Libby @ 2.5

Libby's half birthday was March 1, but since we're not very good at celebrating whole birthdays in this house (much less half), it sort of passed by without much recognition. But I'd still like to do an update on Libby at 2 and a half years old.

Libby loves nursery at church. Sometimes we go spy on her through the peep hole to see what she's doing. She mostly plays independently, though she does seem to enjoy being around the other kids. Lately, she's started to play with the other kids more. When we picked her up this week, she was running around the room chasing one of the other girls.

We had some friends over recently and Libby was crazy about playing with their little boy. They were so cute following each other around. I told her to stand next to Brady so I could take their picture, and this is what I got. It reminds me of couples from my high school who liked to walk down the hallway like this (though usually, the boy was the one with his arms around the girl). Haha.
 

One of the best pieces of advice I've read from parenting books is to give your child choices. So instead of letting Libby have free reign over her clothing, I lay out a couple outfits for her and let her choose. Or I let her choose a shirt and then I choose pants that match. She is certainly developing particular opinions and tastes. She calls her jean jacket her cowboy jacket, which I love.

[Which reminds me of a funny story: At Home Depot recently, we saw a man wearing a cowboy hat. Libby pointed at him and said, "A cowboy!" He was nice and said, "howdy" back to her, but then she got shy and buried her head in Jared's neck. Jared said, "you didn't think he could hear you, did you?"]

Libby hasn't wanted to wear her doll wrap as much as I thought she would, but I think it's so darn cute when she does. She can be very sweet and motherly to her dolls and animals. I've only seen her try to nurse her baby once, but we've seen her nursing her animals on other animals a couple times. She has a small baby that she calls "Piper-baby" (she originally started calling it that because she was going to give the baby doll to Piper, but then she had a sudden and fierce resurgence of ownership) and a bigger baby that she calls "Mommy-baby." Sometimes Mommy-baby feeds Piper-baby milk.

Libby loves to help me cook. Whenever she sees me getting mixing bowls out, she says, "what we making, Mommy?" She likes to prepare her own food whenever possible, like buttering her toast, peeling her boiled eggs, etc.

I couldn't find Libby's art smock (which is really just an old t-shirt of mine) one day, so I just took her shirt off to let her paint. Apparently she took that as a sign to paint all over herself, including her nose.

For being as shy in public as she is sometimes, I can't believe how much she loves the Chick-fil-A cow. We've seen him a few times (at the mall), and the last time, I was lucky to have my camera with me.