First Day of Preschool

Lyla started preschool today. Last night, we packed her bag, picked out a dress to wear and talked about how much fun it would be to see her teachers and friends from camp. Today was pretty smooth sailing. Mark and I met Lyla and Dahlia outside of the school before class. She had a huge smile on her face. When we tried to take some photos she kept walking away and saying "I gotta go to school now." We waited in the lobby until they opened the doors. Lyla introduced herself to a little girl named Alex and told Alex that she liked her "pretty dress" and backpack. How cute is that? Bonding over clothes and accessories at the age of two. I love having a girl :). Once in the school, she marched right past us, said hello to Miss Yari and Miss Jessica and slipped right into the classroom.





I got a mixed report card at the end of the day. The teachers said Lyla did great. During dinner tonight, however, we were talking about the day and she said "I cried like this [pretending to cry] 'cause I missed mommy." But she also said she had fun playing with clocks and cookies. It's so much fun to recap her day. We can really converse now. She understands concepts and can respond appropriately to most of my basic questions. We can also reason with her a lot more, which just amazes. Our words now have the ability to change her behavior, rather than just distraction or redirection. Watching her grow never ceases to amaze me.

Just for fun (riding her bike on Saturday):

First Pedicure

Two Year Stats

I took Lyla to the doctor on Friday for her two year visit. She got off easy without any vaccines because we were so late bringing her in for an 18 month checkup. But she did have to get a blood draw, which she was pretty good about. My most pressing concern was the eating situation (or lack thereof). She did gain weight since her last checkup, so the doctor told me not to worry too much and not to give in to her protests by preparing ten different meals for her. Mealtime is really the only time I get truly frustrated with her. I can usually get her to eat eventually, but before every meal we go through the dance of her refusing and me practically begging (she even refused Nutella this weekend; is she kidding me?). I guess she is just like her dad, who famously said "I love it when she begs" to his sister when his mom was trying to get him to eat as a child.

So, her official two-year old statistics:

Height: 34.9 inches (77 percentile)
Weight: 27.5 lbs (58 percentile)

Lyla's First Haircut

The bangs just had to go.  Lyla was crying because her hair was in her face, so we had to take the plunge.  I  called Mini Max on Saturday and made an appointment for first thing Sunday morning.  Then all day on Saturday I stressed over whether to actually go through with it.  She had NO hair for so long that the thought of cutting what she now had made me terribly sad.  But we did it.  We bundled up early on Sunday morning and headed to Mini Max in Brooklyn.  I was a little bit worried about how Lyla would react because let's just say her behavior has been less than stellar lately.  We walked in and the first question was what cartoon she wanted to watch.  When they opened a drawer of Dora DVDs, I knew things would be okay.









And everything went just fine.  Lyla was actually great through the entire haircut.  She sat in a little taxicab seat and watched Dora as Danielle, the hairdresser (what do you call someone who cuts 2 year old hair?  hairdresser? stylist?), cut about 1 1/2 inches from Lyla's hair.  I explained my Billy Ray/Beiber theory to Danielle and she totally got it.  She cut just enough so Lyla's hair wouldn't get in her eyes and will hopefully now grow evenly all around.





Lyla seemed to like it.


She even got a little certificate to memorialize her first haircut :)


I tried to get a before and after picture, but she was such a grump that morning that the before picture is just kind of goofy (looking at them again...both pictures are pretty goofy...).