doesn’t take it well, and often tries to stand her ground about even the most minor things.  Sometimes that means we give in (to have peace and when it’s not worth a struggle) and sometimes we are able to diffuse it without giving in.  Obviously we aim to diffuse those issues rather than give in, and as she gets older and is better able to reason.  Sometimes it just means I carry her screaming from the library because she didn’t get to push the elevator button.  The good news about this is that she will bring things like that up later and talk about how she wasn’t being nice, or seems to recognize that her behavior wasn’t like a “big girl”. And we are able to talk about why she shouldn’t have done that, or what she should do instead.

Sibling Love

She is basically obsessed with Jenson.  While she has a pretty independent and leader-like personality in general, she copies everything he does.  She repeat the exact same sentence, and will join in any game he’s playing.  They fight, but they snuggle and love on each other, and truly are best friends.  If he’s snuggling with me, she wants to be snuggling with me.  If he’s getting kisses or tickles, she wants kisses and tickles.  He’s always saying “I love you” to me, and she started doing it too.  I’m definitely not complaining – his sweetness has rubbed off on her for sure.

She’s also pretty good at sharing with him at times.  Not always, for sure, but if you talk to her about it – or say they need to take turns, she usually complies without a fight.  She shares better than he does…its like she just decides it not worth it, or she feels bad when he’s upset about wanting something.

She has this knack for getting him in a reverse choke hold when they are wrestling – it comes so naturally to her.  I actually have to make her let go because I can tell he’s struggling.  I think she gets it from her dad, who once choked out a Santa Claus (okay, someone dressed as Santa on Halloween) during a demonstration on how to choke someone out. He wasn’t trying to really do it…it just happened so fast and he couldn’t tell the guy passed out until he fell down through his arms (no one was mad or upset, it was a mutually agreed upon experience).  But yeah, that’s going to be Marlowe at a party in 20 years.

I cherish

Her sweetness and her spiciness.  Her strength.  The times I get to snuggle or spend time with her on her own – as a 2nd child, she doesn’t get much of it when Jenson is around because he always wants to be involved too.  Obviously with his Pre-K and later, elementary school, I have lots of quality time to spend with her before she’s in school.  I got the one-on-one time with Jenson when he was little, and now its her turn for more of it.

Looking forward to

Watching her thrive in preschool this year – she’s going to Thursday school.  Watching her bond continue with Jenson (she told him the other day that he needed to talk to her because he’s her best friend forever). Having some extra time with her while Jenson is in school 4 days a week this year.