Maia's Birthday Favorites
Maia is two years old!! Our baby is getting so big, but we all (even Serenity and DZ) still call her our baby. She is very determined, snuggly, energetic and acrobatic! She adores the alphabet and points out every letter she sees, and will tell you the sounds they make as well. She loves running to greet you and getting swung into the air for a hug. Her face just lights up, it is the sweetest thing. She adores her brother and sister. She will just chant their names and squeal when she sees them. She is talking so much more. On her actual birthday, the 18th, she was climbing in her usual daredevil way and I said to be careful. She responded, "Don't worry Mama, I got you." I was shocked because usually when she says long phrases I just can't decipher any of it, but this sentence was clear as day! And she has followed it up with some other cute sentences, like "I NEED Paw Patrol", "DZ ok?" and "Wook, it's Gram'ba." I love it!!!
Every day Maia will ask me to "Wock" and she will grin and giggle gleefully as we race to my rocking chair. She'll climb up first and laugh when I pick her up to set her in my lap. Then she will wiggle down and run to get a book. The rocking chair is getting so much use now thanks to my snuggly girl =) She has lots of books that she loves, and that she will ask for "again!" and again. Most recently, Frosty the Snowman has been her favorite, closely followed by Pete the Cat saves Christmas. Earlier in the year it was the Christmas Parade and Dotty. She loves them so much I had the Christmas books out all year long, which makes me happy too. She also adores Ten on the Sled, the Bunny Rabbit Show, and her little alphabet and number board books.
Food:
Maia favorite food is berries. She prefers blueberries and strawberries to the point that I have to hide them if I want her to eat anything else. If we are in Target, I have on occasion opened a package of freeze dried strawberries to keep her busy while I do the shopping. This is so clearly her favorite there is no need for anything else on this list. =)
Toys:
Maia focuses very intently on certain toys. She loves our Magformers and has spent hours stacking them and arranging them. She's recently started playing Lego Duplos for real. I had put most of them away for awhile, and when I got them out on our Epic Lego day, I discovered she doesn't just tear things down anymore, she can really build! And she makes awesome things!
Other toys she loved a lot this year include her stacking cups, wooden puzzles, and this little vanity set that plays music. Papa actually got that for Serenity but Maia played with it the most! She loves our lookout and Paw Patrol figures, of course =)
She was introduced to Play-doh this year, and Do-A-Dots. She loved both these things and made absolutely fantastic messes with both activities. She loves markers too, although tends to open every marker before coloring with them. She seems to be coloring on paper mostly now, which is a major victory. She still puts stickers everywhere they don't belong though. Stickers are for paper or for putting on yourself, but she seems to prefer them on my floor or on my furniture. Which is why I made our cardboard house wrapped in white paper for one of our advent activities, so she could enjoy putting stickers on something really interesting.
She adores bathtime. For awhile she didn't even want toys in the tub with her, she'd toss them all out and just enjoy the water. She did like the foam letters, but even they got tossed out. Then for Christmas we got her this toy that came with a water sprayer, and oh, she loves it! However, whenever we asked her to keep the water in the tub, she would say "WA HA HA HA!" and spray water deliberately out of the tub. This was too funny and ended up with about ten fully saturated towels to soak up the mess. We have since convinced her we really do mean it, and now she mostly keeps it in the tub. But that Wa ha ha is absolutely awesome.
