Little Owl @ Two and a Quarter

Little Owl is two-and-a-quarter!  A proper two year old - no more pretending!

Physically, I guess she is a bit taller, she has probably grown out of her size 6 shoes but has been living in sandals so I haven't got her measured in a while. Her hair is growing slowly still but she is beginning to develop lovely curls.

Little Owl's speech and conversational skills are amazing me every day, and her ability to link subjects and understand concepts.  She understands big and small (she is a small girl by the way), and uses the word animals as a collective term.  Also Little Owl's recalls things that happened before she could speak so clearly, suggesting that she picked up the language and stored the words in her head although she couldn't say them at the time, and yet now she says them so clearly. 

She made me laugh one day when she handed me a broken hairband and said quite firmly "tell Grandmadad to fix it".

The dreaded "why?" has started. Seriously - where do kids pick this stuff up from?  "Why Mummy why?"  So far I am treating this as a statement rather than a question and therefore ignoring it - and its working!  Little Owl doesn't seem to expect a response and so I don't waste time explaining things only to be followed by another "why".

Little Owl still adds in the occasional sign.  She'll sign please or thank you if her mouth is too full to speak, and nearly always signs sorry.  And cuddle because she knows I find that hard to refuse.  But she'll also use signs in conversation to emphasis certain words such as 'where' which is always accompanied by the sign.

I was tickling Little Owl's belly and she giggled, then said 'laugh' while signing 'fun', which was followed by a great big belly laugh!

I also find it useful to use signs with her, reminding her to say please and thank you but also when we are in a crowded place where she may not hear me.  We were recently at a playground and there was a fence that I had told her not to climb, I said we would go home if she climbed it again.  As soon as I took my eyes off of her, she was back at the fence and I yelled to get her attention.  Little Owl turned round immediately but I realised I was too far away to do anything other than yell, and if I ran towards her, she would think it was a game.  So I signed 'no' and 'home', Little Owl looked at me for a moment and then went off to play with something else.

Little Owl is out of nappies during the day, and showing signs of being dry at night.  She knows her numbers up to 10 and while she can't recite them in order, if I count with her, she generally knows which number comes next.  

Little Owl's swimming is also coming on.  There was a break through a couple of weeks ago where she was able to swim back to the side from the teacher instead of turning round halfway and grabbing on to the teacher.  The trouble is now she thinks she can swim which makes it pretty hairy when I take her, so we've gone back to putting the float belt on her to give her freedom of movement in the water when she isn't with a teacher.

Little Owl is just an incredible little girl who I am in awe of and love with all of my heart.