"That's Our Reagan"

Reagan is 25 months old!  She's such a silly member of our family.  She makes me laugh everyday!  When I was taking the picture you see above, I was trying to get a picture of the newest face she makes (see below), but she wouldn't do it for the camera (until a couple of days after I posted this).  This new face is made when you tell her to stop doing something, or if she gets yelled at.  She puts her chin to her chest and pouts and when she looks up at you she makes a "mad" face: lips puckered and eyes crossed.  Yep, she crosses her eyes.  It's really funny to see and always gets everyone laughing, probably when we shouldn't be laughing at her.  She's definitely a clown!

 Her other newest "thing" is her interest in the potty.  She has started to want to sit on the potty a lot.  I don't think she really gets it yet, though, because the most she does on there is pass gas.  Then she gets down from the potty, wants to wipe, flush and wash her hands.  I'm not sure that she understands that there is more to it than that, but at least she wants to sit on the potty, and I hope it leads to something bigger!  I'm not sure where to go with this.  Let her keep the lead, and just keep doing what we are doing, or if this is the "window of opportunity" that experts tell you is short-lived and shouldn't be missed.  I would really hate to ruin it either way:  Try to train her now when maybe she isn't truly ready and ruin her interest and possibly make her fear the potty, or just keep doing what we are doing and the "window" passes, making it harder to train her later.  These decisions make me crazy!  Maybe I should try training underwear and plastic pants and see if having a few accidents helps her better understand what sitting on the potty is all about, and if it doesn't seem to work, just switch back to diapers without it being a big deal.  She just seems so young to me!  I can't decide!

In other developments, Reagan's speech is dramatically increasing every day!  I am truly amazed to watch this natural progression into speaking and talking.  She will repeat almost anything and does a pretty good job at making all the letter sounds.  She's pretty understandable most of the time and is very vocal, voicing her wants, needs and opinions!  When someone is talking she wants to talk and be heard too.  This is going to be interesting having two little talkers competing for attention!  You should hear my typical car ride with the two of them.  I'm ready for a nap after only a 5-minute drive to the store!  Reagan's newest "perfected" word is Jocelyn.  She started out by calling her sister "Ja".  Then it moved on to "Joss" (the /o/ is a short /o/ sound).  Now, sometimes she calls her "Joss-E", and other times "Joss-IN", but still mostly calls her "Joss", which is what Tod and I call her most times as well.  We are working hard on trying to get her to say her own name, but that /g/ sound is hard for her.  She will say Ray, though...and sometimes it sounds like she says Ray-In, when you ask her what her name is.

Reagan's need for independence is a strong point for her right now as well.  She wants to do everything that she wants to do by herself.  She wants to dress herself, walk down concrete steps by herself, get into her car seat by herself, open doors, get into her booster seat at the table, put the groceries away, put shoes on, etc...all by herself.  Don't even try to help her!  If you do you will definitely hear about it!  I have to really try hard to never be running late, because she will certainly only make me later by demanding to do everything herself.  It's the times I want her to do something herself that she wants me to do it for her--finishing her food ("Feed me Mommy".), walking around Kennywood ("Hold me Mommy".).  Maybe I should have named her Mary a.k.a Mary, Mary Quite Contrary!

Reagan's favorite shirt

 Oh, and the biggest obsession Reagan has right now?  Boys.  Or maybe I should say Boy things or all things boy.  Her favorite cartoon character?  Diego.  Her favorite shirt?  Super Girl (which she refers to as Super Boy shirt sometimes, but I think she thinks this shirt looks like a boy shirt).  Ask her if she is a boy or a girl and she will answer "boy" most of the time.  When she picks out shoes, she wants the "boy" ones, which just happen to be pink converse sneakers.  When she picks out food, she will only chose the box of cereal with a picture of a boy on the front or the strawberry yogurt with the picture of the boy on it rather than the blueberry yogurt with the girl on it.  When she picks either one she will say, "boy-yes", so I know it's because of the picture, not the flavor.  I have recently developed the idea that when she talks about being a boy or doing something because a boy does it, it's because she is associating being a boy with being bigger.  She wants to be bigger.  She wants to do the climbing tower at the playground because it's for "boy".  When we told her she couldn't ride the same ride at Kennywood as Jocelyn, but that she would be able to when she got bigger she would say, "yeah, me boy".  So...I think she is thinking that she will grow up bigger--like a boy.  Time will tell, right?     

So that's what's going on in Reagan's world!  Like we always say, "That's our Reagan", but you may have to be in our family to truly understand what we are talking about!  Our family just wouldn't be the same without her and we love her to pieces!