23 months

Though it's only the 28th, we are marking it as Pancake's 23-month birthday leaving only one more month of counting her age in months.

We measured Pancake against the growth chart we have in her closet.  Doodle at age two was about six inches taller than Pancake.  She is still so tiny, except her "bagel belly," which makes her look like a pregnant 23-month old.  (Bagel belly was coined by my MIL because Pancake loves bagels and they go down into her matching belly.)  I think if she grew a few inches her bagel belly would diminish, but we're still waiting for that growth spurt.

Pancake has a doll named Penelope and lately she has been talking about going to Penelope's house to play with trains and other fun toys.  I asked her where Penelope lives and she responded, "in her house!" obviously.  More often than not Pancake speaks in sentences, with as many as nine words.  Here is a common eight-word sentence: "I get my pacifiery out of my crib."  I never put the "y" at the end of words.  I refer to dogs as dogs, never doggies or puppies, I say pacifier, not binky and certainly not pacifiery, yet Pancake insists on adding "y"s to all kinds of words. Tonight at dinner she added to our family conversation by telling Mr. D that she "goed to the post office today," which was true.

She wants to do whatever Doodle does and she repeats everything he says, which is quite annoying when Doodle is playing copy everything that Mr. D and I say.  "Doodle don't forget to eat your carrots."  "Doodle don't forget to eat your carrots."   "Doodle don foeget to eat yoe carrots?"  Pancake often repeats things we say with a rise in her voice at the end of the sentence making most things she repeats questions.

She sits on the potty fully clothed and says that she's peeing or pooping, even though I'm pretty sure she's not doing either.  I don't think she'll be potty trained for a while. 

We took her to the same surgeon who removed Doodle's lymphangeoma to check out her now diagnosed dermatoid between her collar bones.  It is something we need to keep an eye on but nothing to worry about.  We probably won't even have it removed.  She has an appointment with her nephrologist to see if she still has VUR (vesicourteral reflux) for which she's been on an antibiotic for the past year.  Hopefully it has corrected itself and we can take her off the Bactrim, but I suspect it will be another year or two. 

Doodle's birthday invitees

Doodle asked me to make a list of all the people he is planning to invite to his birthday party, which isn't until April.    He rattled off a bunch of friends then said:
Grandma, Grammy, Grandad . . .  and my great-great-grandfather.
Me: Who is your great-great-grandfather?
Doodle: Otahn!  (Otahn is my father)
Me: Othan is your grandfather, not your great-great-grandfather.
Doodle: Who is my great-great-grandfather? 
Me: He isn't living any more.  You never met him, I never met him either.
Doodle: I want to invite Uncle Dick, is he still living?  (Uncle Dick is my uncle)
Me: Yes, he's still living.

The list also includes Daniel, but not Dori.