Sunday, December 6, 2009

Happy Birthday Florence!!

Florence is officially two. Granted, she adopted the "terrible two" behavior about 4 months ago, but now we're into the heat of it. Truthfully, she can plank out and throw the best fit of anyone I know, but for the most part, she is sweet and smart and funny.



Her language skills have exploded the last few weeks. She is really starting to build sentences and use her words more for communication. Sure, a lot of her phrases are of the "terrible two" variety: "I don't want it", "give it back", "leave me alone", "stop it" or my latest favorite "I'm not talking to you!". She copies everything she hears in case it can come in useful later on. For example, after my dad was visiting over Thanksgiving, she kept saying "I need another beer." But for the most part, she really understands everything and knows what she wants. She's specific about breakfast meals, she knows what she likes at McDonalds (I want cheesyburger).






She is very affectionate. She's adopted Alex's request for "huggies" everytime one of us leaves to go somewhere, or when she's sad, or in the middle of dinner just because. She also occasionally asks for "kisses". She gives sweet kisses with a very relaxed face, eyes half closed and mouth coming slowly towards you...I think Grandma let her watch too much "All my children" while she was visiting.


Her birthday was on Thanksgiving this year. We decided to have a separate party for her on a different day - after all, who wants Elmo cake when there's pumpkin and pecan pie. We gathered all her cousins at our house on Saturday morning and had Chick-fil-a and birthday cake. We even did a little surgrey on last year's elmo pinata and were able to reuse it. Last year, everyone pulled the little ribbons to open the candy door. This year, we used the bat. She got lots of wonderful toys. I think her most favorite has been the Magnadoodle. She had been carrying around one of our old nasty ones for weeks, so I requested a new one from one of her aunts. Even though she has to fight Alex for it sometimes, she loves to play with it. She also got some new Mr. Potato head parts (this one is Alex's favorite!), some new Ariel pajamas, an Elmo shape see-n-say, and a new big girl pillow. Very spoiled. The weather was beautiful - there's not too many places you can have an outdoor party in November, but here, it was gorgeous. Everyone had a good time climbing on the swingset and the dome climber, drawing with sidewalk chalk and just hanging out.



We saw both her pediatrician and her cranio-facial surgeon recently for appointments. Both are very pleased with her progress. She weighed 24.5 lbs, and was 35 inches high. According to the ped, she is hanging onto the 25% in weight and nearly 75% in height. She does have a little bellybutton hernia that we are watching, but they won't make any decisions about that until she is 5. Her CFS thought she looked beautiful. All her skull has filled in the way it's supposed to and while she still has some bumps, those will continue to smooth out as her skull continues to thicken. But the main thing is that she is on track developmentally and that her brain has plenty of room to grow. At this point, we only see the doctors every other year until she is 5. Yay.

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