Dear Zoe,
You are two years old, and it is absolutely crazy how much you have changed and grown lately. You’ve recently started going to Co-Op daycare, started jumping and doing somersaults, become fascinated with reading and writing, and singing and talking. You are always busy and high energy, and everyone thinks you’re adorable.
You are a total chatterbox lately, and your mother’s and my role in your life at the moment is to constantly confirm or deny everything you say. “Papa raining!” “That’s right, it’s raining outside. Everything is all wet.” “All wet. Papa all wet. Wear coat.” “Yes, if we go outside, we’ll have to wear a coat.” “Purple coat, Maia purple coat, zip up!” “No, sweetie, I know you love that purple coat that Maia gave you, but we’re not going outside right now.” “Walk later, not now, hang up coat.” “Yeah, let’s hang your coat back up.” And so on, all day long, every day, for every moment that you’re awake.
You love describing everything around you, and you love learning names, and talking about what things are for, and how to use them. You also absorb information like a sponge. Mama was bringing you downtown to visit me at work. You had done this a week earlier, and she heard you chatter to yourself in the backseat as she drove by my building, “Downtown, papa work, busy street, hold hand, ride elevator, push number three.” Describing the sequence of events, including crossing the busy street and pushing the button in the elevator to get to my office.
Since you started going to the Co-op (which we call “school” to keep it simple for you), you’ve learned a bunch of little songs, but your favorite has to be “Heckity Peckity Bumblebee,” which involves singing someone’s name, then whispering it, then shouting it, and then clapping it out (to learn syllables). You love to make us sing it with you in the car, and you’ll request it by shouting “Peckity Papa!” or “Peckity Zoe!” depending on whose name you want. One time, you requested “Peckity Elevator” as we drove past a parking garage with a glass-front elevator that you saw from the street.
We had to turn your carseat around when you were 19 months old. You just barely qualified, since you’d been hovering around 20 pounds for 6 months. We were planning on leaving your carseat rear-facing until you outgrew it, but you were miserable back there, and on the drive to Eugene one day, you were just wailing. So we pulled over and turned your seat around, and it totally worked. Suddenly you could see the two of us, and look around better while we drove, and it’s just made things so much easier.
You love reading and writing, and are already recognizing lots of letters and numbers. When we get crayons or markers down for you to color with, you frequently will just request that we write out a lot of words. “Write Z-O-E Zoe!” or “Write Papa!” are common requests. I’ll come home and find paper on the table with lots of colorful scribbling and the words Papa, Zoe, and Mama written over and over again in Annie’s patient handwriting. You recognize numbers pretty well, and the clock in your bedroom has become a small problem during bedtime because you get so excited to see when it’s 8:03, because it looks like your name.
Right now, your favorite books are Mommy Hugs and Little Gorilla. We just got them a couple of weeks ago, so they’re always at the top of the list when you want to read books. Before that, you cycled through Brown Bear, Daddy Kisses, Piglet has the Sniffles, and Good Night, Boston.
Your favorite toys are probably the puzzles. You have some cute animal puzzles and instead of just matching them, you have a little story about how the pieces have to “go home to momma” or “go home to papa” and sometimes even “go home to kitties.” You love your string puzzle from Grandma Amy, and your shape-sorting puzzle from Maia. You’ve got plenty of non-puzzle toys, such as your shopping carts and assorted dolls, but when we sit down to play, you usually go straight to the puzzles.
You also delight in picking oddball phrases and shouting them for a laugh. You like to say them to us, and then have us repeat them back to you in an incredulous tone of voice. This all started with “orange pants.” I was putting your orange corduroy pants on your one day, and you said “orange pants?” like a question, but I thought it sounded like you were making fun of it, like “really? you’re dressing me in orange pants?” So I repeated it back to you, like orange pants were the silliest thing in the world. “Orange pants?!” You thought that was hilarious, and now you randomly shout “Orange pants!” at me in public, confusing everyone around you. Other favorite silly phrases are “papa neenoo,” “zoe coo-koo,” and of course, “baboo!”
Speaking of being in public, you have started getting very shy around guys, especially guys with facial hair. You’re perfectly comfortable around women, and love being around children, but whenever a grown man shows up, you’re suddenly clinging to one of our legs, asking to be picked up. Then you start flirting, smiling at the guy until he notices you, and then quickly looking away. Mostly, men you know are fine, but for some reason you’re intensely shy around your Uncle Ryan. He’ll come over and talk to you, and suddenly you’re hiding your face in my shoulder, sneaking little peeks at him. Uncle Sean is fine, but I can’t remember the last time you gave Ryan a hug or anything like that. The funny thing is, you really do like him. When we tell you he’s coming over, you’re happy, and when he leaves, you talk about him — but while he’s here, you won’t go near him.
You’ve gotten very physically active lately. You learned how to jump, how to hop, how to hold Momma’s hands and flip, and you’ve rediscovered how to roll around on the floor. You love tumbling and flopping on the bed or the carpet, and you recently figured out how to do somersaults, or as you call them “Funny-Salts.” It’s especially funny because you just bend right over, folding yourself in half and touching your head to the floor without really bending your knees, and we have to remind you to tuck your chin, or you go flopping to one side. You’re still insanely flexible, and your Momma is looking at some tumbling classes to enroll you in. Most gymnastics classes don’t take kids younger than three, but you’re so into it that we’re trying to find a class for younger kids.
Your typical day starts around 7:30am. Sometimes you wake up early enough to get up with me, and hang out in the bathroom while I take my shower, but most mornings you sleep in with your Momma for a bit longer. After I leave for work, you two get up, have breakfast, change diapers, get dressed, feed the kitties, and get ready for the day. If you’re going to school, that all happens pretty quickly so you can get there on time, but on your days off, it’s a little more laid-back, and sometimes involves watching Dancing with the Stars with Momma.
At Co-Op, you love playing with the other kids, and you’re getting better about letting Momma leave, though there are still days where you melt down if something happens and she’s not around. It’s a big step for both you and Momma, to have someone else comfort you but you love all the other moms and it’s slowly but surely progressing towards you being okay with Momma being gone for 2-4 hours and Momma getting some time alone. It’s awesome to watch you grow from being around other kids and other moms in a slightly more structured way.
After Co-Op, you usually fall asleep in the car on the way home, and have your nap parked in the driveway while Momma keeps an eye out from the kitchen. Some days it works out that Momma can put you down in our bed and we’re working more towards that. Once you wake up, you and Momma putter and prepare dinner or hang out with your other buddies for late afternoon playdates so the moms can chat. These are actually more teaching moments for you as well, because now that you’re two, you’ve realized that OH MY GOD THEY’RE TOUCHING MY TOYS! So there’s a lot of talk about taking turns and it’s really okay if your buddy comes within two feet of you when you’re holding your doll, and oh look! there’s something shiny over there! Could you hold that instead?
After dinner, we start the bedtime routine when I pour you a bath. You’ve recently learned how to climb into the tub by yourself, and you love playing with cups and toys in the water. You still don’t like having your hair washed, but you’re getting better about letting us do it, so it doesn’t always end in tears — though your new trick to keep us from doing it is to grab the washcloth and should “Zoe hold it!” if we try to start washing you, and you’ll tuck it between your legs to try to hide it from us.
When bath is over, we dry you off in your lion towel, and put on a night-time diaper and PJs before brushing your teeth and washing your hands — another thing you picked up at Co-Op. Then it’s time to read books with Papa for a little bit before it’s time for “nee-noo and night-night” with Momma. Lately, after lights-out, it’s been taking Momma about an hour to nurse you to sleep, though she’s working on shortening that time by telling you when you’re all done nursing, and then talking and singing with you until you fall asleep.
Lately, your most common request is “Momma Gramma Zoe Much,” which is your Momma’s cue to start listing all the people who love you, typically starting with herself and moving onto Grandma… “Momma loves you very much, and Grandma loves you very much, and Oskar and Milo love you very much,” and so on. After you fall asleep, you sleep for around 3-4 hours before waking up, and usually at that point Momma brings you to bed with us.
The other thing I should mention is your birthday party. It was a whirlwind of activity, but it was also a lot of fun. You’re still a little unclear on the concept, but we were talking to you about it for several days beforehand, and when you saw the big plate of cupcakes you exclaimed “Happy Birthday Zoe!” Almost all of your friends were able to come over, and the house was jam-packed with toddlers eating cupcakes. You were excited to hear everyone sing to you, and you even blew out the candle on your cupcake! (Leilani was ready to back you up, but it turns out you didn’t need any help.) After cake, Oskar and Leilani fulfilled their older cousin duties and helped you open all your presents, but by then you were getting pretty tired. The party had been going for several hours by then, and it was around naptime. Everyone had a good time, there were no meltdowns, and you loved your presents, so all in all, it was a big success.
I love you, little girl!