Lucas Camilo

Did we mention Ida turned TWO YEARS OLD? She is such a big kid now, with big likes (books, pasta, Duck and Moose pajamas) and dislikes (vegetables on most days) and a big swagger and parade wave. She has so much amazing personality, so we thought we’d take this marker to give a snapshot of the amazing joy that is Ida right now.

She has been talking for a while, but she is now piecing together more and more things to say. Some of my favorite conversations recently include:

Me: Do you want blueberries in your oatmeal?

Ida: Blueberries in the MOUF! (ie. straight into my mouth)

Me: Its time for a nap – can you please lie down?

Ida: UPSTAIRS, MOMMY MILK! UPSTAIRS, MOMMY MILK! PLEEEEAAASE!!

Me: Do you want to wear the cat shirt or the bird shirt?

Ida: Cat shirt! No cat shirt! Bird shirt! No bird shirt! Cat shirt! No cat shirt! NO BIRD SHIRT!!!!

There is also a lot of directing of where everyone should go, including her pointing at a spot up on a chair or couch and saying definitively “Ida right THERE!” Today before her nap I tried to lie down on the bed with her to read a book in the exact spot she pointed to. Ida didn’t like that I was lying down, so she instructed “Mommy sit up, read.”

Did I mention she is definitive?

Ida is also really into songs. She’ll sing songs, or at least parts of songs, all on her own – Ba Ba Black Sheep, the ABCs, and a number of songs from music class. For her birthday party our friend Julian (who is a rock start at 2 ½) led a sing-along while strumming his ukulele. When he started singing Ba Ba Black Sheep Ida’s face lit up like a teenager at their first rock show. Then Julian took it up several notches by leading us in This Land is Your Land and then, at his suggestion, We Shall Overcome. We can get you his contact information if you want to book him.

And she loves reading books. It’s no longer just a flipping through pages, but she really goes through and studies the books. She’s memorizing some, like Eric Carle’s Baby Bear, Baby Bear (also one of Lucas’s old favorites). And she reads books by combining what she remembers with what she sees in the pictures. This morning after music class she read a Sandra Boyton book to a younger kid in her class. Pointing at the pictures and turning the pages, she read to him “One dog, arf. Twoooooo dogs, woof woof! One cat, meeeee-ow. One donkey, hee-haw, hee-haw.” It is almost unbearably cute.

And Ida is developing color preferences. She picks out things that are pink and purple more often than not when she has a choice, which is challenging me. I’m working to find the balance between protecting her from some of the limitations of girl-socialization, while also giving her some self-determination around clothes, balloons, the shaker instruments she chooses at music class, etc. But her wardrobe is still varied, with many of Lucas’s old clothes and a variety of other hand-me-downs.  And clearly I’ve done quite a bit of curating of her clothes options, since there are days that she and I manage to leave the house in a similar combination of navy blues and earth tones. But I have a feeling those days are coming to an end.

Ida is still obsessed with Lucas. She studies everything he does and everything we do for him, and she tries her best to be part of all of it. She knows how to put on a stethoscope and check heart and belly sounds. She tries to predict where we are in his routine morning routine so she can “help” us with his tube feeding or his brace. A couple times now she has gone to his suction machine, loaded up the right catheter for a trach suction, and then reached up and pulled his vent off him for a trach suction. She even knows how the tubes for feeding work and tries her best to find the hole in her tummy to put the food in.

It is both scary and amazing to see how detailed her observations are. Fortunately Lucas is incredibly patient. She’s even accidentally pulled his trach out. I tried to explain to her – and told him he could tell her, too – that it hurts Lucas when she does that. He paused and then just said “that time it didn’t feel so bad.”  Even when she does something dangerous, we try to remember that she is just curious. The other day when we were all looking the other way, she went over to Lucas’s extra vent and grabbed the circuit. I glanced over just as she held the end up to the exact spot on her throat where a trach would go.

As I write this she is gathering up her creatures — stuffed animals of all stripes that she ties onto a “leash” and drags around the house on walks.  Earlier today she squealed with delight and came running out of the bathroom delighted that “piggy in poddy!”  I went in prepared to save a drowning stuffed pig, but instead she had placed it in her (dry and generally unused) toddler potty.  We celebrated the pig’s great job by getting a square of toilet paper.  Ida was thrilled to “wipe” the pig and flush the toilet paper down the big toilet.  There are so many things to be excited about when you’re two!

Here are a few videos of her cuteness.  Enjoy!