We still didn’t do a party this year, but did a kind of split celebration of sorts. Mr. W’s parents had driven to SoCal to attend a relative’s wedding the weekend before Allie’s birthday, so they, along with my mother-in-law’s two sisters, spent that Sunday with us. They brought presents, so we got a couple of balloons and invited my parents over for lunch with everyone else. Allie had been asking for a “happu burday cake for Allie” for months leading up to her birthday, so we got a storebought purple one that made her happy. It was taro cake (from a Chinese bakery) so that made us happy since it’s not overly sweet, but we didn’t tell any of his family members what it was until after they’d eaten it. Mr. W lied and said it was a purple “fruit cake” even tho they immediately knew it was something different. His saying it was “chocolate” wasn’t believable, either. My parents loved it. Allie…not so much. She ate maybe 4 bites before wrinkling her brow and saying, “Too sweet. Cake too sweet.” Then she just played with the whipped cream frosting with her fingertips and picked out the fruit and ate that.

Her actual birthday on Saturday started as any other Saturday…with dance class. She’s in a new term and got promoted to the age 2.5-3.5 toddler ballet and dance class, where she goes into the dance room on her own without parents participating in there. Allie’s never been a clingy kid, so even the first class, she did great without me and could follow the teacher’s directions. She did look at me and Mr. W regularly through the big parent-observation windows and smile at us. There are a couple of other kids in the class, also promoted from Allie’s last class, who cried unless their moms were in the class, so the moms just sat at the back of the classroom (without participating) so the girls wouldn’t cry. However, the girls would always run back to their mothers’ laps instead of staying in formation in the circle or line in between dances. I’m curious how the bonds between mother and child in those relationships may or may not differ from more “elastic” bonds like the one Allie and I have when the kids become teenagers and adults. It’s almost worth keeping in touch with these moms just to satiate that curiosity later on. Anyway, Allie is once again the youngest girl in her class, and the tallest. Tap is cute on these toddlers. The shoes with their metal bottoms are slippery, and Mr. W likened their tap-dancing (15 mins at the end of each class) to Bambi(s) sliding on the frozen pond.

After dance class, we drove directly to my parents’ house with an extra large playyard that we used in Dallas in tow. Allie got to play with my parents and great-grandma, then I put her down in my old bedroom for a nap. It took her an hour to fall asleep. She just played on her own (even tho there was nothing but her fuzzy blanket she always naps on) in the playyard, talking, singing, until she finally decided she was going to drop after 1:15p (her naps are usually noon-ish), but when she did, she stayed down 90 mins. On the short end for her, but pretty decent. Mr. W and my grandma napped, too. I chatted with my parents, drank tea, and made this collage.

After Allie woke up, we went to a park/playground across the street. My cousin Olivia and her daughters, now a ‘tween and a teen, came to visit as well, bringing Allie some presents. We all played at the park together.

Soon afterwards, Olivia and the girls left, and Vicky and her stepdaughter came over and brought presents as well. That was a cool visit. The stepdaughter was only 13, but was SO amazing with Allie. Turned out she has a 7 year-old half-sister at her mom’s house. That explains it. She was so much better with Allie than I ever was with kids Allie’s age. I just didn’t know what to do with kids, so I interacted with him as little as possible, not that there were many babies around me when I was a kid.

Allie got another cake from my mom, this time sweet potato. That’s a first for me. Allie again, after 4-5 bites, refused more and frowned, “Cake too sweet.” She knows how to make her mama proud. 😀

On the drive home from my parents’ that evening, Allie asked to hold the big Hello Kitty that Olivia and her girls got her. She hugged it the drive home. As I drove, I heard her chatter. “Hello Kitty! Hello, Hello Kitty! Dada open Hello Kitty! Allie wanna hold Hello Kitty! Hello Kitty, are you okay? Hello Kitty so putty! Uh-oh, Hello Kitty went pee-pee. Hello Kitty went pee-pee on her butt. Are you okay, Hello Kitty? Hello Kitty so soft!”

Allie’s 2-year well-baby checkup is next week, because work has been so crazy about time off and won’t give it easily. I was told by our new supervisor that I can’t request time off until the first week of December, so I’ll have stats by then. Meanwhile, here are some behavioral thingies…
Stuff she knows:
* her shapes (circle, triangle, square, rectangle, heart, star, dodecahedron…just kidding on the last one)
* reciting her ABCs, skipping E, H, I, J, K.
* reciting her numbers 1-10 in English, skipping 6, and 1-10 in Mandarin.
* her fruits, veggies, animals, even some insects

Stuff she likes to do:
* stack up blocks, wooden shapes from sorter kits, cubed fruits/veggies in a tower
* play toddler games and “color” on her iPad
* watch videos of herself and Disney/Sesame Street clips
* jump off things or hop forward in lieu of walk
* give a running commentary of things around her, and of things that she saw or had happened recently
* opine on things she should be eating for meals and snacks
* help move clothes from washer to dryer, help unload the dishwasher, help throw things in the trash, help put things back where they belong, help close open doors/cabinets, help sweep
* make jokes and then say, “That’s funny!” while laughing
* spin herself or me in the swivel office chair
* play on kiddie playgrounds
* play pretend in her kitchen and with her toys (and accuse us of playing “pretend” when we just go thru the motions of doing something to appease her without actually doing it, such as dipping bread into oil/vinegar before giving it to her)
* guess who anyone is talking to on the phone (she’s almost always right)

She’s still generally a happy kid, albeit more willful, especially on what to wear and what to eat. She may love a food, but won’t eat it simply because it wasn’t her idea and she wasn’t given a choice on the matter. We can usually entice her to eat it by saying, “You don’t want this? Then I’m gonna give it to Dada.” “Nooo! That’s MINE! I wanna eat it!” Emotions are developing. When she wants something, she wants it BADLY and is VERY VERY sad or angry when she doesn’t get it…for a minute. With emotions and awareness and humor also comes the hurt feelings. Last week she said something we thought was silly, but she was being serious, so when Mr. W laughed and repeated what she said, she frowned and said, “Don’t tease Allie!” We didn’t even know she knew the word “tease” or what it entails. She’d also said last week, when she felt insulted at our laughs, “Don’t laugh at Allie!” Which just makes thinks worse for her cuz now we’re repeating and laughing at THAT. She gets over it pretty quickly, though. Part of the adorableness in her speech, and why we laugh and repeat so much, is watching her find each word and component of a sentence to put together to express her thoughts. Things don’t come that naturally and smoothly, yet, so she’s actively constructing to communicate. Her word choices are funny and surprisingly good sometimes. Like when it’s time to go out and we remove the iPad from in front of her but she wasn’t ready to part with it, yet. “Nooo, dada, leave it! Don’t take Allie’s iPad away!” There’s a little pause after each word as she chooses the next word. Altho “leave it” is said smoothly together, so I wonder where she hears that. It’s not like we have a dog. She’s also started using tenses correctly. When I told her I wasn’t ready for the butt paste yet, so to not open the tube until I was ready, she solemnly tightened the cap she’d just loosened, brought the tube to her chest, and announced, “I will hold it for Mama. I will give butt paste to Mama when Mama is ready.” A little pause between each enunciated word, even ending consonants carefully pronounced and accounted for. And over the weekend, she walked by our bedroom closet and said, “Dodo was in there.” Past tense. :'(