For my daughters second birthday we had a Mad Hatter's Tea Party. The kid loves hats so it just came to me one day, we should have a Mad Hatter's Tea Party!
I made a bunny cake (complete with coconut fur). We borrowed extra kids chairs from our neighbours, so we had lots of mismatched chairs which looked kind of mad. The kids decorated their own party hats with stickers.
Here are the kids doing some collage craft. "The Cat" did a picture of the Earth, with a red ocean and a red colour swatch to show the colour for the ocean. The flower is to show that we have flowers in Australia.
I sewed these little stuffed birds (you can get the pattern from Spool) when I was pregnant with my second born. Here they are sitting on a bit of driftwood suspended above her cot. My son asked me to make extras and he plays with them all the time.
Just a little note to remember you at this stage in your life. You like to bounce. Earlier we used to put you in a Jolly Jumper, you don't need a Jolly Jumper, you can bounce quite well un-aided. You will bounce sitting on my knee or while being held, or held standing. This will be something about you I think I will remember overall about you as a baby. You have exuberance and joy. You love people - at a distance.
You are definitely Mummy's girl at the moment. You cry bitterly if I leave the room or if someone else holds you... this is flattering but frustrating at the same time.
You have three teeth now, the day you got your last two teeth you were chewing on my fingers like a Tassie devil.
Food
You love your mandarins, they are in season right now. When I am at the shops and you are in my sling you grab for mandarins while I pick them off the shelf. Your eye's light up when I start peeling one for you and you love to grab and squeeze segments between your fingers. I peel the skin off the segments and tear the segments in two, removing the seeds for you. Otherwise you will eat pretty much anything, but you are not a huge fan of rich creamy things such as avocado or ricotta cheese.
Sleep
You sleep well now. At night you will sleep from about 7pm (or when I get you to bed) until about 5.30 - 6am. I am so thankful for this because I value my sleep, I call you my dream baby. By day you prefer to sleep in bed and rarely nap if we are out and about, there is too much to look at and you wouldn't want to miss anything!
Your hair sticks up a lot. I love this, I like to imagine it is a mohawk. My hair was like that too at your age.
You adore your big brother. You will often stop crying if he is around or stop feeding if he is nearby. You follow his every move. You also love to watch Dad when he is home and you bounce in excitement when he is around. You like to "talk", saying "Ahhh" a lot and sometimes "mumumum", "bababab", "dadada", "yeah" stuff like that.
When you were a newborn you would scream if we put you in the bath. Sometimes you were ok with it if we put a warm wet washer on your belly. Now you love it! You kick you legs and splash with you hands and tease your brother. You don't mind to much if the Cat (bro) splashes you. You still enjoy a washer on your belly though.
You are great at sitting up, you can't quite lift yourself up from lying yet but you are very close. You are physically strong but not in a hurry to go anywhere just yet. You'll do stuff in your own time. Today I think you waved back at me, but I couldn't be sure.
Love,
Mum.