We Have A Two Year Old?!

Photo courtesy of Photography by David L. Clark

Today my baby is two. A toddler. Less baby, more kid. Lorelei is a nurturer, an entertainer, a lover, a leader, strong willed, cunning, energetic, goofy, charming, hilarious, and sometimes a royal pain, and I wouldn't trade the last two years of being her mommy for anything in the whole world. We celebrated yesterday, because Sunday is David's Monday. We made plans, and plans fell through. There were moments that our big kid was happy, and ones where she was not. All in all though, it was a pretty good day.
I wanted breakfast to be special so I made some crazy, rainbow, tie dye pancakes (her favorite).

Photo courtesy of Photography by David L. Clark

Photo courtesy of Photography by David L. Clark

We went out to Seattle to jaunt around Capitol Hill (our favorite neighborhood) where we were going to visit a toy store (it turned out that it had gone out of business), get donuts (that was in an entirely different neighborhood as well), and get coffee at Roy St. (after we finally found parking and got in there was not a seat to be had). We ended up going to a toy store in the Magnolia neighborhood which was a big fail, but we discovered that we really like that area. The donut shop was in Wallingford, boasts an all vegan menu free of GMO's, artificial flavors, and colors, and was pretty good, but not the best.

Photo courtesy of Photography by David L. Clark

Photo courtesy of Photography by David L. Clark

Photo courtesy of Photography by David L. Clark

After the rollercoaster of toddler emotions, a hangry mommy, and too much driving from one end of Seattle to the other and back we decided to go to Issaquah. There we went to Starbucks (>.<) and shared a sandwich. Lorelei drank as much of my green tea frappuccino as I did. Then we hit up White Horse Toys, which is pretty much my favorite toy store ever. Lorelei discovered a play table with a Calico Critters house set up near the entrance, and she didn't want to look at anything else for the hour we were there. At least that made it easy to pick her present... Every time we showed her a set and asked if she wanted to take it home she told us no, because that meant she had to leave the dollhouse. David purchased the one we decided on and had it wrapped. Lorelei unwrapped it in the car, and cried the whole way home asking me to "gopen" the box. It was the first thing I did when we got home, and she LOVES that toy! She loves it so much that she brought the kitties with her to eat dinner, and we had to remove their clothes and wash two of them because she wrapped some grubby little pasta hands around them. Toddlers...

If you can pardon the mess, the length, and the mangy dog, you can watch us opening up the Calico Critters toy (this is being put up mostly for the enjoyment of her grandparents who like to see everything).