Ruffs, Twinkle Twinkles and Meows According to a 2.5 Years Old

I’ve been meaning to blog something personal for a while now but you know….WEDDING SEASON. My little Zaiya bear celebrated her half birthday and turned 2.5 a month ago and we had some family photos taken to celebrate.

I try to book at least a few professional photo sessions in the year to make sure that I’m in some of the photos. I always want to remember Z how she is today….she is such a sweet pea and a character all rolled into one. I don’t think I was quite prepared for her personality and how much she has changed over this past year. She’s one of the bravest people I’ve ever met and I am so proud she’s my daughter. She’s consistently happy and has such a positive demeanor. A social butterfly and a free spirit with a stubborn streak that can rival mine. Her sense of humor is truly hilarious and for her small vocabulary she can communicate a hell of a lot.

She consistently amazes me at how much she has come out of her shell. When she was a baby she would scream and cry if anyone but me, her Dad or her brother held her. And now she just loves people. Just one example is when I dropped her off at her new daycare a few weeks ago. She was making the transition from an home care where she has been for over a year with the same two kids to a care center with a ton of kids and a bunch of new teachers she has never met before. It’s intimidating to say the least…even for me and I’m in my 30’s! When we first walked in she asked me to stay for 2 minutes. After I walked around with her a bit, she sat down with a group of girls. Moments later they were all playing. I decided to walk to the door and she looked across the room at me with the biggest sweetest smile and blew me a kiss. Needless to say I booked it to my car and burst into tears. She’s so fearless and I couldn’t be more proud of her. It’s one of those bittersweet things – I’m so happy and excited for her to start this new chapter but it just feels like she’s growing up way too fast. She’s definitely not my shy little baby anymore.

Because I have a terrible memory, I want to share a few things that she does these days which are just so her and I want to be able to look back on this and remember them forever:

-if you ask her a question like “did you go to the park today?” she will say “DID.” or if you ask her “do you like chips?” she will say “DO”

-sometimes we joke around with her when she asks us to read and open a book and say “blah blah blah” so now she will ask us to read to her and say “no blah blahs Daddy/Mommy”

-she calls herself “YIYA” because she can’t say “Z”

-She calls her brother Ethann “Nana” even though she can say his name. When she’s playing with him she affectionately shortens it and calls him “Nan”

-She is great at compromising. She will often ask for 2 minutes (pronounced ninutes) before we leave the house. I’ll tell her she has one minute and she will come back asking for three ninutes.

-she LOVES to dance and often makes up the most hilarious dance moves. She also loves saying “watch momma” and doing the most ridiculous thing she can and then getting me to do the same. And back and forth it goes…forever.

-she calls animals by the noise they make (a dog is a ruff, a cat a meow, a chicken a bock bock, you get the picture) even though she knows what they are. Also stars are twinkle twinkles.

-she calls bugs “ahhh’s”…because when you see one you scream “ahhh” I guess??

-she’s a tad bossy and basically just barks orders at her 14 year old brother about where to sit, what exactly to do, etc (and he listens 90% of the time)

There are so many more little quirks I wish I could remember to write here but these are the first that come to mind. I’m going to try to write them down as I think of them and will put them in a future blog post.

All in all we are loving life with our little angel right now…she’s SO DAMN CUTE. Life is also getting so much easier as she gets older. She plays well on her own and can keep herself occupied for longer, is more independent and it’s also nice she can communicate what she wants now which saves a lot of frustration for all of us. I can’t get enough of her right now..I don’t think any of us can. Here are a few of our favorites from a recent family session with Sherida Rae Photography (her work is stunning, go check her out)