Today is Helen’s birthday! It truly doesn’t feel like two years ago that I got sliced open to bring her into the world; but then I can’t quite recall what life was like before her. Or even what life was like before she was who she is now. I’m so glad she’s ours!
I love this picture so much! This is Helen enjoying Portia’s birthday festivities.
One fun/exciting thing about Helen is that she is a mover! She was our earliest walker by 2 months and is a remarkable climber! She has figured out that if she gets a chair to the counter, she can get whatever she wants that we put “out of reach.” We’re very proud of her cleverness and determination; but we’re also grateful for the times she has too much trouble to move the chair all the way to her intended destination.
I found her like this after having taken some time getting ready for the day. She was happily munching her way through the peel of an orange with an onslaught of loll-pops awaiting her!
Another thing that characterizes Helen is her all-around mischief. She is my first child to have removed a stinky diaper and played with its contents. She also once removed her diaper and then pooped all over the upstairs. (If any of the other children had done this sort of thing we may never have made it to 4 kids.) She loves to get markers and crayons and color on everything she can–the wall, library books, herself, etc. She likes to dump out cereal, craft supplies, water, and anything else that makes the floor a little more interesting. And yet, she is just SO ADORABLE and smiley while she does it all, that we just clean it up, laugh it off, and keep loving our sweet little cutie! (Except in the case of the poop. I lose all semblance of “cool” when there is poop all over the house.)
She found and enjoyed some Halloween make-up.
A new love Helen discovered in the past few weeks is dirt! When its’ time to go outside and play, she will almost always spend some of that time in the dirt. She also says “dirt” and it is super cute!
Dirt time!
Helen also LOVES to swing! One of the cutest things ever is when she is being pushed on the swings and plays peek-a-boo at the same time!
This picture is almost a year old; but it is of Helen being adorable on a swing; so it fits.
Helen is at that point in her development where she is learning new words every day! Some of the cutest ones include: dee-dotto (teeter-totter), mo (snow), wada (flower), bot (spot–meaning a place to sit), go-goak (coat) and wado (water)–which is one of her favorite parts of life.
Other Helen loves include: Her swaddle blankets–usually referred to as “meeeeee!!!!”, baths (called bass), Anna and Elsa (but mostly Anna), riding in the push-car or her new push-bike outside, pulling out anything I’ve put in her hair, her fuzzies (meow), kitties, books, and deciding what she is going to wear.
Helen’s idea of accessorizing 
Helping with clean-up 
Sometimes it’s just too much effort to get up the stairs to your room. 
Painting like a big girl!
Here is the birthday girl today!
Instead of decorating the whole table, we just decorated Helen’s “bot.” She LOVED it! 
It was such a joy to watch Helen get a grasp on the idea that today was her day! By the end, I think she completely understood, and relished every new thing that was for her!
We love you, Helenator! Happy Two Years!
A last note:
It is about two weeks since I initially wrote this post; but there was something I really wanted to record and didn’t think to do it then.
One very notable thing about Helen at this point in her life is her ability to sing tunes. Since she was about 18 months old, Helen has been able to sing little snippets of tunes to her favorite songs even though she can’t yet say the words. She began with “e-i-e-i-o” and then wowed us with her version of baby shark around Thanksgiving time “Baby la-la-la-la.” She can also sing snippets from Frozen 2 and Moana. I am consistently impressed by it, and it is so much fun to listen to!
Oh Helen is so sweet! She seems like she would never get into mischief 🙂
My love for just gets bigger and bigger!!! I didn’t know she called it her “bot”!! I am obsessed!!!!