Happy New-ish Year!

My New Year's resolution was to update this blog more often, to keep family and friends up to speed on the little rocket but mostly as a reminder for ourselves. Since we last posted, when Ida was 19 months, she's changed so much, but the days, weeks, months are all blurry. I don't remember when she started talking in complete, complex sentences. I don't remember when she learned to write her name. I don't remember the first time she called me "dumbass", a word she hears more often than she should (drivers in Chicago drive like dumbasses).

Tomorrow IRX turns 3, which astounds me. I miss all the past iterations of her. When her personality started to show around 6 months. When she started walking at 13 months. Her hair at 19 months. Full-on talking soon after she turned 2. Sassiness about 3 months ago.

Today, we are spending the morning at a cafe/playspace. A little town with a kid sized grocery store, firehouse, gas station. There are slides and puppets and books and trains. I love watching Ida interact with other kids. She She has no qualms about going up to someone and striking up a friendship. A few minutes ago, she came running up to me because the little girl she was playing with was crying. I guess she had had an altercation with another girl over a doll. Ida went into “fix it” mode and found another doll for the little girl who was crying. That’s one of the traits I’m so proud she has. She has been empathetic since she was tiny. Always worrying about other kids. That’s not to say she’s completely selfless. She just asked me to hide two sticks of fake butter so no one else could play with it.

Ida as a 2 year old, about to be 3:

+Her favorite color is pink, something she feels everyone must know. She is unwavering in her love of pink. Black is her second favorite color.

+She is obsessed with princesses. She wants to be Cinderella when she grows up, even after we’ve told her that Cinderella was an orphan who lived with mean women who made her scrub toilets all day. I wouldn’t mind if this Cinderella obsession manifests into clean floors and toilets in our house.

+She is dying to take ballet and soccer lessons. She practices at home all the time.

+She can spell her name and CP’s name.

+She loves to sing and dance. I love listening to her sing when she doesn’t know we’re listening. I love that her first criteria for a dress is if she can spin in it.

+She is crazy verbal and since starting at her new daycare, understands (but won’t speak) a lot of Spanish.

+We still haven’t cut her hair.

I’m a little over-caffeinated and I seem to have lost her amongst the roomful of children. So I’ll let CP fill in some other stuff and post pictures later.