23 months!

I can't believe that a month from today our baby girl will be two years old.  Not a baby at all...but I still think of her as my baby.  I guess I probably always will. 

So what's Rebecca like at 23 months old? 

She speaks in sentences more and more now, though they're often missing a word or two:  "What doin', Mommy?" she asked me the other day.  Or "Watch Wiggles now, Mommy?" 

She dances a lot, mostly to The Wiggles, of course.  She tries really hard to jump, but can't get her feet off the ground.  Jumping right now means she goes up on her tiptoes.

She naps from about 12:30-2:00 pm (or 2:30 on a good day).  She goes to bed at 7:30 pm, and usually wakes up anywhere between 5:00 and 5:30 am.  Ugh.  I refuse to get her up until 6:00, though, so that means we have to listen to her fuss, unless I go in and tell her it's still nigh' night time, in which case she complains, tries to get me to get her up to change her diaper (which I don't do, unless it's a messy one), and then lays down for another 15-30 minutes.  When she goes down, she falls asleep immediately, and she rarely puts up a fuss about going to bed, which is nice.  I just wish she would sleep longer.  This morning I didn't hear her until a little after 6:00, though, so that was a happy morning for me.

She's getting more picky as an eater, which is NOT making me very happy.  She's always been a great eater, and now she's barely eating anything.  She also has some digestion issues going on, so that could be part of it.  I took her to the doctor last week because there were three mornings where I had gone to get her up and she had thrown up in bed at some point in the night.  She acted fine during the day, and didn't ever have a fever, so I didn't know what was wrong.  She also had some issues with her messy diapers, and I won't go into detail there, but things just weren't right.  The doctor put her on Miralax, and things seemed to get better, but then early this week she got super fussy, obviously not feeling good, and my husband noticed that her stomach was really bloated, and her diapers were not quite right again.  She's always had a little bit of a tummy sticking out, but it was sticking out much more than normal.  I called the doctor the next day and the nurse said to have her eat more fiber, keep up the miralax, and we'd see how things went.  She's been less fussy, but her tummy is still bloated, her diapers still aren't normal, and there are some other issues as well.  The doctor said if the fussiness comes back and I can't get the diapers regulated with the miralax to bring her in, so we'll see.  I may end up taking her back next week, since she continues to not eat much and things don't seem to be a whole lot better.  I was suspecting a food allergy--possibly dairy or gluten--but what do I know.  My husband is having some of the same symptoms she is, and Rachel's thrown up several nights in the last week, too, so it could just be some sort of weird virus.  Time will tell, I guess.

She adores her big sister and wants to do everything Rachel does.  If Rachel's dressing up, Rebecca wants to dress up.  If Rachel's playing with stuffed animals, she wants to, too.  The funny thing is, the same is true for Rachel.  Whatever Rebecca is doing, Rachel usually wants to do, too!  They fight over toys (and especially over my lap!)--I didn't think I'd have much of that with such a big age difference between them, but I guess it's inevitable, no matter what the age difference.

She loves to be outside.  This weird weather lately has been tough on her--there are several warm days where we're outside a lot, and then it'll get cold and not a nice day to play outside, and she just doesn't understand why we can't go out and draw with chalk (one of her favorite pasttimes, though usually she just carries the chalk around the driveway and smears her chalky hands all over her clothes!) or play in the sandbox.

She loves milk, sweets, hugs, The Wiggles, her pink blanket, her Wiggles guitar, being barefoot, coloring, and being tickled.  She is a super sweet girl and still a little stinker, though she's getting a little better at doing what she's told.  We love her dearly and can't imagine life without her.  (I asked Rachel a few weeks ago if she remembers when it was just Mommy, Daddy, and Rachel, before Rebecca was born, and Rachel says no.  So she really can't imagine life without her little sister!)