Thursday, April 30, 2020

Mini turned two

It's goes to show how busy life has been that I'm two months late writing this! Here's a link back to Mini's one year update . Year one to two was really all about her becoming her own person and her personality shining through.

Over the last few months Mini's talking and development has come a long way. Now she usually repeats new words after we say them to her and she has a great memory. There are still quite a few words and sounds that she can't pronounce properly but we have learnt from context what she is trying to say. We are able to have little conversations now which is fun! For instance, sometimes if a toy is broken, she might say "Dada fix it!". When doorbell rings she'll say "doorbell - delivery man". We've been getting a lot of stuff delivered since the Coronavirus isolation started haha. Then if I ask what's in the box, she might answer "food".


She definitely knows her own mind and can be very determined. She has strong opinions about what she wants to wear some days. I usually let her wear what she wants, within reason. Like if she insists on wearing a "party dress" but it's a cold day, then I'll just make sure to put on a long sleeved top underneath and leggings/tights. She has one doll who's her favourite and she brings her everywhere. She calls her "Dee-doll". It's very sweet.

She loves music and sings along to nursery rhymes now. She enjoys imaginary play do we'll play games such as doctor where we pretend her toys are sick or we have teddy bear picnics. Reading is also still a favourite activity and she will patiently listen to the story now instead of always turning the pages herself.

She is currently transitioning from one nap to no naps but it seems to be a very long process! Some days she flat out refuses to nap so then we bring her to bed early. The danger is when she doesn't nap but then falls asleep too early. There was one day she was out for the count at 5.15pm already so I brought her to bed then. However she ended up waking up for the day at 3.15am which wasn't so great as you can imagine! So now we try to keep her awake till 7pm on those days she skips the nap. When she does nap, sometimes she can sleep for up to three hours which is quite handy when I'm working from home. On those days she then stays up late and doesn't go to sleep for the night till around 10pm.

I was worried about how the current situation would affect her but she has taken it in her stride. I think she's enjoying not going to daycare and having more attention from us. She sometimes asks about the "Kita" (German daycare) and I just say that it's closed and on holidays for a few weeks and she accepts that. When the weather is nice we try to spend some time in the garden or go for a walk around the block.

During one of our walks recently she saw two little girls from our neighbourhood playing and she ran over to them before I could stop her, longing to join in. One of the girls then shouted "Abstand halten!" (keep back) to her. Of course the other girl was right, we are meant to keep kids apart but I couldn't help feeling a bit sad for Mini who is too young to understand.


Lately it can be real struggle for my husband and I trying to juggle home office and looking after Mini and the household. She's ending up having more screentime than we would like and our house could badly do with a good clean. However we are making the most of it as best we can. She's such a fun and sweet person and I feel so grateful having her in our lives.

8 comments:

  1. Happy belated birthday to miss Mini!!
    We're in "nap or no nap" territory now as well. This week is no naps and it seems to be going well except that he's a terror from 5:30 to bedtime. And I'm struggling with it sometimes. Worrying about whether he should be doing a nap and am I breaking him by skipping naps. Never a dull moment in my brain lol.
    Great to get an update from you. I'm glad you're all well.

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    1. Thanks! I was convinced a few weeks ago that Mini was ready to drop her naps but then the week after suddenly she seemed to want to nap again! Now she'll nap roughly 5 days a week. I've had similar thoughts about worrying that I shouldn't be dropping her naps too soon but many kids drop them around age 2-3 so I'm sure it's fine. I'm gonna try to catch up on your blog now :)

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  2. Glad to hear from you! From what I understand, there is often a sleep regression at two years. Naps get weird for a while, if they happen at all. We're dealing with it now. But most two-year-olds still need naps. Or at least a couple hours of "quiet time." We're definitely sticking with it and hoping he'll go back to good naps in a couple (or a few) weeks!

    It's funny how our kids notice and are interested in totally different things. Ali has zero interest in what he wears and has no idea what a doctor is. It's been a long time since he had a shot, and we just haven't brought up the subject since then, haha. He loves all kinds of tools, including power tools, and cleaning implements. And he has no notion of anything being different because he doesn't know I canceled plans to put him in day care last month. (I am pretty bummed about that -- I bet he'd thrive in day care.)

    And I feel so bad that for most of Ali's second year, I was either in the middle of an exhausting pregnancy or caring for an exhausting newborn! I'll be so glad when she learns to sleep a little better and Ali learns to sleep well again and we all get out of survival mode.

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    1. Yeah I was convinced she was dropping her nap but then that phase passed and she was back napping again without problems. Mini was terrified of going to the doctor for awhile. We changed doctors at the practice to one who was better with kids and I also started playing doctor games with her toys to try to get her used to the idea. It seemed to help her get over her doctor fear thankfully. And now she still enjoys playing doctor! I've no idea where her desire to play dress up came from! She loves putting on several of her clothes at the same time. Ali sounds like such a sweet little guy! I hope you can all get out of survivial mode soon :)

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  3. Awwww! Happy late birthday to Mini! The screentime...I hear you. My daughter was pretty good with the nap thing and being able to still go to bed at a reasonable time. I have no idea how things will be with this baby. 3:15 am wkaeups DO NOT sound fun. I love that she likes to play doctor. My daughter is 4.5 and hasn't done that in awhile and it makes me sad because that was one of her favorite games to play when she was younger.

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    1. Thanks. Yeah we've had many phases of bad sleep but *touch wood* it's been better lately. Aw, I can imagine it must be a bit sad when they get older and don't want to play the same cute games again! Screentime is a necessary evil at the moment! Actually I don't think it's so bad. Educational, right?!

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  4. It was perfect the first time. I learn so much from you as well! Keep it up great post.

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