Aurora Llane Update : 26.5 Months

I realize that it's been about a thousand years since I've posted anything here, and it's not because I haven't wanted to, or because I forgot about it, or because I don't have anything to post about- it's quite the opposite. I have SO MUCH to post about!

In this first photo, we see Ro, who is now two years, two months, two weeks old, enjoying her favorite Starbucks treat (vanilla whole milk) with her Uncle Ian who, along with Aunt Christine and Uncle Steve, have moved back to Arizona from Seattle and have become a prominent and awesome part of her life.

Every Sunday we go over to Ian's parents house, Cyndee and Marty's, and have pancakes for breakfast with them. Ian and Christine are normally there, and often Ian's sister Stephanie (who writes for Little Stuff of Life, and her husband Philip. It's a full house of great family and I'm so thankful for having them to call my own when I'm so far away from my biological family. But if anyone's taught me anything about how family isn't always blood-deep, it's them.

As we speak, Ro is sitting next to me, eating all the raisins out of some trail mix and watching another vintage episode of Sesame Street- or "church," as she likes to call it. (Whatever she's saying does not sound like "Sesame Street", but indeed more like "shirts".) At least I know what she's talking about.

I find that to be true with the majority of the things she says. Last night Ro grabbed the phone and told my mother some long story about "whish, whish" and "baw-nee." My mom said, "Oh, you saw a bony witch?" And I said, "No, she's telling you that I swept the kitchen but had to rescue her bunny, first."

Some of the most recent additions to Ro's vocabulary are pizza, pumpkin, car (beep-beep!), dragon, cow, horse, birthday, Buddha, and chicken. If she wants something, she reaches for it and says "I have?!"

She loves to help me clean about as much as she loves to make messes, so there's a blessing in disguise. She's starting to recognize most of the letters of the alphabet (and numbers) but tends to, for example, confuse 9 and 6, and 3 and E, and 8 and B, 5 and S, etc. If you ask her to count something, she always starts at two, and doesn't often get very far. Last night I asked her to count her toes and she said "two, three, two... nine!" ...you can see where we're having problems.

She sleeps full time in her big girl bed with no problems now, though after several months of her disassembling every night light we could buy for her, we finally had to get her an IKEA Spöka, since it's solid rubber and has no cords or batteries or anything. Incidentally, it's become her best friend in the whole world and I'm kind of jealous, since I want one for myself.

She has a good sense of humor but often loses her patience. She has small tantrums, but I don't indulge them unless we're in public, because I refuse to be that parent with the poorly behaved child. I suppose I don't indulge them in public either, but there I attempt to distract her with something instead of just ignoring her, which is what I do at home. I tell her, "You can just lay there and cry about it, I'm not going to change my mind." And then usually less than two or three minutes later, she forgets why she's upset and finds something new to do.

For Halloween this year Uncle Ian wants to take Ro to walk around the mall. She's still not old enough for Trick or Treating, and she certainly wouldn't be able to eat the candy. We found her an adorable fairy-witch costume while thrifting, originally from the Children's Place. I'm sure I'll put together a small basket for her with a toy or two and a SoyJoy bar or something. Most of the fun of presents and toys for her is the packaging, of course, so if she has a basket of stuff to take apart and empty, she'll be very happy.

We're still trying to figure out how to get Meme and Pops out here for Christmas. That's the next big project.