Pizza and Pink - Ruthie Turns 2

When Ruth Caroline was born during the wee hours of the day after Christmas, it was just perfect.  The holidays (and a horrible stomach bug) had kept my mind off wondering when the baby would be born and she made her appearance right toward the beginning of my sister's week in town with us.  It did, however, add another day of joy to a week already cluttered up with birthdays and his/hers family celebrations!

At 2, though, Ruthie hardly has any idea what a birthday is, much less what she wanted for hers, so like last year, we kept things simple:  made a cake, ordered pizza and invited ALL the relatives in for supper at Grammy's house.  :)  (Thanks to Grandma B and Aunt Heidi for rounding out our meal with salad and yummy brie appetizers!)

She chowed down that pizza.  :)  Poor kid was a bit tired . . . we had spent the afternoon playing at the state park and Ruthie only got a brief nap.

Table full of cousins.  :)

She liked having the cake in front of her . . . having it taken away to be cut was a sore disappointment!  (And everyone else seemed to enjoy eating the chocolate and vanilla checkerboard more than she.)

Opening some of her gifts . . . Mommy and Daddy gave her her own "Mimmie" placemat and baby backpack.

It was a perfect party--everyone Ruthie loves in one room for an hour and a half.  Presents, food, fun, a pretty pink bow which we've already lost

After the Burchett half of the family left, we looked around the room and suddenly felt very small.  It was such a special Christmas and birthday . . . this group may not be replicated again for a while.  

minnie mouse all day and no means no

I've been meaning to write an update on our girlies for a long time . . . and many nap-times, I just don't know if I should choose blogging, cleaning my house, running errands, or making Christmas presents . . . ahh!

Well, today I choose blogging!  Actually, Ruthie is the only one who naps these days, but she's a super duper napper at that, sleeping usually 2-3 hours in the afternoon, but sometimes longer!

Gemma is almost 4!!!! *sigh* Her favorite little friends right now are Auna and Nadia, though I'm sure it helps that she sees them twice a week when we do our babysitting swap and at church on Sundays.  She pretends all day long.  All day long.  She's Daisy Duck, any of the various Disney princesses (though she's only actually seen Tangled (which for some reason I always want to call Twisted at first, yikes).  Cowgirls, ballerinas, brides, Emily from Little Bear, and Angelina Ballerina have all been recent characters, too.  She takes her pretending to its logical conclusion by assigning corresponding characters to the rest of us in the family.  I try to go along with this, practicing my Minnie Mouse, Little Bear, and Miss Lillie voices, and she often responds more cheerfully to these characters than she would to mommy.  I always have to stop her from correcting me, though, when I call Ruthie, who has no idea what is going on, by her real name instead of Hen, Webby, or Princess Phoebe.  She loves for me to draw princess pictures for her to color, and usually a corresponding wedding picture of each princess with her prince, flower girl, and baby :).

Rhyming and spelling with her fridge-magnet letters are two other favorites, and I think she's doing a great job starting to learn her letter sounds and how they fit together!  She can read a handful of words from sight.

I'm also very proud of the physical endurance she is building up!  She frequently goes to the gym with daddy and a couple of times a month we walk somewhere to eat dinner, and she has been known to run along and keep up for well over a mile.  She can run about half a mile without stopping.  :)  She just loves being outside and will pretend outside for hours!  She still can't properly jump, even though for a while every time she got to the last step on the stairs she would pause, try, and pronounce "Gemma jumps!" while taking a dramatic leap with one foot landing first.

Ruthie, my little pumpkin, is going to be 23 months old next week.  She still asks for milk once in the mornings and has developed a will of her own.  She does this adorable little jump-dancing thing when she is excited, flapping her arms like wings.  She likes to try to give me hair clips or my phone when I'm in the shower.

She loves to smile for the camera to the extent that it's hard to sneak candid shots of her!  She also loves to put her dishes in the dishwasher and help set the table with the children's plates I hand her.  (She has known for months which ones are Gemma's favorites and which are hers!) Once when I was making dinner, she found her salad and ate the raisins out of it, so I added a few more and put it on the table.  It was not out of reach, however, because when I returned to the dining room in a few minutes, I discovered that she once again had eaten the raisins out of her bowl, dumped the spinach on the kitchen floor and put her bowl in the dishwasher!

Ruthie's favorite baby :)

Ruthie's gross-motor skills are quite impressive--climbing, etc., though she has yet to do anything really dangerous.  Her fine motor skills surprised me, too, since she learned how to unzip zippers and open screw-tops much earlier than Gemma did.

She likes to sit on the potty and prefers to wear a pullup instead of a diaper, so I tried some potty training with her last week.  After three days, however, she still hadn't told me when she needed to go, so we decided to back off on the underwear for a while.  She still sits on the potty a few times a day to read books, however, it's always her idea, and she wants to sit on the big potty now!

And, finally, she has truly entered her language explosion.  Of course she learned the word "no." :) On a Sunday about a month ago, I asked her if she had had a good time in the nursery, and she surprised me with "no."  At the time I wasn't sure if she understood what she was saying, but a month later there's no doubt.

Her only phrase so far is to say "Hi ---" to baby, daddy, or whatever.  (Oh, and she loves to point to her baby and say "baby" and to herself and say "mama" (which comes out as "baba," which is distinctly different from "baby").  It's adorable!)  It's almost all the more amazing since Gemma didn't say a phrase until after she turned 2, and for a while we were quite concerned about Ruthie's speech development.  The ear tubes most certainly helped.  She still puts some words through her nose, however, which makes me wonder if her hearing is still a little funny.  We work on her with it, though, and are mostly thankful for how normal she truly is.  Do you know how unmotivated I was to write an update on her when we thought she was delayed?  All the cute things seemed unimportant in light of our serious concerns, but also it's almost embarrassing to brag on a child who is learning everything late when everyone else is bragging on their child learning everything early.  The Lord has helped me to have an increased love for children with special needs and their families.  Though our world is marred by sin, yet He does all things well, and even genetic abnormalities can be redeemed and used by Him for good!

Ruthie's first haircut!

Now that it's been a month since the big Florida family vacation, maybe I'll finally go through my pictures and share some!  Until then, here's what is new!  Gemma and Ruthie both got their hair trimmed by mommy.  :)

Ruthie got to sit in the bathroom sink.  :)

Her hair didn't need a trim per se--it's not in her eyes--but her bangs were a little uneven, and I thought we'd test the theory that trimming her hair a bit will help it to become thicker.

See the whispy unevenness?  It was a little easier to see when I wet it down.

And here's the back before.

*Snip snip* Ok, smile!

Maybe only Mommy can tell . . . 

Gemma was a little easier, and it was actually Gemma's hair that got the haircut ball rolling for me!  I hadn't trimmed it at all since her first haircut almost two years ago, and it was looking like this:

So long and pretty!  And yet a bit thinner at the bottom, with lots of breakage from lots of pigtails.  Hmm.

I don't know why I didn't wash her face for this!  (And isn't it funny how early in the morning one's shirt can get marked with strawberries?)

Straight across.  And somehow I didn't cry!

Precious you are, both of you girlies.  I wish I'd been recording and sharing as many entries for Ruthie as I did for Gemma two years ago, but such is life.  My two gifts, my two gigglers, my two daughters, and Ruthie is now officially a toddler!  Now with shorter hair.  :)

Their Sunday Best

My family has loads of pictures of my sister and me as tots in our little dresses on Sunday morning.  It must have been a tradition for a little while. :)  I've recently started trying to do the same with my girlies, partly because of all the pictures of Heidi and me and partly just because they look so sweet in their dresses and wear them for such a comparatively short time!  

I have found, however, that it is much, much easier to get one girl at a time, however! (Who is surprised? heh.)

On this particular Lord's Day, I happened on Ruthie at the little play kitchen, unnoticed at first.

Loved the light!  And yet her face was in a shadow, so I tried luring her over toward me, and eventually just moved her around a little bit, trying to get her face in the natural light.

Perfect look!  Too bad Bio Bio Bio had to do a photo-bomb . . . 

Suddenly it feels like spring!  With daylight savings time yesterday, we were able to do our first outdoor lunch of the year.  It was a very odd day, because all the families near church and the church itself had an ice storm and lost power, but we only had a very soggy day of rain.  Church was cancelled due to the outage and some of our friends gathered in our living room with us to worship and eat outside together afterward.  It actually turned out to be quite special.

Ruthie's Coat

"My mommy made me this coat!  It's really warm!"

"My grandma found Mommy six skeins of Shetland Chunky at Salvation Army!  She was so excited to try this pattern that she dutifully checked the gauge and carefully made adjustments for the chunkiness of the yarn.  She just couldn't understand why the pattern would call for such short sleeves . . . so she lengthened them to match a size 18 month jacket's sleeves."

"They're so big on me!"

"I guess my sister can wear it for now."

 "The collar needs a little blocking, too.  Ahem, Mom . . . "

8 months old

She's eight months old, and just about officially army-crawling!  (Still not very fast, though!)

Still no teeth, either.  :)

She's a little babbler now!  She has said "ya" and "ga," but she really loves saying "ba ba ba!"

She's sleeping a bit better, too, thanks to some nighttime help from Daddy.  

Other than that, she's round and roly and blue eyed and getting some more very blond hair!  And nursing is still her favorite.  :)

Someone else is still two-and-a-half, as far as she knows (though she's nearly two-and-three-quarters, to be precise!).  She is learning like a little sponge!  I taught her to sing "Happy Birthday" while she washes her hands, and now she goes around the house "singing" it all the time (though "birthday" sounds more like "burping").  :)  John taught her that when she has her next birthday, she'll be three.  So, now, she says "Soon it will be my burping.  I will be free!"  One time, I casually remarked that maybe we will have a Little Bear party, so now--without fail--she addends "we will have a yiyyo Bo burping!"  I'd better follow through on that!

When I say "singing," I don't mean that she has found different pitches yet.  Here's to hoping she eventually does.  :)  But even her monotone singing is darling because she bellows deeply and seriously and still mispronounces most of the words!  Some of her favorites besides Happy Birthday are Holy, Holy, Holy and the B-I-B-L-E, which she learned in Sunday School.  She's also picking up on songs we haven't explicitly taught her, like one of the songs from her Rain for Roots album, and the closing line from the Sovereign Grace song "I have a shelter in the storm"--she surprised John one day by bellowing "take me home to heaven!" for the first time.

She's also turning summersaults!  We have no idea where she learned that!

Gemma would be thrilled if Ruthie would rough-house with her.  Despite these pictures of them sitting calmly side-by-side, Gemma now frequently comes up behind Ruth and puts her arms around her (darling!) and then tries to pull her back and roll around.  As long as she's gentle, Ruth loves it.  There's hardly anything sweeter to a mommy than to see her girlies grinning at each other!

It's gotten a bit easier to take them both grocery shopping now that Ruth doesn't automatically fall asleep when I'm wearing her!  We try to stay home for naps, since she hardly sleeps in her infant seat anymore.  Gemma can sit in the cart and she can be on my chest, and there's plenty of room in the cart for food.  No one wants to lug around an infant seat with an 18lb+ baby in it!

In other news, we're on our third cold of the summer . . . and that's all I have to say about that!