Terrible TWOsDay

Scraped up knees, pink eye, and high emotions are the way my Birthday Diva is starting out her day. The high emotions are nothing new though. My daughter apparently mistook "terrible two's" to start out at two weeks rather than two years. By the time she realized her mistake she must have just figured she should get all the practice in that she could. I tell her all the time that it's a good thing she's so cute!

Just a few hours old!

It's still hard to believe that two years ago I was about to give birth to my precious little girl. My husband had finished up Basic Training and was in AIT in Texas which meant that he wasn't able to be there for the birth (stupid jerk recruiter responsible for that one). But I was able to have the wonderful experience of an all natural home birth with her and my incredible mom and awesome midwife made the whole experience as perfect as it could be without the presence of my husband. I am so thankful that I was able to go that route and would do it again in a heartbeat if I could be guaranteed to have as great of a midwife as I had the first time.

Daddy getting to hold his baby girl for the first time!

From the minute she was born my little diva defied the typical newborn standard. She was alert and looking around curious to see her new big world. And boy did she have a set of lungs on her - still does for that matter. My dad says you could just stick her out the window and use her for a siren! She's always known what she wants and when she wants it and has no problems with letting the whole world know too - hence why I call her my Diva and not my Angel!

First Birthday - and NOT impressed with the frosting!

It's been so fun watching her personality develop (ok, most of the time it's been fun!). She's very affectionate with those that she knows well but is very wary of strangers; she likes men better than women (I know. Weird, right? Mom told me I was that way as a baby!). She's very dramatic and emotional going from giggles one minute to tears the next. At 18 months old she had the vocabulary of a two year old (yeah, I had to throw that in there because I'm so proud of her). She's a smart little cookie...who HATES being a mess. Her first birthday trying to get her to feed herself some cake was sadly hysterical. The first thing her hand touched was the frosting and she freaked out not being able to get the sticky mess of her hands. Even know she cannot stand to be a mess! She gets that from her daddy.

She loves to swing, slide, take bubble baths, go for walks and anything that has anything to do with being outside. She's a total daddy's girl and several times I day she comes up to me and says "Daddy work? Daddy 'a back?" (translate as "Daddy will be right back?"); I don't know what she's going to do without her daddy around! And I don't know if it's just from watching Mommy (she has been a big sister since she was not quite 15 months old!) but she's a total little mommy. She was hardly jealous at all of her little brother and she loves to help me out with him and give him hugs and kisses.

Some days she drives me crazy with her emotional ups and downs and neediness but, the truth is, I love this little girl more than life itself and I wouldn't trade her for the world. She's been a learning experience for both my husband and me but at the end of the day when she grabs her blanket, looks at us with those sweet big blue eyes of hers and asks to cuddle then turn to give hugs and 'isses it just melts our hearts and every last irritable moment is worth it.

So happy 2nd birthday to my darling baby girl...here's hoping that Two is a little easier than One was - and that all of you have a wonderful TWOSday :)

This totally showcases her personality!

Playing in the water

My little Spaz!