Szilvia Vivien
Vivi turned 2 on February 28th. She continues to be a little delight: impish, happy, cute. She does have a temper, but when she loses it, she rapidly recovers, flashes me one of her grins and declares "Vivi happy!"
She's a tiny little thing. At 2 years of age, she is 85 cm (33.5 in) tall and 10.5 kg (23 lb). She's about the same height as her sister was at this age, but weighs 1.5 kg (about 3.5 lb) less!!! She totally has her Dad's physiology, she'll be slim and slight. David already has plans to make her a jockey.
She is extremely clever and picks things up very-very quickly, whether they are physical skills like how to ride a 3-wheeler bike or new words and games. She already speaks in full sentences in both languages, even though her pronunciation is so garbled it's hard to understand. For example, the sentence "That's Vivi's motorcycle." sounds like "da vivi michael!" I find it adorable, but it makes it more difficult for anybody else to understand her. On the other hand, the sentences she puts together show a surprising depth of understanding. I don't think Zsuzsi was this aware at 2, and she certainly wasn't this communicative.
As far as eating is concerned, she's a little pig! She'll eat anything that's food and I swear she eats twice as much as her sister (not to mention several times the range of things her sister is willing to eat). She also still nurses, day and night. I'm getting a little impatient with the nighttime nursings. Two-three times a night would be the limit of my tolerance, but she still frequently exceeds that. I don't want to wean her, but I *would* like a full night's sleep at some point in the near future. Plus, at nighttime, she turns into Ms. Hyde - she refuses to cuddle, she pushes me away, kicks off all her blankets, and gets very angry with me if I take her beloved boob away from her. During the day, she's cuddly and affectionate. It's bizarre, she never tolerated being cuddled at nighttime, and she also never liked sleeping in a sling or wrap when she was a tiny baby.
She is still extremely sensitive (allergic) to cow's milk. :( I've had to cut dairy out of my diet entirely, and when I cave in and have a latte or some pizza, her skin is covered with rough dry patches. The more dairy I eat, the uglier her skin gets. *sigh* I miss dairy.
At daycare, they love her because she's so easy-going and happy-go-lucky and cute.
She adores her big sister and looks up to her. These days, she follows her around and continually asks what she's doing (which sounds like "wha ya do, Zsuzsi?"). She's also a little devil and will swipe Zsuzsi's beloved toys, and just grin happily at the havoc she wreaks. However, 90% of the time, she will return the filched item if asked. Except Zsuzsi doesn't normally ask, she howls as soon as she detects the crime. They're getting better at going through the motions though, but Z still has to be reminded to just ask instead of wail. They now even got to the point where Z will say thank you when Vivi returns something, and Vivi will say you're welcome. They're so CUTE! :)
In the morning, David takes Zsuzsi to daycare and I take Vivi. So when we part ways, the two girls will exchange kisses and wave bye-bye to each other! :)
Zsuzsi can get Vivi up to any sort of mischief, but still refuses to play with her at least 50% of the time. The other 50% is actually a vast improvement over the past when she entirely excluded Vivi from her games.
The two girls take a bath together and sleep in the same bed. They STILL fight over Mommy, though - "da MY Mommy" says Vivi and hugs my knees tightly. "No, that's MY Mommy." says Zsuzsi. Or even better, these days, she'll remind Vivi that I'm EVERYBODY'S Mommy. Zsuzsi likes to lecture Vivi in all sorts of extant and nonexistent rules, and will take it upon herself to scold her when she transgresses. Hey, in a few years, we won't actually ever have to discipline Vivi cos Zsuzsi will have entirely taken over the job. What can I say, she's a little miss know-it-all. (Err, I wonder who she could have gotten THAT from... *whistle*)
Even though Vivi is a fast learner, especially of physical skills, she still seems to have trouble gauging her own ability, and as a result, she is an enormous klutz and gets herself into all sorts of accidents. Consequently, she is fearful rather than daring, but it doesn't seem to help, she still gets herself into scrapes on a daily basis.
Potty training. Oh boy. Vivi LOVES the potty, she sees Zsuzsi use it daily, she sees us using the toilet daily, and she sees her classmates at daycare, too. So she knows what it's for and she loves it. She likes sitting on it, she likes "helping me" when I'm sitting on the toilet by taking squares of toilet paper and throwing it in the bowl. She'll even request to have her diaper removed so she can sit on the potty or the toilet (we have a ladder-like contraption that allows them to use the big toilet without falling in), but she's never been able to actually produce anything while sitting on it. In fact, she'll just pee wherever (and then get really scared and cry) and as the bane of my existence, she regularly poops in the bathtub. She doesn't cry about THAT, though, the little devil. I don't know why she does it, Zsuzsi never did anything like that. And Vivi does it often enough so I try never to leave her in the tub without supervision after Zsuzsi comes out. That's also suspicious, that she only ever poops in the tub once Zsuzsi left it. Anyways, it's still a bit cold around here, but soon I'll be leaving her little butt diaperless, and hope we can make the transition quickly. Neither of us likes cleaning up poop and pee. (Who does, I guess...)