Happy birthday Hannah

Today, my baby girl turns 2.  I guess I can't call her my baby girl any longer.  I can't believe how fast the time has gone by.  I now have a full blown toddler that tells me no, grabs my hair, sings songs, and tells a store full of people she has to pee.  I love that little girl so much, and I can't wait to see what the next year has to offer.

Only a few minutes old

Taken a few weeks ago

It is amazing how fast they change.

Survival

In the short, almost 22 months, that I have been a parent I realize that at the end of the day I slap myself on the back for surviving another day.  I feel like I won the battle if Hannah goes to bed without much of a fuss.  Lately, I feel like all I do is try to survive each hour with her.  I don't know if it is the onset of the terrible twos or if she wakes up on the ornery side of the bed everyday, but I am struggling.  Discipline is a joke. She just laughs or runs away from me when she misbehaves.  I feel like a broken record.  Now she is starting to bite me.  I am sure some of it is for attention.  Most days it is just she and I, and I only have so many hands.  I still have other duties like cleaning and cooking that take time away from her.  I try to have her help me with some of the chores, but my patience wears thin and I try to get her to do something else.  I know I need more patience, and I am working on it, but it is a slow process.  I feel like a bad mom these days.  I am hoping it is a rough patch, and that by next week she and I will find our groove again.

My baby is a toddler

I have known for a while now that Hannah is past the infant stage and well into toddlerhood, but lately it is hitting me just how fast she is growing up.  Her vocabulary is expanding, she is using sentences, and she is so into the alphabet.  Everything she sees, she must tell us what letters she recognizes.  She is even taking the first steps towards potty training.  Tonight is the second night that she is sleeping in her "big girl" bed.  She was protesting bed time tonight by yelling at the baby gate.  However, she decided that she was tired and laid down in her bed.  Two months ago when we first tried the toddler bed, she cried at the door and slept there.  She is so excited to have a bed instead of a crib.  She calls it her nigh-nigh.  I am not sure where she picked up that expression since I don't use it, but that is what she says. She even says good night mama when I lay her down in bed.  I almost cried the other day because I don't know when she grew up.  I blinked and now she is a kid.  There is no baby in her (except for the diapers.)  I am excited to see what she will learn next.  There is never a dull moment with this baby kid around.