Sleeping: Grace is a very good sleeper. She sleeps well at night and is in bed for 12 hours. Sometimes she doesn't sleep the whole time but she just plays for 30 minutes or so if she happens to wake up early or not fall asleep right away. Naps are overall pretty good. She goes to her bed everyday for 2-2.5 hours. Once or twice a week she won't sleep during her nap. I was stressed about that at first but I think I'm just coming to terms with the fact that she won't sleep everyday. I still feel it is important to put her down just to have down time and give her the opportunity to sleep because most of the time she does. We've had a few stretches where she'll go like 4 or 5 days without sleeping at nap time and that does stress me out a bit because she's extra cranky after several days without a nap.
Eating: I still think Grace is a champion eater. She's starting to show some preferences or dislikes for food but she still eats a wide variety and loves her fruits and vegetables. At this point if she tells us she doesn't like something or doesn't want to eat it we just let her leave it alone. Her favorite foods are bananas, peas, and cheese.
Communication: I love talking to Grace. She is such a good little communicator. Everything is a complete story these days. Sometimes I wonder what she is talking about because she can't always distinguish the real form the imaginary but I can tell it all makes sense in her head. I love watching her make connections and talk about new things. Her recent obsession is family relationships. She talks about other people's sisters, brothers, aunts, moms, dads, wives, sister-in-laws, etc... She is always trying to figure out who is connected to who and how.
Play: In the last 6 months Grace's play has become much more focused and independent. She likes to pretend a lot. Grace loves being read to so a lot of her play is based around story lines in books we read. She spends most of her time playing with her dollhouse, play kitchen or Duplo blocks. She also likes to play with her baby dolls but that gets morphed into play kitchen time because she usually just fixes food for them.
Dora: Grace's 2.5 year post wouldn't be complete without me mentioning Dora. According to Grace, Dora is her best friend. If you don't live in the toddler world Dora is the main character on a TV show. Until about a week ago Dora was the only show that Grace would watch for the last 6 months. I've actually been shocked because she's been requesting different things over the last week. Thank goodness Netflix has 94 episodes available to watch instantly. I play them strategically and try to limit them to 1 or 2 a day. It's amazing what I can get done in 24 minutes!
Other Random: I'm going to list several other things that we've experienced with Grace in the last 6 months. She's gotten good at jumping, climbing on things, singing lots of songs, helping with Caleb by giving kisses, and helping with chores (like putting her dishes away or cooking with Mommy). She has also started showing fear. She's afraid to walk down the stairs and hasn't done it for at least 3 weeks (she used to walk down the stairs multiple times a day and now will only slide). She's afraid of dark spaces so is always walking around turning lights on (that might be more of a function of growing tall enough to reach the switches).
That's all I can think of for now. I've found parenting a 2.5 year old to be a joy. The challenges are there everyday but I want to focus on the fun things about our daughter today! We love her so much.
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