Yep. My little bundles of joy are two years old. Twenty four months. 730 days.
Their actual birthday was very low key. We opened cards and a few presents, we had some friends over for a BBQ but we didn’t do anything over the top. Next weekend, however, my mum and niece will be here and Jon’s family will also come down. I think that will be a better celebration (let’s hope the weather is as least as good as it was this past weekend)
So how has the last month been?
Feeding.
Basically nothing has changed from last month. However we have been forced to drop the morning bottle of milk (we’ve had two mornings now without it). The reason? The have both started chewing on the teats and they are slowly but steadily destroying them and we have decided not to buy any more (unless we really need to). So in order to keep up with the use and wash of the ones we have remaining, then we need to drop the morning bottles.
Sleeping.
Brilliant. They are still sleeping “like babies” and mummy and daddy are really appreciative of it. Last week Eric skipped the naps at nursery and Elisa slept a much shorter nap and we had a huge meltdown on Friday at bedtime, so I think it’s safe to say that they are not ready to stop napping anytime soon.
Development.
We had the two year old check up with the health visitor a few days before their birthday and every thing went very well. The both scored very well in most of the sections, except Elisa who is a tiny bit behind in speech. No surprises here, we already knew that. The problem is that she is still quite attached to her dummy (bibi she calls it) so that affects her speech. She is actually being very good in the last few days and she is giving the dummy away a bit more willingly and we’re only giving it back when she’s really stressed about it.
Eric can say so many words that we’ve lost count by now. I reckon he can say (with full understanding of what he’s saying) about 50 or more words, and he also repeats a lot of what we say. Elisa can say around 30 words, however her pronunciation is a bit worse than Eric’s and I am sure that she’s got a lisp, as her S’s are not totally clear. By the way, we never attended that NHS speech consultation as I wanted to see what the health visitor said (she said that she’s not doing too bad, but if in another 6 months she’s not improved, then we should start getting concerned)
Socialising
Their interpersonal skills are really developing now, and they are becoming very aware of other children around. Both Eric and Elisa are extremely jealous and possessive and when we are in the play park and another child wants to join in, they both become very “disruptive”. For example, say they are both taking turns to go down the slide, if another child comes in they just stop in the middle of going up the steps, or take a very long time to go down the slide, all of this whilst intently looking at the child as if saying “this is OUR slide, go away”. Very awkward.
They get on with other, normal amounts, I would say. They play together and they tease each other, until one of them cries. They have started holding each other hands when we are taking a walk around the neighbourhood, and it’s the sweetest thing ever.
Health
Elisa had a very bad week just recently. They called us from nursery on a Thursday afternoon because she had a temperature, and she actually was up and down with fever for a few days. We called 111 when she failed to get better over the weekend and because she didn’t show any other symptoms, they told us to just monitor her. But it was not nice at all. Poor little thing was really poorly.
And before that, a couple of weeks before, we also had to collect her from nursery because she had thrown up. That time, annoyingly, it was nothing, she was fine within half an hour of me picking her up, but still they had to miss nursery the following day as well.
At two years old:
Elisa’s favourite…
– Drink: Sometimes it’s gazpacho, and some other times it’s fruitshoot (I give them a fruit shoot quite often and once they’ve drank it, I refill it with water and they keep drinking thinking it’s still juice.
– Food: Sausages, grapes, tomatoes, watermelon and ice cream.
– Book: She loves the Old Macdonald book, the dinosaurs book and the Dear Zoo one.
– Toy: She is really keen on some toys but I am not sure she’s got a favourite. She really likes her doll and pram, cars and the helicopter, and sometimes she’s really into the duplo.
– Song: She loves “wind the bobbin up”, “twinkle twinkle little star” and “the sleeping bunnies”
– Colour: She has shown some predilection for pink, she also likes purple a lot.
– “Thing“: She loves animals, all animals, dogs, cats, birds, insects…
– TV: They have gone through several favourite shows. Elisa loves In the Night Garden and Pocoyo.
– “Friend“: they don’t really have “friends” at this age, but she’s shown some attachment to her nursery friend Marc, who happens to be the son of a Spaniard friend of mine who also lives in Basingstoke.
– Place: She loves the park, the swings, the slides, the sew saw… any green space to run around.
Elisa is:
She weighs 11.5 kilos and 82.7 cm high. She still wears some 12-18 clothes but mostly 18-24. I don’t think she’ll be ready for 2-3 clothes for a couple more months. She uses 5+ nappies and she is not showing any signs of being ready for potty training yet. Shoe size is 5.5G
Eric’s favourite:
– Drink: Same as Elisa, sometimes it’s gazpacho and some other times it’s juice. He is a tiny bit more fussy about his juice. Recently he just declined the normal purple fruitshoot, and demanded it to be orange. Elisa however will drink any flavour.
– Food: Corn on the cob (although he didn’t eat his tonight!), apples, watermelon, tomatoes and ice cream (both of them are crazy about ice cream)
– Book: He loves the Hungry Caterpillar, the Dear Zoo one and the Fox’s socks.
– Toy: Eric loves to play with cars, duplo, playdoh, he really likes to push his pram too, and also loves to kick balls.
– Song: “Sleeping bunnies”, “twinkle twinkle” and “Old Macdonald had a farm” (although he ALWAYS says horse)
– Colour: No doubt about it, his favourite colour is purple.
– “Thing“: Eric is really into cars, planes, helicopters, buses, bikes and anything that moves fast. He likes animals too, but not as much as Elisa, although he seems to be obsessed with spiders.
– TV: Eric loves In the Night Garden and Pocoyo, like Elisa, but he also loves Curious George (Elisa is not as bothered about George). They both seem to like a bit of Peppa Pig from time to time too, but we almost never play it at home.
– Friend: As Elisa, he seems to have some affection towards Marc, and he used to get on very well with Krishvi too before she was moved from their nursery room.
– Place: The park, any park, as long as there are slides, swings and sew saws.
Eric is:
He weighs 12.65 kgs and is 85.5cm tall. All his clothes are 18-24 but some of it is starting to be a bit small. He’ll be on 2-3 clothes very soon. He uses 5+ nappies like Elisa but he fills them more than her (probably because he drinks more). He is showing a few more signs of readiness for potty training (he tells you when he’s done a number 2) but I know he’s not there yet. Shoe size is also 5.5G.
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I will post some more photos of their birthday party when my mum and niece are gone and I have a bit of time.
