It’s been a LONG time since I have written a Violet update – maybe the last one was on her second birthday and before that her 15 month update. Poor little love, I hate to admit it but I think she’s been overshadowed by her little sister (for once!) as I’ve been focusing on writing updates on Pearl. So today is Violet’s turn, it’s been a while but this post is ALL about her! I really want to try and keep these updates up to date as much as possible, as they were so much fun to look back on as Pearl hit every milestone. I looked up my posts about Violet to compare what we were doing at the same age. Violet and Pearl are like chalk and cheese in personality but have hit milestones around the same time, so it’s been so interesting to see the difference and to look back on the memories!
Two going on twenty two
Violet is officially a proper little girl. There is no aspect of baby left, she’s a sweet, caring, walking, talking little girl, with the attitude of a bossy teenager too. I’ve really loved this phase as watching her personality grow and develop – is so much fun. She’s such an active girl, always wanting to be outside, climbing, whizzing down the slide or running about screaming ‘Catch me!” (which sounds like natch me!). She just never stops as when we are inside she’ll be focused on something creative and arty, painting, drawing, writing or learning numbers are favourites at the moment. She asks for her paints every day and loves to draw, make things and has recently started enjoying cooking too (saying mix, mix, mix!)
She’s super friendly once she knows someone well, offering hugs, kisses, hugs and waves, but can be shy and uncertain in new surroundings. She’s really sociable with other children, often saying hello to new children she meets at the park and soft play (which is often ignored ?). She is so brave when it comes to soft play as she’ll disappear into the play area and climb on her own to the top, giving me a huge wave before coming down the slide totally fearlessly. This always surprises me as she always seems so much smaller than the other children.
She loves babies and animals, especially Mummy and baby animals, which she’ll say ‘aww Mummy sheep, aww baby sheep’. She loves days at the farm and naming animals, often saying ‘hello cows!’ as we drive past the fields near our house. She gets frustrated with our dog Robbie, who she has learned to boss around by shouting ‘BED!’ and ‘OUT!’ as he is always eating her snacks.
She is such a gentle and caring girl – she loves playing babies and dressing/undressing her babies, putting them to bed and getting them to use their potty.
Eating
Violet and eating is the bane of my life. She is super fussy and if I’m totally honest, I’ve given up trying. I know what she likes and doesn’t like so instead of trying to get her to eat a broad spectrum of foods like I hoped she would, we’ve all been happier since we just cooked the same 4-5 easy meals I know she’ll at least try a little bit. It seems the more effort I put into cooking meals, the less she’d eat – so it is working out just fine. Luckily, she loves fruit and veg like peas and sweetcorn. With a bit of juggling I manage to make sure her diet is relatively healthy, although of course we have days when she survives on fresh air and pom-bears and I just accept that now and we are all happier.
I’ve also realised she’ll eat nearly anything with her favourite Paw Patrol characters on, so am often found cutting up regular cheese to put into the empty Paw Patrol cheese nibble packets to tempt her eat them, which always works…. But if I gave her the regular cheese, she’d never eat it! Just goes to show what motivates a toddler…
Sleeping
When Violet was around 20 months old, I thought she would NEVER SLEEP. She’s been a terrible sleeper all of her life and as we approached her second birthday I felt like it was too late for things to change….But suddenly at two, she started to sleep.
Nowadays she sleeps through most nights. Obviously we have the odd bad night but on the whole it’s all good! She can be really difficult to get to sleep as she will fight it until the very last minute, often still being awake at 9-10pm then crashing. This is fine apart from the days she’s at nursery and woken up at 7:00am when she acts like a total teenager, pulling the covers over her head and refusing to get up. I hate to think what she’s going to be like when she’s old enough to go to school!
Development
Violet has always been great at art and anything with a pens, pencils or crayons, using her fine motor skills or running, climbing and dancing – but one area of her development which has been worrying me has been her speech.
Finally at 2.5, she seems to be developing her vocabulary quickly but it’s not been an easy journey and speaking doesn’t seem to come easily to her, with pronunciation and confidence quite often an issue when it comes to new words. She knows exactly what you are talking about but often won’t attempt a word, even though I know she knows it. After what felt like a long wait, her speech is suddenly improving every day and the nursery have commented on how quickly she’s coming along, so I think soon we won’t be able to shut her up!
Some of Violet’s funny phrases:
My beats – feet
Natch me – catch me
My Queen (tiara) – Every morning its – “Mummy, where’s my queen?” – she puts her tiara on before even having a drink in the morning
Where’s my cheese (her wooden camera)
My wear – a dress
Potty Training
Violet is ready to potty train and knows exactly what she needs to do, but like in other areas of her development, is just struggling with confidence to try. We tried a few months ago but she got quite upset and asked for her nappies so we are waiting another month or so to try it again. When we try again I think a gentle approach will work best as not to make it too ‘bigger deal’. There will be lots of praise, treats and stickers to reinforce her actions and hopefully build her confidence. She’s a strong willed girl, so I know she’ll crack it as soon as the time is right and I just need her to decide she’s ready.
