Happy 2nd Birthday, Lainey Kathryn

A few years ago, one of of my dearest friends in Kansas City had my blog printed into 2 separate books. It is basically just this blog in print. Over the summer my nieces stayed with me for a few weeks and while they were at my house they discovered my blog books. My nieces read every single page and it was so fun to relive Bennett's babyhood with them. We remembered funny phrases she would say, stories that I had completely forgotten and so much more.

If you have way too much time on your hands, you too can go back and look at posts from 2009 and 2010. You will be amazed at how much I recorded. And then you will be amazed that I had so much time on my hands with a 1 year old and an infant.

And of course there was a lot about Will too. Not as much, but I did write down a lot about his babyhood and toddler years.

And now there's Lainey. As my nieces were reading so much about Bennett, I felt guilty that I had not written much at all about Lainey. I know that is true to form for most third children, but I really do want to to a better job of writing down more of what Lainey is doing. The main reason? She is so dang funny. Y'all, she just is. My youngest is a headstrong, independent, funny, mischievous, and delightful kid and I cannot get enough of her. I want to preserve as much as I can about her so one day, 5 years from now, I will be sitting down on the couch reading through this blog and remember this awesome time in our lives.

So on my baby's 2nd birthday, I want to capture who she is at this moment in time.

She has a mind of her own. One of the funniest things about Lainey as a baby was that she would not look at you if she didn't like you. People would bend down to talk to her and she would turn her head completely away and act like they didn't exist. If course, this would only encourage those who she didn't warm up to and they would get even more in her face and she would just stare off in the distance and pretend they weren't there. I have never seen anything funnier.

She does not like to cuddle. From the moment she could sit up unsupported, I have never been able to cuddle with this child. She wants to sit straight up and check out the world. Only just in the past few months have I been able to get her to cuddle with me at night while we read books. Normally she is sitting straight up in my lap and pointing at the books. And if you pick a book she doesn't want? Lord, help you. Even at 13 months, she would throw the book down until you got the one she wanted.

She loves to make people laugh. Maybe this is the typical behavior of the youngest child, but she is our comedian. She will crack us all up at the dinner table and she takes note of when she makes us laugh and she will do it again. She already knows what we think is funny so she will do it all the time to get a laugh.

She is a very smart kid. I could tell her at 19 months to go get her pink shoes and put them on and she would go in the closet, find the exact shoes I was talking about and put them on. She loves when she can do things and one of her favorite phrases is, "I do it!" She knows her alphabet and can count to 20. She knows all of her colors and can tell you what any animal says.

She has a great voice. Lainey has the best pitch of any of my kids at this age. She loves to sing and is usually right on with her pitch and even her rhythm. This delights her father to no end. (Father input here: This is Rob writing now. I can confirm this.) Her favorite songs to sing are Twinkle Twinkle, Itsy Bitsy Spider, The Wheels on the Bus, Jesus loves me, and I love you, Lainey (an original composition.)

She stopped sitting in a highchair at 19 months old and since the beginning of the summer insists on sitting in a normal chair, using a fork and drinking from a straw instead of a sippy cup. If her brother and sister do it, then she wants to do it too.

She will eat anything. She is my adventurous eater and will eat anything we put on her plate. Again, this delights her father to no end. He needs a sushi buddy. (Father input again: Yes. Yes, I do.)

At the same time, she is very prissy and hates getting dirty. She hated the sand on the beach and screamed if she got any sand on her until very recently. She hates dirt and wet grass and she washes her hands and face all by herself the second anything sticky gets on her.

She loves her family. She gets so excited whenever she sees anyone in her family and she will let you hold her all day. But don't try to cuddle with her. She has to be sitting up.

She doesn't like to get dressed up. I try to put princess dresses and costumes on her and she immediately yells at me and takes them off. Uh oh.  Houston, we have a problem.

Lainey's favorite things at age 2- Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, Elmo, her stuffed lambie, her pacis, building blocks, books, toy trains, jewelry, coloring, and playing on playgrounds.(Father input one more time: And her Daddy. She loves her Daddy. Which is a welcome change from her older brother who would literally run to the other side of the crib screaming if I went into his room in the morning.)

Her most common phrases are- How'd ya sleep? How ya doing, Mommy? I pway with Bennett/Will, Go away Meg, See me (which means hold me,) Dere it is. She says that whenever she is looking for something. She will put the object she is looking for at the end of the phrase so she will say, "Dere it is, paci" or "Dere it is, Daddy." Another one she says all the time is, "What happened?" I don't know why she says this so much, but every time she hears a loud noise (which is about every 10 seconds in our house) or even when someone leaves a room, she will say, "Uh oh. What happened?"

Lainey is sunny, full of life, joyful, loving and the light of our lives. Every single member of our family absolutely adores her. We all light up when she comes into a room and we miss her at night when she goes to bed. Will and Bennett fight over who gets to get her out of her crib and who gets to push her on the swings. She is our perfect and wonderful gift and we are so incredibly grateful for every one of the 2 years that we have been blessed to have her in our lives.

Happy 2nd Birthday, Lainey bug. You completed us.

Just a few (okay, maybe more than a few) pictures of our Lainey's 2 years.