How is it possible?

Apparently Anna is going to be 2 years old by the time anyone reads this blog post. How is that possible? Wasn't I just calling my good friend H at 4 a.m. to ask her to come watch Rachel because I was in labour?

True to form, I baked tonight. Rachel and I made cupcakes on February 13, 2008. I thought it would be fun to do something with her and it was! Last year we also made cupcakes and cake for Anna's birthday. This year I baked the cake and cupcakes tonight and we will ice everything during Anna's nap just before her party.

Anna is about 34 inches tall and weighed almost 33 pounds at her last checkup in January. We call her "Short Stuff" since her legs are nowhere near as long as her sister's and she is rather rotund and short. Her front hair isn't as long as her back hair which reaches more than halfway down her back. She loves her ponytails and often asks me to put them in so she can look just like Rachel. Of course, Anna thinks that the elastics are called ponytails because I always ask her to come over so that I can put her ponytails in!

I won't even try to attempt a vocabulary list for her at age 2. I will say that while she can sing the alphabet song, I highly doubt that she has any clue what any particular letter looks like. She knows most of her colours and shapes, and can sort of count past 10 if she feels like it. She wants to be just like Rachel and will often come over to stand or sit with her, much to Rachel's chagrin. Big sisters like to have their own space and do not appreciate the constant interference of little sisters... or so it appears in our house most days.

That said, the two of them egg each other on and are quite funny most of the time! They join forces to make random animal noises at the table and they run circles around each other yelling "I'm gonna get you!" We realized this morning that Anna has no clue what that really means since she just kept running circles around Ben yelling it without stopping for several minutes.

Anna loves cars, trains, trucks... anything that goes! She's a big fan of monkeys and elephants, and enjoys the My Little Ponies along with Rachel. She likes going to preschool and always wants to bring something to show her teachers even though she usually ends up choosing to leave it in the car! She's quite a bossy little girl, with a winningly cute smile that usually gets her whatever she wants. "I'm cute and I know it" could easily describe Miss Anna Rose.

Her initials aptly spell ARG. ARG for typical two-year-old temper tantrums. ARG for typical changing her mind a thousand times a day. ARG for not sleeping through the night. ARG for all of her antics. And yet she's our snuggly, happy little girl! I'd be lying if Ben and I said we wouldn't change a thing about her. We'd happily stick in a chip that would program better sleep.

Speaking of sleep, as I type this, someone is asleep in her big girl bed! I found a set of adorable pink, brown & white monkey sheets online in queen size. They arrived yesterday, and I took the time this morning to put the fitted sheet on the mattress on the floor in her room. She was very excited to see it and requested to sleep there for her nap this afternoon. We weren't sure what she'd do tonight, especially since my mother was putting her to bed while we were out at a gig, but apparently she wanted nothing to do with the crib.

She looks so small on the big bed, and yet it's so nice to know that we're really out of her baby years. With Rachel I wasn't in a hurry to see that time end. And while I'm not in a hurry for Anna to grow up, it's fun to see her sense of humour develop and her personality emerge. I can honestly say that I think the next couple of years will be more fun than the first couple were with her. She's starting to sleep better, she can express herself (And, oh boy, how she expresses herself: "No, you may NOT wipe me! Put me down!", etc.), and she's just hilarious to be around.

Happy 2nd birthday, Anna Rose! No puking on your cake this year, please.