All About Rylee at 2.5

Rylee, Rylee, Rylee.  This girl is quite the character, I tell ya.  When Ayden and Rylee were first born, we joked that life would be boring if we only had Ayden because he was such an easy baby and she was sooooo not!  I wouldn't say that life would be boring if we only had Rylee, because she definitely does her fair share of keeping us on our toes, but she is definitely the more easy going of the two now.

My current favorite picture of her!

Rylee has changed so much since I wrote her All About Rylee at 2 Years Old post!  It's funny to look back and see how short her hair still was.  I couldn't remotely put pigtails in her hair then, not only because it was too short, but also because she absolutely did not even want me to try.  Now she LOVES having "pretties" put in her hair, and she HAS to have bows or flowers of some sort as well.  She is becoming quite the little fashionista. The girl has to wear a dress almost daily.  If she's not wearing a dress, she either throws a big temper tantrum about it or I have tricked her into wearing something else.  If I pull a shirt out of the closet rather than her dresser, she usually thinks it's a dress.  Almost every day after getting dressed, she will give a twirl in her outfit of the day.   She's also very into accessorizing with hats, gloves, and shoes (and the shoes don't always have to match).

**I have NO IDEA WHY blogger won't let me change the formatting of this last paragraph so it isn't all centered.  Ugh.  So annoying.**

Rylee is 29 lbs (55%), which continues to follow the pattern of weighing 5 lbs less than her brother.  They measured her at 36 inches, but I KNOW that's not accurate!  She was still wearing her sandals, which didn't make a huge difference, but she also had a ponytail on top of her head with a huge bow that DID make a big difference!  The nurse didn't account for the bow at all.  I know better than to believe Rylee is only 1 inch shorter than Ayden.  I mean seriously, look at this picture...

There is definitely more than 1 inch height difference between them.

Rylee is wearing mostly 3T shirts and dresses and 2T bottoms, but does fit in a few 3T bottoms now as well, as long as the waist isn't too big.  She is wearing about a 7.5 in shoes, but depending on brand, that size could be up or down a bit.

No diapers for Rylee!  I'd say she is (mostly) potty trained, but here this last week she's had a LOT of pee accidents.  I don't know what the deal is.  We're almost 3 months into this whole potty training business, and she's having more accidents now than she ever had in the beginning.  Poop is good.  It's always in the toilet, thank goodness!  As frustrating as the pee accidents are, I'd rather clean that up than deal with poop!  She mostly stays dry for naps and nighttime now, with maybe one or two days a week that she wets the bed.  It's still a work in progress.

Rylee is a talker!  We can hold actual (basic) conversations now.  She constantly surprises me with new words she says and I sometimes wonder where she learned it.  She can say several 4-5 word sentences.  Every single morning, she says "go bye-bye pretty soon," at least a dozen times, regardless if I tell her we aren't going anywhere or not.  Sometimes she will get a sad pout on her face, sticking out her bottom lip and will say, "I'm so sad."  When I tell her please don't be sad, she then gets a big smile and exclaims, "I'm happy!"  Oh, and she growls. Hahaha!  When she's mad (mostly fighting with Ayden), she growls at you!  It's hard not to laugh at her when she's mad and growling at you.  She also likes roaring like a dinosaur, tiger, bear, etc.

Rylee can recognize and tell you all the primary colors, is starting to sing along with the ABC's, and can count one through ten (usually skipping either three or four).  She's also starting to recognize different shapes.  She has heart and star down pat.  We are working on circle, square, and triangle.

Her latest obsession is swimming.  We started swim lessons two weeks ago, Monday through Thursday.  Allllllll day long she says, "let's go swimming!"  When we finally get in the car to go swimming after we've had dinner and Tony gets off work, she says at least a dozen times on the way there, "we're going swimming!"  It's only a 5 minute car ride.  lol.  She is quite the fish, too.  She can climb out of the pool all by herself and jump in.  She has no problem sticking her face in the water, and she's doing a great job of "swimming" by kicking her legs and starting to use her arms, like a doggy paddle.  Of course we are holding on to her for this. (It's a parent/tot class)

Rylee is just as adventurous as Ayden when it comes to climbing.  She's little miss independent about climbing into her car seat all by herself and buckling herself in, to our frustration because it takes about 10 minutes.  She is pretty efficient at climbing all the playground equipment at the park, and she loves to give us heart attacks trying to climb things at home.

Gah!!!

Rylee is a good little helper who loves to "help" do the laundry and vacuum.  Of course, she also likes to knock over my piles of folded up laundry and vacuuming is taking 10x's longer now with her help.  I hope she continues to love to do chores!

Rylee is obsessed with watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, but also enjoys watching Paw Patrol, Kipper, Curious George, and Winnie the Pooh.  She loves music and dancing.  When we are in the car and a song comes to an end, she always asks for it to be played again.  It doesn't have to be the same song, she just wants ANY song to be playing and hasn't figured out yet that she only has to wait two or three seconds for the next song to come on.  Her favorite books are the same as Ayden's, Llama Llama Hoppity Hop and What a Wonderful World. Rylee loves seeing animals, but is fearful of getting too close to them most of the time.

As frustrating as toddlers can be a lot of the time, they are also such a joy.  It is absolutely incredible to witness them learning new things almost on a daily basis.  And the love.  The love that toddlers give unconditionally is something that I wish we never grew out of as we get older.  Like her brother, Rylee is a cuddle bug.  She loves to be held and snuggled with.
She loves to give kisses.  She loves to be chased and tickled.  Her laughter is contagious. Sometimes she oozes orneriness, but her smile lights up our world.