SteelyKid is two years and one month old today.

Apparently it is personal care month here at Chateau Steelypips, as SteelyKid has suddenly deigned to brush her teeth and tip her head back to have her hair rinsed in the tub, and also is starting to learn to use a toilet. She continues to narrate her own life, in ever-more detail (tonight she told me, "I sitting (in) Daddy's chair and eating pizza"). Speaking of pizza, she got blood tests for milk and soy allergies and came back negative for soy and "equivocal" (1 on a 0-6 scale) for milk, so her doctor recommended avoiding cow's milk for now, though cheese is still okay. I'm a little dubious about this because I never thought she had an actual allergy as opposed to a digestive intolerance, but she does have a tendency to get a touch of eczema, so we'll keep an eye on it (but if we can help it, we're keeping cheese, because it's one of the few things she believes is food—how she manages to run on so little sustenance is beyond me).

She still loves to dance, and now sings a couple of songs—we did "Ring Around the Rosy" over and over and over again tonight. Her climbing proficiency is a bit scary—seven-foot near-vertical ladder on a 1970s-era slide? Piece of cake. Climbing wall meant for elementary-school kids? A bit of a challenge, but one that ends with her crowing, "I did it!" She is more interested in Legos and books these days, though she still yearns after all things transportation-related, real or imaginary (she likes to tell us that she's going to drive to the store to get cookies, stomp off into another room, and then come back and feed us and her toys imaginary things). We're working on numbers (her idea of counting up is "one three four six nine all done!"), colors (some day, she will learn the difference between red and green), and the concept of the future (can parrot several phrases, and might even understand a couple of them).

She went through a pretty brittle emotional phase, this month, with a lot of enormous and instantaneous mood swings, which I think may be winding down. Not really sure why: molars working their way up? Never seeming to eat enough no matter what we try? Being a toddler is just difficult? Probably the last one.

But a cute toddler, without question:

http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2010/08/thursday_toddler_blogging_0812.php
http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2010/08/thursday_toddler_blogging_0819.php
http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2010/08/belated_toddler_blogging_08271.php
http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2010/09/ode_to_a_rubber_dinosaur.php
http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2010/09/thursday_toddler_blogging_0902.php
http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2010/09/steelykids_weekend_excursion.php

And now I really don't understand why I'm up so late and have to go to bed.