Harper at 2 1/3 Years Old

**I wrote this last Friday and forgot to post it!

After my stay in the hospital last summer, I intended to keep up the blog partly as a way to document my girls’ childhood.  I wasn't very faithful about it, but I want to change that.  Life is short!  I recently went back and read a lot of my posts from this summer, and I was encouraged by remembering.  God blessed me all over again.  So I want to keep it up.

 

Today is the 5^th—which means Harper is exactly 28 months old.  This post is an update all about her!

First things first:  Harper is potty trained!  I took the plunge while I had a few days off of school for state basketball in March.  We just put her in undies one morning and never looked back (well, I was maybe guilty of being like Lot’s wife a couple of times, looking longingly back at the land of diapers.  BTW, how many of you watched The Bible on the History Channel?  We have been enjoying it…) She had a lot of accidents the first few days, but came around pretty quickly.  I got scared and did the Pull-Up thing in public for a while, but she did a whole lot better if I just kept the undies on all the time.  She now tells us pretty much every time she has to go!
 

 

As a way to reward her for being such a big girl (and because we really didn’t buy her anything for Christmas), she got a new bicycle!  She loves to sit on it and ring the bells, but she doesn’t really have the pedaling thing down yet.  We’re working on it.  Jason picked it out, and the princess décor was actually his deal.  I am against anything “character”-y.  At the hospital, Harps needed a short sleeved shirt because of her IV, so I sent Jason to Target, and he came back with a Dora shirt (to my horror).  Of course Harper loved it.  Same with the bike—I wanted a plain one, but she loves “Cinderlella” and all her princess friends.  Guess I’m outnumbered.

 

Harper’s speech has also been fun to listen to the last few months as it progressed.  It’s like I have a little passenger to talk to now in the van when I drive J.  My favorite lately is that she’ll randomly tell me things she does and doesn’t like.  “Mommy, I don’t like the Beast (from the Disney movie).  I like Daddy, though.”    “I don’t like the nurses.  I like Dr. B, though.  He always talks to Harper.”  She also steals lines from TV, which is kind of scary!  Awhile ago she grabbed something of mine and said, “You’ll never find it now.  AH HA HA (evil laugh).”  I was shocked!  Then later we were watching Dora, and Swiper the Fox said the same thing.  It all made sense.

 

She is also recognizing things, naming things, and getting so smart.  She knows our town pretty well and can tell if we are going home after I pick her up from daycare or not.  We’ll pass things like Grandma’s house or the library and she will recognize them.  She can count to 10 (minus the number 4, which she refuses to say), say the whole alphabet, and recognize/name quite a few letters.  She also has a large repertoire of animal sounds!  My favorite is that she also knows quite a few Bible stories.  David & Goliath, Zacchaeus, Baby Jesus, & Noah are her favorites.  She is not a fan of the “sneaky snake” in the garden. 

 

The girl still loves to be outside, and we can’t wait for Spring to really show up around here.  Last year she was such a runner that we had to put a baby gate up to keep her on the deck, but now she is doing a better job of staying where I can see her.  She loves to climb and will go up & down even the highest slides at the park.  Daredevil.

 



She is the greatest big sister.  She asks for Reese as soon as she gets up and loves to be around her.  She can make Reesie laugh like no one else.  One thing that melted my heart in the hospital--after her very traumatic IV insert (her first one quit working, then they had to poke her twice to get a new one), she was sobbing hysterically, but she said through her tears, "I wanna go find Reesie!"  She just wanted to go home and find her sister.  Sweet girl.  I can't wait to watch these two grow up together!

 

Overall, she is a joy to be around.  She is definitely strong-willed, but oh so sweet when she wants to be.  I can’t wait to watch how God works in her life and uses her in His Kingdom!