Thursday, August 28, 2008

Molly at 2 1/2 Years Old:The Age of "No, IIIIIIIIIII Do It!"

Good Golly Miss Molly! My little girl turns 2 1/2 years old today (sniff sniff). I haven't really done an All About Molly update as of late, so I thought that I would take this opportunity to inform friends and family about our little gal.

Physical Size: As of today at 8:30 am, Molly is

  • Height: 35 1/4 inches
  • Weight: 24.6 pounds
  • Clothing Size--there is no "one size" for this kid. 12 month skirts and shorts still are too big in the waist. Dresses are more like an 18 month size; Shirts are 18 month-2T. Pants--who knows? Even after a year and a half, I wander through the store, unsure of what size to buy. I can't get a feel for how much she will grow during any given season. Somehow I manage. Just look in her closet.

Stage of Growth and Development: Molly is now in her "No, IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII do it!" phase. Oh, joy. I remember the days where I couldn't wait for her to talk and to become more independent. Little did I know that this growth and maturity would come packaged with such an endearing (read annoying) phrase.


Books: Molly no longer has a favorite book, but has moved beyond Dr. Seuss, Sandra Boynton and other rhyming books. Just when I had all of the rhyming books in the house burned into every brain cell in my head! I truly enjoy introducing the wonderful world of books to Molly, and having her move into more complex literature is so exciting!

Music: Molly is starting to sing along to all of her favorite songs. She has always loved songs with actions (like Itsy Bitsy Spider). As she has matured, she has begun to make up movements for her favorite songs. She has a different dance for every song on her Laurie Berkner CD, and they are a hoot to watch. She loves to the listen to same music over and over, which just about kills Tony.

Athletic Interests and Accomplishments: Our cute, dainty little Molly is amazingly adept at running, climbing, jumping (from heights higher than I would like), and swinging (thinks its cool to try to swing no handed- yikes). She can handle anything the playground can dish out. Well except for the mulch that keeps getting into her shoes.



Molly also is a swimming fanatic--no baby pool for this kid. It's right into the deep end of the big pool for her. Wearing a swim vest, Molly is fish-like. She easily navigates the water without assistance. With no vest, she can jump into the pool, submerge, surface and tread water (insert "No, IIIIIIIIIIIIII do it" here).

Molly is so skilled at the stairs that we recently removed the baby gate from the bottom of the stairway. She loves the new found freedom, and has quickly adapted to the gate-free life. The gate has been gone for weeks and Tony and I still can't walk up the stairs without reaching for the lock on the gate. I guess we don't adapt as fast.


Fashion: Molly doesn't care what she wears on her body, but oh, the shoes. She's got a ton of them. I'm not exactly sure why she has so many pairs because she adores her Crocs. She insists that they go with everything in her wardrobe. All of the other shoes get modeled in multiple shoe fashion shows every week, but the Crocs are for wearing. Daily. Regardless.

Speech: Molly has a huge vocabulary and some of it you can even understand! She is starting to string together longer and longer sentences. She totally amazed us with her recent understanding how language works. It's like she finally understood how this whole language thing worked. You could almost see the light bulb go on over her head. She has some cute Molly-words that I will miss as she grows up and drops them from her everyday speech. Here are a couple: baby hoot (bathing suit), boopa (blanket), lele (pillow) woo woes (noodles) mee-ooohl (mail). Oh, by the way, her favorite phrase? "No, IIIIIIIIIII do it!"

Extracurriculars: I swore that I wouldn't be one of those mothers that over scheduled her kid. But golly gee, it gets boring just sitting around the house. We do a pretty good job of not letting that happen. Molly is in 2 playgroups, attends a Little Gym class, a Mommy/Child Interaction class, speech therapy, library story time and a Chinese singing and movement class. In between we go to the pool, zoo, park, children's museum, and run errands. It's really not a bad as it sounds. Really.


Molly's favorite toys-her babies and her baby stroller, pretend food, shopping cart and dishes and anything that makes a lot of noise or sings the ABCs.

Academic Achievements: Molly can count to ten, if you don't require 3, 4 or 5 (here's Mollycount: 1,2, 6,7,8,9, 10). She can sing her ABCs, sort of. She knows all of her colors and many shapes. She reads several books. Oh all right, she has them memorized, but it is awfully cute to watch and listen to this.

Typical 2 Year Old Behavior: Tantrums, testing and retesting, and even more retesting of boundaries, trying like heck to become as independent as possible, oh and a little whining thrown in for fun. We have it all. Before becoming a parent, I thought that the "terrible twos" were a result of permissive parenting. I truly believed that if I established clear, consistent boundaries for her behavior and was diligent about enforcing said boundaries that I would completely avoid this stage of development. Imagine my surprise!

And have I mentioned that she says "No, IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII do it!" a lot? Molly even wants to drive the car (no joke). Sticker charts have prove very motivational and have helped to remedy many annoying behaviors but they do nothing to minimize the use of this phrase.

Foods: Molly's new favorites: grilled cheese sandwiches, pancakes, french toast, muffins, and smoothies. She even knows the recipe for smoothies and recites all of the ingredients from her high chair while I prepare them. She still loves her noodles, rice, melons, broccoli and cauliflower.

We are trying desperately to get her to try new foods, but get the violent head shaking back and forth along with pursed lips. Annoying.


Sleeping: Molly is a gold medal Olympic sleeper. She probably tires herself out by saying, "No, IIIIIIIIIII do it!" all day long. Molly sleeps 10-11 hours straight through every night. And I do mean every night. She also takes at least a 3 hour nap each afternoon. Yes I know I am lucky, but throw me a bone here...I am a 44 year old mother of a two year old. I deserve something!

So there you have it. Miss Molly in a nutshell. What can we say; it's been a wild ride so far, but we are so in love with this little girl. She brings a joy to our lives that words can't even begin to express. Good Golly our little Miss Molly!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

How funny! Joelle also does the "I do it" thing, but she has also learned to add "Just kidding" and tells little jokes!
Although Joelle does eat everything in sight too - she'll pull tomatoes off the plant in my garden and eat them right there. Last night at my company picnic at a local amusement park, she ate 6 ribs, part of a piece of chicken, green beans and tomatoes. Yes, six ribs and when I tried to take a piece of the meat, she grabbed it from me and yelled MINE!
Glad to hear that Molly is doing so well!
Kathy Kudravi

Michelle R Photography said...

She is such a cutie. I hope to see you both soon!