Anabelle turned two and learned where to poo

Behold the face of a potty trained two year old. Friday was Anabelle's second birthday. We weren't sure how much she got the birthday concept. She had been singing happy birthday all week in the bath tub and the play cake in her kitchen became birthday cake. When I went to get her out of her bed in the morning I said, "Anabelle, Happy Birthday, you're two!" and she said, "Yeah, I toot. Excuse me." I laughed and said, "No buddy, you're two years old today, you're two." To which she said, "Yeah and I burp too." Ah,forget it.

In the recent past, she has walked around the house looking for something and then asked me where her bike was. Since she didn't have a bike, I reminded her of that. It's a pretty brilliant strategy she was working on me. So we finagled up a little Radio Flyer trike for her and asked her if she wanted to see her birthday present. She walks up to it and says casually, "Oh,my bike." I was expecting a little more...surprise or emotion. I mean she gets super pumped up if I mention words like "yogurt", or "Shrek" or "marshmallows". Especially marshmallows. Or marshmallow filled yogurt while watching Shrek. On the days I want to be an extra cool Mom. I mean it's not like we got her a Huffy- we're talking Radio Flyer here- top of the line quality transportation. I'm not sure which one of is confused about previous bike ownership, but I am glad she feels that all things have rightfully been restored to her. We had a little gathering of ankle-biters for some "puppy" cake and ice cream. Braden and I blew up hundreds of balloons. I sometimes have a tendency to exaggerate numbers. Not today my friends. I mean a few hundred. The exaggeration comes into play in saying that Braden and I did it together. He really didn't pull his weight on that one, I won't lie. But the sore fingers and dizziness was worth it when I walked by the balloon room and saw extremities sticking up through the sea of balloons. A hand here, a foot there. I played in it myself after everybody went home and I gotta say- it's sort of awesome.

I can't believe we have a two year old. A very mature two year old at that. I know this because most of the toys she got said ages 3+ on it and she is totally working those toys like it's her job. I'm not sure if my kid is ahead of the game (no pun intended), or if toy manufacturer's are severely underestimating our children.

By way of update, as soon as I made it public knowledge that Anabelle was not holding it until she could make it to a public restroom, she stepped up her performance. That very night we went to Dollar Tree and she told me she had to go potty. I go flipping my cart through the aisles looking for the bathroom, find an employee, wait for him to get the key, set her on the toilet and she goes. I yell, kiss her many many times and tell her that I will buy her anything she wants in the whole store. It is fortunate that we were in the dollar store so I could make such a superb promise. Her eyes light up and we go to the toy aisle where she asks me to hand her each toy so she can examine it for the next half hour. She looks them over, hands them back and says about each one, "No sank you. I don't like that toy". She asked to see a furry glove with long claws meant to be some sort of Halloween creature. She puts it on and sits in the cart waiting for the next passerby. When they appear she shoots her hand out at them and yells, "SCARE"! She did this a few times but apparently it was not having the effect she was going for. I admit that the girls' got a decent growly voice on her. It didn't quite scare me, but it did absolutely crack me up. In the end she settled on a squishy lion. I think she picked it because she likes to say the word squish. The true test was going to church because that girl would trade her new bike to stay in nursery. She did have to go during sacrament meeting. As Braden was taking her out she told the people in each row she passed, "I'm going potty now, I have to go potty".

Now our only problem is sleep time. She does not stay dry while sleeping so I put her in a Pull-Up. Which she pulls down. And off. And throws out of her bed. And then she pees. And then I wash all of her linens plus half the animal kingdom which must sleep with her. I have tried the layering trick. It turns out she can pull four layers off just as well as she can pull one layer off. The other day I walked in to get her from her nap and she says, "I don't take my panties off, I don't take my shorts off, I pooped on monkeys head". It seems that if she had followed the first two instructions which she clearly understood yet ignored, monkey would not have fallen victim to her sick unbreakable ways. But for now we celebrate wildly her huge accomplishment. I might just give her a pot of marshmallows tonight for dinner for making it happen.