Kaylie may be the baby of the family, but she isn't much of a baby any more. She's growing like a weed! There are a few 18m things that she can wear, but she's mostly into 24m and 2T clothes, and size 6 shoes, if you can believe it. If she keeps going at this rate, she'll be into 3T by the fall!
She's getting better at communicating, too. It had seemed for a long time that she had stagnated and even regressed some in her speech development. She's very verbal, but most of what she says is unintelligible babble, and when she wanted something, she would just grunt and point. Elora has always been so precocious in this area, that it makes Kaylie's more gradual progress seem even more so. Now, she's started coming to get us when she wants something, and leading us by the hand to what she wants. She still does a lot of grunting and pointing, but she's using more words now, too. She now says "Mama" and "Daddy" quite clearly, and says "Papa" and "Gigi" pretty well too. She says "doh" for no, "dow" for down, "pwee" for please, and "dan oo" for thank you. "Yay" is an easy one, and one that she's been using a lot lately, because she's also potty training!
We're still in the early stages, but she's doing really very well with it. I've been putting her on the little princess potty for a while now, but it's become obvious that the concept has really clicked for her. She often wakes up with a (mostly) dry diaper in the mornings, and we've gotten to the point that she only actually needs 2 or 3 new diapers in the course of the day. And a couple of times, she's even come to get me and pulled me with her to the bathroom! She has her own potty chart, and gets a sticker everytime she sits on the potty, whether she actually uses it or not, and of course, we make a huge deal about it when she does. It'll be a while before she's ready for pull up pants, but we are definitely off to a good start.
Kaylie has also graduated from the crib to a toddler bed. I had hoped to keep her in the crib a while longer, but she put paid to that idea when she figured out how to climb out on her own, and fell on her head. The discomfort of the experience may have been enough to deter her from trying it again, but I didn't really want to test that theory. She's now sleeping in what was Elora's toddler bed, because it is lower to the ground and has the rails to keep her from rolling out.
Elora has the crib-turned-day bed now, which is the same size as the other but is a few inches higher, and has no rails. Both girls seem to be perfectly happy with the arrangement.
The crib rail is now a hanging rack for their dress up clothes, which is great, because the bins were over-flowing. Now the dresses and skirts, and leotards can hang, while the accessories can live in the bins.
And, while Kaylie isn't quite two yet, we're already getting into those "terrible two's". She has definite opinions about what she wants, and isn't even remotely shy about letting her wishes be known. (You should see her scolding Elora, scowling and shaking her finger at her in agitation. I'm trying to discourage this, but it's hard to do when I'm also trying not to laugh.) She's become quite proficient in the art of the temper tantrum already, banging her head on the floor when angry and displaying an impressive lung capacity. All you have to do is tell her "no", and she falls to the floor, sobbing as if heart broken and/or screaming as if dying in agony. I have a hard time telling the difference between her "I'm just mad" cry and her "I'm actually hurt" cry. And I thought Elora was dramatic! Although, in all fairness, it may just be that time has fuzzed my memories of Elora's tantrums, while Kaylie's are more immediate.
