Two Years Old!

Can you believe that Stella has turned 2 years old today? It's not that the past two years flew by or anything, I just remember so her entrance into this world so vividly it seems as though it was no more than a week ago. She was an adorable infant. Two and a half hours of (albeit augmented) labor and there she was. I make that sound easy, don't I? She came into this world with an healthy little cry, and immediately started nursing. Then, not 5 minutes old, she fell asleep. It was then that Jason and I looked at each other and said "Well, she's definitely not a Stella Moxie." and so Stella Ivy she is. Jason later said "We've just guaranteed ourselves a lifetime of saying to ourselves "We should've named her Moxie." So far I haven't said that, but she has definitely grown a little spunkier with age.

She was born with little creases on her earlobes that have since turned into dimples, and a crease across the bridge of her nose - and, you know, a couple chins and some chunky little thighs. Here she is just a couple hours old. She was very solemn most of the time.

And these are two of my favorite photos of her first week.



Look at those toes, would you? Those are the longest toes I have ever seen on an infant.

And while I'm at it, I'll show you some of her first birthday pictures. This one is by far my favorite.


She was still quite solemn but relatively agreeable. Doesn't she look like an old Italian guy hanging out on a lawnchair in front of his apartment building in the North End?


Sometime before she turned one, she developed what we have found to be a continuing obsession - shoes. The girl loves shoes. Here she is with her fancy new Robeez.


And now she is two. And who is Stella at two? She is coy, and sweet, and devilish. She loves shoes, dancing, coloring and her big sister. She is incredibly gregarious and liberal with her affections. She just graduated from speech therapy, and her vocabulary is amazing. I heard her say 'princess' the other day. And Jason tells me that after he pees now, she says 'Good job Dada.' (which is a step up from 'No peepee!') She makes me laugh daily. We are utterly blessed to have her in our lives.

So - the details of her day. First she and Violet got gussied up in their party dresses. (Truthfully, first I spent the morning cleaning the house and hanging streamers and decorating a cake, but this is about Stella's day.) They spent a good long time jumping up and hitting the two balloons I had hung from the ceiling. And please note the crowns Violet made.



All being well in the living room, I went into the kitchen to continue preparations, when I heard Violet scream with glee "Stella's licking the cake!!" Oh yes, she was indeed. But, um, it is her birthday, and I let her go at it for a few minutes before I dragged her away howling.

Grandy and Bubby came over, fought their way through a veritable blizzard to bring helium balloons and eat cake.



Stella opted to open presents before eating cake (seeing as how she was already full of frosting?). She was very restrained about the whole thing. She would open a present when prompted, play with it, find another toy from the toy shelf and play with that a while, and eventually someone would entice her to open another present.

She seemed genuinely pleased with each one. I couldn't really say which might be her favorite. Amusingly, she decided that she needed Dora's flippers on her own feet. She needed help getting them off Dora, but she is very clever about getting shoes on her own feet. That's one of her favorite activities.


Violet kept her impulsiveness to a minimum. I was incredibly proud of her. She shared Stella's toys, but didn't rip them open herself or grab them away. Mostly. They enjoyed Aquadoodle together until I told Violet she was not allowed to lick it. Mean, mean Mama.

Stella is a very good sharer, though, and Violet did get a turn all by herself.

Eventually Violet got bored of Stella's plodding present-opening style and called for cake. See? It's only slightly mangled. Stella sat like this and stared at the candles for several long moments.


Then Violet oh-so-politely turned to Stella and said "Can I blow out your candles?"

And Stella nodded her acquiescence.

I'm going to leave you with this last picture because it really sums up an aspect of Stella that I would never have thought to try to capture on film.

Stella is a little neatnick. I'm not sure how that is going to fly over the years, growing up with a couple sloppy packrats for parents and a miniature tornado for a sister. I often find myself hoping that we don't warp her for life with our messiness. So far she doesn't seem to mind too much, but this is so typical of her: "I'm not quite done opening this present, but look, here's a piece of trash. I think we need to take care of that immediately." This girl puts crayons back in the box, plays with shoes and then returns them to the place she found them, and will stop to clean up a little mess she finds on the floor. When she can find a little mess amidst the big mess.

So happy birthday to the sweetest two year old I know.