Two and a half

Our sweet Tessa is two and a half!  We celebrated with pink half-birthday cupcakes and sang "Happy Half-Birthday".  "I big girl" she likes to say.

Some things that I want to remember about Miss T at 2 1/2:

• She whispers at bedtime.  We can barely hear what she is saying, but she just keeps whispering at us.  It's super cute, but sometimes frustrating because we can't hear what she is saying and she just won't speak up!
• Whenever she sees the letter T she yells "T for Tessa!" 
• She's becoming very choosy about what she wears.  She frequently turns down my suggestions of adorable dresses and goes for shorts and shirts instead.  Preferably pink.   
• She's obsessed with bandaids.
• She's very sensitive to loud noises.  She does not like lawn mowers, blenders, hair dryers, and vacuums.  Oh, and thunder. ("I no like bunder.")  Apparently she doesn't like loud voices either. The other night, Dave was reading "Marvin K. Mooney, Will You Please Go Now?" and when he said "Will you please go?" in a booming voice, she looked up at him and in her tiny, sweet, little voice said "Daddy, why you do that????" and burst into tears.  
• Some things that she can frequently be heard saying are "Where's my boy baby?  Where is him!?", "Stop bovering me.", and "Whatchu doing?". 
• More funny mispronunciations include "Kepitch" for ketchup, "Mines" instead of mine, "foon" for spoon, "snowflakes" for cornflakes, "baving soup" for bathing suit, and "peanuts" for...well...a certain male genitalia. (As I was giving her a bath the other night she said "Don't touch my peanuts!")

She loves to care for her babies.  She changes a lot of baby doll diapers.  And uses a lot of wipes in the process.  A LOT.  She's a good assistant when I'm changing Alyse too.  She always insists on the cookie monster diapers, and will search through the entire stack until she finds one. It's a complete travesty if Alyse does not get that cookie monster diaper.

She's also a very caring big sister who is still learning how to use "gentle" hands.  And gentle feet and teeth for that matter.

She's the "passfire" police.  Always checking to see if Alyse needs it. Sometimes even in the middle of a feeding.

My kitchen and bathroom towels frequently go missing.  Turns out they are the perfect size for covering up babies and baby dolls. 

Legos are super fun too!  Especially if they are the ones that Calder is currently playing with!

Although she's not a huge fan of most vegetables, she absolutely loved the peas in our "garden" (read: small patch of dirt in our front yard).  She nearly ate every single one!

Now this is more her style!  (Yes, she even eats ice cream cones with a spoon.)

Her Shirley Temple curls are to die for.  She gets compliments on them wherever we go.  (One random lady even reached out and touched them as she was walking by...that was kind of creepy.)  Even though the hair on the top of her head is quite unruly, I can't imagine cutting it -- I'd be too afraid the curls wouldn't come back!  I think they'd make the most adorable little pigtails, but she won't let me do it. Her hair is very prone to tangles, and she runs when she sees me approaching with the detangler spray and a hairbrush. 

Poor girl is LOVED by mosquitos.  She gets huge welts with the bites and even got a black eye from a bite right under her eye.  See that mosquito on her forehead?  Yep, it got her.

She can frequently be heard singing Baa Baa Black Sheep, Wheels on the Bus, ABCs, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Row Row Row Your Boat and Ring Around the Rosy. And as of late, the Spanish version of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star!  So, I'll let her close out this post with one of her favorites!

Baa Baa Black Sheep from courtney on Vimeo.

What do you think?  American Idol finalist in 2029?