Happy New Year Lexie!

We are in for a wild and crazy year! Lexie is definitely developing a mind of her own. Her stubborn "ox" personality is in full force. Her "I'm going to be so cute that you can't get mad at me" attitude knows exactly when to appear. She makes us laugh so hard that our sides hurt. We know it's going to be a good year because how can it not be with Lexie in our life!

The potty training drama continues. Lexie wants to wear panties and will ask to wear them. She will have an accident every now and then but for the most part, she does stay dry. There are even times when she will go to the bathroom all by herself. Lexie doesn't want us to go to the bathroom with her. She will tell us "don't follow me" and hold her hand up to our faces. We still have no success with pooping. And this is the reason that she is still wearing pull-ups. Lexie can tell us that she needs to poop in the potty, but will cry when we try to put her on the potty to go. We have a whole bunch of unopened toys that we told her we'll open if she poops, but that hasn't motivated her. Peer pressure, money, candy does nothing for her. We think this is something that she controls and when she's ready to give it up, that's when she'll poop. So for now, we just wait and be happy that she is partially toilet trained.

We're trying to get Lexie to stay in bed. She knows how to open doors now. At naptime, if she doesn't feel tired, she will get out of her bed and leave her room. We knew this day would come. The mornings are the worst. She will appear in our bedroom sometimes at 3:00 in the morning. Once she had gotten in our bed and I rolled over and felt her body next to mine. I've shown Lexie the clock and told her that she cannot wake mommy up until it says 7:00. She now comes in the bedroom exactly at 7 and will tell me that it's 7:00 and she wants cereal and to watch tv for a little while. I have to praise her for following directions. Lexie's favorite reason for not going to sleep - "I don't want to go to sleep, I just woke up!"

Lexie loves to give tackle hugs to us before she goes to sleep. She does 5 with daddy. By doing this she has learned to count backwards and she's getting pretty good at subtracting. We'll ask her, "How many tackles are left?" And she will hold up her fingers and take one away. She loves to count and her one-to-one correspondence is improving. She now knows to point to each object and doesn't count as fast to make sure she doesn't skip a number. She loves reading "Ten Little Ladybugs." She'll always say, "Let's count the ladybugs." She loves the last page where all of the ladybugs fly home. She'll say, "H-O-M-E- exclamation point".

Lexie likes to watch Nick Jr. One of her favorites is "Team Umizoomi". That show is great because it teaches lots of math concepts like patterning, measuring, and counting. She also likes "Wow Wow Wubbzy" which I think is very weird, but it's a great motivation when we want Lexie to do something.

Disney is still very big at our house. She loves Mickey and Little Einsteins and now watches 3rd and Bird. For some reason, Lexie loves birds. One of her favorite movies is "Rio." I guess that's why she likes Donald Duck. She is always imitating him and tells us, "What's the big idea?"

We have to remember that Lexie is still a toddler. We sometimes forget that because of the way she talks and acts. Many times she gets very fussy and she will just cry and not be able to let us know why she's upset. This will usually happen after a nap. She will be in the worst mood and the more we try to comfort her, the more upset she gets. The only solution that works is to let her stay in bed and cry it out because if we try to carry her, she screams and starts kicking her legs. She's able to calm herself down and will come to us when she's ready.

Lexie loves her blanket. There are two that were given to her as hand-me-downs that she needs to sleep with each night. When she needs comfort, those are the blankets that she has to carry with her. It's gotten to be a habit and not a good one. She tends to suck on the blanket and bites on her hand at the same time. Her hand has become swollen and the skin is now scaly. Her doctor said the only way it will heal is by not biting on it. Easier said then done! We have made it a rule that her blanket is only for bed. In the beginning, Lexie threw a tantrum when she couldn't bring her blanket into the living room. We had to hide it at first. Then she would sneak and bring it with her and when we saw her with it, she would say, "I don't need the blanket, I'll put it back." She now keeps her blanket in her room 90% of the time and won't ask for it. Her hand is finally healing.

Friday is movie night. Unless we have a specific movie to watch, Lexie will ask to see "Lilo and Stitch" or "Finding Nemo". She loves Stitch and will recite lines like, "I can't feed him a tuna sandwich." She'll pretend she's surfing or doing the hula. We watched "The Little Mermaid" and she was so excited to see it. Lexie is getting better and will sit through about half of the movie. Maybe this year, we'll graduate to actually going to a theatre. Movie night also means Lexie gets to eat popcorn and kakimochi. The gross thing that Lexie does is she likes to suck out the soy sauce from the kakimochi until it's bone dry and then she gives it to us. As if we would want to eat it!

Lexie continues to love music. She dances to "Under the Sea" and loves the "Bird Song", which is a very annoying song but I will tolerate it just to watch her dance. Nana gave her a Hello Kitty piano and she will go through all of the songs until she gets to the muffin man. She will dance to it over and over again. Lexie told me one day, "I want to go to school." When I asked her, "What do you want to do at school?" She told me, "Dance!"

Lexie used to love taking a bath, but now runs away when it's bath time. Some days, she'll be fine once I get her in the tub and she'll want to play for a long time. Other days, as soon as we wash, she's draining the tub and climbing out of it or screaming during her whole bath. I never know what will happen each night. During bath time, I'm trying to get her to stop eating soap and drinking the bath water. When does that stop?

Lexie's fine motor skills continue to improve. She's able to draw lines and circles. Her coloring is still a mess, but she stays in the general area. If I say each letter of her name, she's able to write each letter and you can actually see that it spells Lexie. We have an app that lets her trace letters and numbers. I'm amazed at how nicely she can trace and it keeps her occupied for a long time. She is getting to be a great helper. Lexie wanted to help me make cupcakes, so I gave her a bunch of cupcake liners and she carefully took them apart and put one in each space of the muffin pan.

We just signed Lexie up for gymnastics. We were worried that she would be clingy being in a new environment. Lexie proved us wrong. She was so excited when I told her we would be going to gymnastics. She was jumping and running and following along with the other kids who had been there for awhile. Several parents commented that they couldn't believe it was her first time in class. Lexie loved swinging on the bars and was able to flip over and hold herself up. She had no fears about jumping into the foam pit. She loved running and jumping on the trampoline.

It's going to be another amazing year with this child! We can't wait!