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Today my little Nicole turns 2.  She has blossomed into a funny quirky little girl.  She loves to be the center of attention, stealing glances at visitors and then beaming from ear to ear with her head cocked or galloping around the room in her own unique dance.

She has recently entered a new stage of language development.  Her vocabulary is exploding and she has started regularly using two word combinations and small phrases.  Where she would have said “shoe,” I hear her carefully articulate “one shoe” or “Charlotte’s Shoe.”  One of my recent favorites is hearing her say the whole phrase “Mom, where are you?”  I’ve started working on encouraging words instead of crying or yelling for something.  She’s doing quite well with that.  She says things like “help, please” and “orange, please” or “Oh, no ball!”  Every time we drive somewhere, she likes to say goodbye to everything “goodbye house”, “goodbye tree”, and so on.

She loves hats and shoes and she smiles and dances when I put either one on her. This evening, I watched her try to fit her brown sandals onto her big sister’s foot.  She regularly emerges from her siblings bedroom and clomps down the hall in a pair of oversized shoes.  Then she’ll climb into her seat at the table and say “oh no, shoe!” as one of the shoes slips off and falls to the floor.

Six months ago, it was a rare treat to have her sit still in your lap for a hug,  now she seeks out and sustains hugs regularly. She has started hugging both of her sisters  spontaneously and occasionally crying for a hug.  The 2nd hour Nursery leader at church says that every week at about 10:30 she just stops playing and comes to get a hug then goes back to play happily.  She went through a short phase of saying “awww” every time she hugged someone.  Charlotte and Nicole loved to hug and say “awww” over and over again.

She goes to bed easily most days both for her nap and at night.  At times she’ll be up for an hour or two after being put to bed, but she never leaves her room or climbs off her  bed.  She usually doesn’t even cry.  She’ll be in there for hours, just singing and talking and looking at books.  I think it’s only been in the last month that she’s started insisting that she sleep on top of items.  She gathers at least three toys and often a book or two along with her water bottle in her arms and sleeps on top of them.  A stuffed Curious George toy is always under one of her arms.  I still don’t understand why she prefers to sleep this way, but she gets mad if I try to move something she’s laying on.  It reminds me of a silly sleeping phase Isaac went through.  It’s funny how these strange little things they do pull at your heart strings. 

She still doesn’t like to be forced to sit still.  If I try to get a picture of the kids lined up or sitting next to each other, she’ll be the one who refuses to sit still long enough for me to take the picture.  Church meetings can be challenging, I was counting down the days until she turned old enough for nursery!

Her favorite show is Curious George.  She’ll carry a remote over to me and say “George” periodically during the day.  She also loves to be outside.  Everyday when we get home from picking up Isaac she climbs out of the car and runs directly outside to play.  If you mention leaving she’ll to to the door to the garage and say “outside” over and over.

I also love her big brown eyes and her silly smiles.  She has started smiling and saying “cheese” when she sees my camera.  Sometimes she gives me a goofy smile where she protrudes her lower teeth and it looks like she has an under bite (I think that’s the right term).

My little Nicole turned one on Wednesday.  So I thought almost a week late, I might write a little bit about her.  Being a third must be hard. Number 1 is naturally spoiled with attention, on number two you try really hard to show them as much attention as number one, but by the time you get to number three it gets even tougher—especially when one and two are still home with you all day.  In some ways poor little Nicole gets the short end of the stick.  For example, I recently discovered that Nicole really likes to look at books with me. 

Nicole is at the age where her personality is really starting to bloom.  She loves to dance and yell.  She yells when she’s happy and when she’s mad.  If she likes a doll or stuffed animal she usually growls and buries her head in it.  I even saw her do this to a cat once.  She squeals with delight when she sees an animal, particularly a cat or dog and giggles when a dog jumps up on her and licks her face.

She loves to climb the stairs, especially at grandma’s house.  She crawls up a few steps and then turns around to make sure you’re following her.  Once she sees your face she laughs and climbs a few more steps as fast as she can.  Unfortunately, she hasn’t mastered the proper down technique. 

She has a bit of a fearless streak in her that is very different from her older siblings (who are both big chickens).  In the bath she splashes and lays on her stomach and tries to lay all the way down on her head sometimes.  When she climbs onto a chair she immediately grasps the back of the chair and starts shaking it.

Some of her favorite foods are pickles and grapes.