2012 is going to be a great year.

So many friends and family are having babies and planning to have babies this year. Some are having their firsts, most are having their seconds or thirds!

All the talks about babies has made me reflect on the past 21 months, thinking about how parenting has changed since Kayleigh's joined the family and what it's been like to raise two little girls.

The best part by far is seeing the closeness of the two sisters develop as they get older. Kayleigh absolutely worships Abby and tries to mimic her with everything. Abby thinks Kayleigh (aka HER baby) is the cutest thing in the world.

The toughest part may be that they're so distinctly different in personalities and temperament that a lot of the experience we had dealing with Abby's "Terrible Twos" phase does not apply to the Kayleigh-style attitude we are seeing now.


The girls rarely get to watch television. When they do, they generally get a movie. Their recent obsession is with 'Rio.'

I understand now what my mom has always said - that raising two kids is actually not much more difficult than raising one. They share with, play with, entertain, help, learn from and teach each other. All leading to less and less dependency on Paul and me. It's been a healthy exercise in allowing the girls resolve conflicts on their own. It has noticeably helped Kayleigh develop her vocabulary and has helped Abby stretch her mind, trying to come up with a solution that is beneficial for her and also accommodating and pleasing to her sister.

Minor episodes of jealousy are inevitable, though, but for now they're limited to noticing age-related unfairness, like Kayleigh getting distraught over seeing Abby get 2 vitamin gummies while she only gets 1, or Abby getting upset because Kayleigh doesn't get reprimanded for dawdling NEARLY as often as she does.


Abby and Kayleigh get along great MOST of the time.

The two sisters are so different that I think similarities really end at their facial features. Beyond the dark, curly, brown hair, big, expressive eyes, and little button noses, they couldn't be more different. We love each girl so much, but so uniquely, if that makes any sense.



They say that the second one tends to be louder because that's the only way they get heard. Parents pay less and less attention as more kids are added. It's true! The reason isn't because we care less, though. No no. It's because the household just become really, really loud and to save our sanity, we need to filter out most sounds. Screams, choking coughs, nagging persistence that begin to sound urgent, etc. get responses. Everything else becomes buzzing background noise. Abby is at an age where constant chatter and singing are the norm and a lot of times, she's just talking to herself.

And in case you were wondering, we are not currently planning on having a third child, but the option is still available, so we'll just have to see how things go.

The wonderful Uncle Allen bought Abby and Kayleigh a 34" tall Snuffles bear. Completely out of the blue, for no reason except "just because."

Abby and Kayleigh literally fell all over themselves in their adoration of this bear.

So, this weekend, our first time seeing Allen since the bear appeared on our front porch, Abby came up to me and held my hand...

Abby: Mommy, I'm going to tell Uncle Allen, "Thank you for the big bear!"

Me: Oh, I'm sure Uncle Allen would LOVE to hear that.

Abby: No, Mommy. I think YOU would love to hear me tell Uncle Allen "Thank you for the big bear."

Well, I guess she pleases everyone here, but I just don't have a proper response to her surprisingly honest and observant remark.

Every year, the girls' daycare puts on a holiday show for their family and friends, held at a local high school.

The 2011 show was held on December 15th and was Kayleigh's first performance. It went about as well as Abby's first performance, where she just stood on stage and stared at the audience. The enormous stage and an auditorium full of people ooh-ing, aah-ing, and laughing as little toddlers march onto the stage dressed in holiday garb was overwhelming, so stage-fright froze her. Still, for the toddler class, it's not really about how well they perform, but how cute they looked. And our Kayleigh was adorable! You'll see her as the 4th kid from the right, dressed in a black and white dress with a red ribbon around the waist.

The teachers put each kid in a Santa hat and they rang bells and danced to "Jingle Bell Rock." (Apparently, Kayleigh is one of the most enthusiastic dancers during all rehearsals leading up to performance night. You would have never guessed!)



Abby's Pre-Kindergarten class sang and danced to Mele Kalikimaka - a Hawaiian Christmas Song. Then, without music they sang Silent Night a capella and performed it in sign language. We thought all the kids in this class did a fantastic job. It's hard to imagine how much she's matured in just 2 years, when SHE was the one who stood on stage as a toddler, frozen by the newness of the experience.

I haven’t posted much about Kayleigh recently, but she is has been growing in leaps and bounds.

Note: Paul has always called Abby "Short Stuff," so naturally, Kayleigh is "Shorter Stuff," hence the title of the post.

People are noticing that she is talking and understanding a lot more. She is so busy building her vocabulary, though, and not focusing on making sure she says each word correctly. From her intonation, context, and choice of sounds you can understand her pretty well, but it’s still frustrating (and funny) to hear her refer to socks as “gocks”, sippie cups as “bippie bop”. And, yes, most of her words seem to start with “G” or “B”. So, although she can even say short sentences, like “There you go, Abby,” they come out as “Gair you go, Babby.”

It’s neat to hear her mixing Chinese and English, but with her lazy focus, we sometimes get things like “nilk” as she tries to combine “nai” (Mandarin for milk) and its English equivalent. We do consider all of these minor issues because when we get her to concentrate, she can say pronounce all of these sounds/words just fine.

Last note about her language development that is really cute to witness is that she currently walks around the house, muttering words that she feels are related. For example: “Goggy (doggy), puppy, go-go (Mandarin for dog), arf!, woof!”, “Hoss (horse), neigh!”, “Mao (Mandarin for cat), cat, meeeeoooowwww!, Belle-Belle (name of one of our cats).”

Kayleigh can walk up and down stairs now, holding onto the rails or one of our hands. She is trying very hard to learn how to jump, but she bops around and dances quite a bit. Watching Abby do gymnastics, she has taught herself to do a very good forward roll. Seeing that, we tried enrolling her in gymnastics, but she’s still not quite ready to be in a group class. We are eagerly waiting for summer to take her swimming because she just loves water and apparently has no fear of it.


She is approaching her 2nd birthday in April and daycare is getting ready to transition her from the toddler class to early pre-school. Sounds so grown up, doesn’t it?

The other reason I haven’t posted a lot of photos of Kayleigh is that she hates having her picture taken. In fact, when she sees a camera pointed at her, she’ll charge towards it, shouting, “No! No! No!” and will swat it out of your hands. So, I’ve been trying to be clever and sneak in some pictures with my iphone, but she has figured out that if I’m holding the phone a certain way I’m actually trying to take a picture and she’ll drop whatever she’s doing to attack the phone. However, if she's absorbed in watching her favorite movie, "Rio," as in the picture above, I can get away with a few snapshots.