Belly

Maya got to meet up with her cool friend Kate, who is now on maternity leave, for breakfast and some fun in a nice Berkeley park. With only a couple weeks left until baby, Maya felt compelled to do a little belly comparison.

Kate and Maya.

Maya at 2 Years

Maya is 2 years old now which means one very important thing...no more counting her age by months. Yay!

Today was her 2 year check-up and here are the very exciting (and amazingly average) stats...

Weight: 26lbs 10oz (50th percentile).
Height: 34 inches (50th percentile).
Head: Slightly less big...75th percentile.
Teeth: 16 are showing. Just waiting for the last set of molars.

Maya is a little girl now. Our role is starting to evolve out of the caregiver and training mode to a more sophisticated full blown relationship phase. She has opinions, questions, and ideas about everything that happens in her world. It's fun to get her running commentary on the day.

Maya is really engaging with people. She remembers her friends and wants to play more cooperatively. She likes it when other people eat what she's eating, or do what she's doing. It's quite commonplace now for Maya to orchestrate where everyone sits or what everyone does. "Mommy, sit there. Daddy, sit there." "Maya eat. Daddy eat too." She's still not very possessive which has been a treat for us. I'm sure she'll have selfish moments sometime in the future, but it's nice that she's not hit that phase yet.

Maya is remembering things better and anticipating things more based on certain cues. For example, when we went to Chicago, Maya saw the suitcases and said, "Suitcases...airplane?" From then on she was sure we were going on an airplane the next day. Or we can mention the zoo and she'll start referring to other visits or animals that are there. She's harder to distract, but she's easier to reason with which means that actual negotiations are now occurring in the house.

Maya is really communicating these days. She's speaking about more complex concepts like like "waiting," "almost home," "breakfast time, lunchtime, and dinnertime," "happy," "sad," "crying," "windy, rainy, sunny." When she doesn't want to do something she'll do a big dramatic, and somewhat fake cry and then she'll say "Maya crying." Unfortunately for her, the dramatic display rarely works. She has also started using "please" and "thank you" frequently. It's really cute to get unsolicited politenesses from her. She will also say "bless you" to others and herself when she sneezes. Common phrases include "Where did [person X] go?" "I did it!" "I love you." "Maya's (for everything that she's allowed to touch)." "Mommy Daddy's (for everything that she's not allowed to touch)." She says her words pretty clearly and it's easier for other people to understand her now. Our very favorite mispronunciation is of the word, music. Maya always calls it "zeegit."

Maya is quite the little artist these days. Everyday she asks for the crayons. Lulu and Pop got her an easel for her birthday and she's really getting into drawing with the chalk. She can draw lines, circles, and dots when asked and she's recently started trying to draw actual objects like faces or houses (they don't really look like anything, but you can tell what she's trying to do when she's drawing). She also tries to color in objects and likes coloring books.

Maya is still very interested in music. She now sings along to songs like "Wheels on the Bus," "The Alphabet Song," "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," and "The Itsy Bitsy Spider." She will hear instruments in songs like guitars, pianos, or drums and also likes playing real instruments like guitars, pianos, and drums.

Other activities of interest include going to the playground, visiting anywhere with animals, playing with Duplo blocks, hanging out with her friends, swimming, dancing, taking walks, looking at pictures on the computer, and going over bridges and through tunnels in the car.

Physically, we are seeing new developments like walking up and down stairs fully upright while holding onto a railing. She's still attempting to master the art of jumping. She really likes to climb and explore. Swimming class has really helped her begin to understand how to move in the water. She's getting more agile and likes to walk for much longer periods. We're finding ourselves using the stroller less and less.

These days Maya is eating less vegetables and fruits and more carbs. It's harder to convince her to eat the healthy stuff. These days she really enjoys waffles, toast, rice, beans, any kind of potato, cheese, mac and cheese, rice pudding, ice cream, dried cranberries, snack bars, occasional berries, carrots, or broccoli, and birthday cake. Randomly, she also loves to eat raw mushrooms and olives. We try to get her to try to experiment with new flavors as often as possible, but it's hard to get her to eat more than a couple of bites of stuff she doesn't really love.

We're still waiting for Maya to decide that pooping is a fun thing to do...I mean who doesn't like to poop? Until then, we're still having to deal with her desire to 'hold it' until she's asleep. It's bizarre, but our pediatrician is confident she'll come around sooner or later. No potty training until that happens.

Overall, we love getting to know our little girl. She's awesome.

Adding to the collage of Maya through the months. Here is a full 2 years of Maya:

"The Big Present" video

One last gift arrived for her birthday on the day of her birthday. Because it required assembly, Maya didn't get to open it until one day later. Here is Maya (who woke up with a head cold) discovering her big present...