January 2021

Anna is now a big 2 years old! She has grown up a lot recently with her language and interactions and has really grown into a personality of her own.

Birthday

For Annas second birthday we had some close family and friends around, a little smaller than her first birthday as there were also COVID rules to contend with and we didn't want to make it too big of an event.

It was a nice warm day and we had a BBQ and setup a blow up pool for her and Leo. The BBQ turned into a small oil fire which was a slight worry but it eventually put itself up.

Jess made a fancy Hey Duggie cake which is Anna's favourite show.

With her birthday and Christmas being so close together we have to be careful not to overload her with new stuff. With toddler books and toys being relatively cheap it is easy to go overboard or have other people go overboard with gifts. We have focused on books and things that won't just be quickly forgotten a take up a bunch of space as much as possible.

Daycare

After another enforced break last year due to COVID Anna went back to Daycare a bit shyer than before. She is always keen to go, just can be a little unsure at first about being left there. It appears that she is mostly happy to play by herself at this stage, but is getting better at saying the other kids names and joining in activities.

We have seen Anna up at the front for some book reading class activities recently from the photos they provide which is nice.

Hopefully this year things with settle down a bit better into routine.

Sleeping

Anna remains a very good sleeper, she goes to bed around 8-8.30 and usually sleeps through to around 7.30-8, she never really wakes up during the night. She still has a nap most afternoons for around an hour or more depending on how tired she has been.

A few months ago she was finally able to reach the door handle to let herself out of her room. This made it harder to put her to bad and have her stay and would generally result in her coming into out room earlier.

We tried to buy a simple stick on plastic lock for the door to control this but it resulted in her pulling one side of the door handle down and breaking it. We had to pull to door handle off. With no door handle though we wasn't able to get out which is how we have left it for now.

She is content to stay in her room and read books when she wakes up for a while which is nice.

Media

As she grows up the type of TV shows she likes has changed. Previously In The Night Garden was a favourite but has probably become a bit too simplistic. Her favourite show by far is Hey Duggie, during the second lockdown we watched through the first 2 seasons end to end a number of times. She is still glued to the screen watching eps and Youtube mashups of it that she has been many times. Bluey is another favourite.

She is starting to pay more attention to some of the more strongly narrative driven shows as well which would previously go over her head.

Learning

Anna has made great progress on her letters and numbers in addition to learning to say a lot of words. She is putting together 2 and 3 word sentances such was 'Where's Dad gone?'.

With letters she has learned to recognise a number of letters such as A, D, M, S, T, R. She has a good understanding for example that A is for Anna. While hard to compare she has apparently made good progress for her age. I mostly put it down to good apps which introduce the letters and words through various activies like typing, tracing and identifying.

With numbers she is able to count fairly clearly to 10, somewhat clearly to 20 and identify written numbers 1-10. This as well is probably due to some good counting apps.

She is good at navigating technology, confidently scrolling through phones/ ipads, picking apps to open and navigating through them. I don't think the PC will be too far behind as she gets used to the keyboard and mouse. It will be interesting as she gets older and starts school what emphasis is still put on handwriting vs keyboards and touch screens as in our society now handwriting is rarely used compared to typing.

I have also noticed that she is taking more of an interest in being read a book. While she has always liked reading through books herself, she would previously get distracted from being read the story after a few pages.

Play

Anna has always been a bit of a daredevil and enjoys running, jumping and flying down the slides at playgounds. She also loves the sand pit at Day Care and anywhere else she can find some sand to play with.

She likes playing blocks and has gotten better over time at connecting the blocks and making more complicated towers, I can see that she has a preference for colour coordinating and building things with some level of symmetry.

She got a fancy new trampoline for her birthday and enjoys jumping on it.

Food

Anna continues to eat basically anything that is put in front of her. We haven't really had any issues with getting her to eat vegetables and if anything it is sometimes her meat which she will pick around on the plate if favour of things like tomatoes, cucumbers and cheese.

She does well now drinking out of a cup, rarely spilling much unless she is walking around with it in her hand.

Trips

In December we took Anna to the Zoo. It was a good outing for her although it seemed like she was finding every way to entertain herself except for the attractions that the Zoo provided. Things like being more excited about the sea gulls in the food area than the Zoo animals. It was a bit crowded but she had a good time.

We also spent a few days down at Rye where she had a good time at the beach and playing at the beach house.

What's next?

Lots of learning and play to be done this year. Hopefully being able to see and spend some more time with the grandparents. After the COVID lockdown Anna was a lot more reserved and shy around family, now that she is seeing them more again it is getting better.