Delaney's TOP TEN List @ 2 Years Old

This is one of our favorite and longest running traditions. If you hit "pause" in Delaney's life the day she turned two years old, this is what you would see...

10. Not wanting things cut up: She yells at us anytime we start to cut up or break apart any food. For several weeks, she would start hysterically crying and refuse to eat the item. Boiled eggs, oranges, tacos, sandwiches, quesadillas are a few the items she insists on eating whole at two years old.

9. Hats & Dressing Up: Suddenly she LOVES to dress up and wear hats. On her actual birthday, she wore this hat for ten hours, not even wanting to take it off for nap at school nor going to bed. She loves walking around in the plastic high heeled shoes morning and night and running into Addie's room and turning on "Let It Go" and dancing and singing to the music before bed.

8. Books: Like her older brother, Delaney LOVES to read. Books are always scattered about her room. I recently had to start putting her favorite ten in a basket after she read them so that she would look at different ones. She loves her Mickey Mouse book, Ten Chirpy Chicks, anything animals and hide and seek and her Elmo Potty Book.

7. Her Play Kitchen: This toy from Christmas is one of the only toys that she has played with in the last three months on a regular basis. She loves to pick up the silver phone and call for pizza and then make it and bring it to us.

6. Tacos and Pizza: Once a week, when the older kids have a sports practice right around dinner, we grab dinner to go. Our go-to's are always tacos and this two year old is a taco girl. It got so bad a few weeks ago that every time we picked her up from school and were buckling in her car seat, she would look at us and say, "Tacos?" Her eating habits are not the best and it's a fight to get her to eat many veggies these days.

5. Tiger & All Other Dogs: Just like her sister, this little gal is enamored with furry four legged animals that bark. She is in love with her side-kick, fifteen month old, Tiger.

4. Watching TV (Specifically Mickey Mouse Clubhouse): I am sure I would have never allowed this much iPad watching if she wasn't the third. I don't know how she doesn't get bored with the five Mickey Mouse Clubhouses that we have on the iPad but the repetition doesn't seem to bother her. It blows me away that she knows how to swipe and operate the iPad enough to find "Videos" and easily start her show. If she can find the iPad laying around unlocked, no doubt we will hear Mickey Mouse's squeaky voice in no time. And yes, we have turned into those parents that will occasionally take our 24 month old out to dinner with friends and bring the iPad and Mickey for the last 30 minutes of the evening!

3. Carter and Addison: The bond that she has shared with Carter since we was an infant is unbelievable... his patience and desire to be with her is so magical and rare. But what has been just as remarkable to watch over the last 3-4 weeks is the evident growing relationship Delaney is having with Addison. It happen almost overnight but suddenly it was Addie that Delaney wanted to play with, follow around, take a bath with or play in her room. I love watching Addison's surprised face at the sudden chafe but it has completely changed Addison too. She is so much more engaged with Delaney and to hear the two of them laughing and giggling, singing and dancing... just melts my heart. A close relationship for these two sisters is a priority in my life as a mom.

2. Mickey and Minnie Mouse: Besides being all that she wants to watch, at two years old, it is ALL that she wants to wear as well! She has one pair of Minnie Mouse pajamas and she insisted on wearing them for four nights in a row and had a melt down when I explained to her that Minnie PJ's needed a bath just like her. I even let her help me put them in the washing machine. She now as two Minnie dresses, a t-shirt, and The Perkins' gave her the most adorable Minnie Mouse bathing suit on her second birthday!

1. Mom and Dad: We have been Delaney's everything for two years now. She is literally attached at the hip to us. So much so, up until the day that she turned two, we have never had to worry about her running off, even ten feet away from us, especially in public. This type of personality is something that we really never have experienced with the other two. While Carter and Addie went through intense mom and especially "daddy" stages, they still explored and played with toys and weren't afraid to be away from us. They went willingly to close friends and grandparents however I am sure our family and The Perkins' can count on one hand the amount of times they have been able to successfully hold Miss D. As much as I hope that she grows up to be a confident young woman, I am curious to see what her ultimate personality will be like in twenty years! Just now, she will sometimes leave the same room Blake or I are in, to play in her own or Addie's room. There are weekends where Blake and I think she says, "Mommy" or "Daddy" over a thousand times. We know the days of her walking in front of us blocking our path saying, "Momma.... UP," are numbered so we are truly enjoying them now.

Every single night, even now, you ask me to "sit" and "cuddle" with you on your pink pouff in your room. I rock you and we sing your lullaby... I then lay you in your comfy crib all happy and snug and pat you for a another minute and then even stand over you in your dark room allowing you to drift off. I silently start stepping backward to the door and the second that my hand hits the knob, you start crying. We have tried everything for eighteen months now... I think it is just your way of saying you don't want to be alone. The crying lasts for less than five minutes now but I wish I knew why you are so sad to say goodnight every single night. Maybe you can talk Addie into sharing a room with you in a couple of years!?