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Az brought my old Madame Alexandra baby doll out with her for this month's photo shoot, and posed her for the photos. The doll had slipped out of her pose by this shot. I'm a little late with the monthly photo this time, and it's been a few more days since I took the photo. But, at 24 months give or take a few days:

• She has discovered her deep love for pistachios. Because you know my girl can't just love a more affordable nut.
• Her new favorite pastime is calling people on the phone, usually both of her grandmas. She's really putting Miguel's and my phone contacts to the test.
• Her favorite things at the moment are dolls and trucks. Whenever we see trucks on the street she gets excited, and she is drawn to car, truck, and train toys in the store. She seems pretty set on dolls for a while so we're going to have to increase her collection of vehicles. I love a cute little girl with a doll but I think a cute little girl with a truck might be even better.
• Animals are also big on the Az excitement scale, both live animals and animals on TV and in books. Ponies, hippos, and birds seem to have a special appeal. She likes dinosaurs as well, but since Z never went through a dinosaur phase we don't have much to support this interest of hers yet. I'm sure this will soon change.
• Az vocabulary has exploded. It seems like every day she has at least one new word she's throwing around in conversation. She still isn't speaking in sentences regularly but she will work in four or five word sentences into her communication.
• She can be a little shy sometimes, usually around kids her age. Z was always outgoing so I'm going to have to adjust to needing to encourage her to play and interact. I was a painfully shy child and missed out on opportunities because of it so I'm hoping it's just a toddler thing. She is generally outgoing and chatty with adults, I think she may just not be used to young children. I've been trying to find kids Az's age for her to interact with since before she was crawling but we don't have any built-in friends for her.
• Az is keeping my hygiene in check. Whenever she sees a booger in someone's nose she points to it and says, "Bug." Miguel and I have begun adopting the phrase ourselves; I have to admit I sort of like it. ("Bug" is Az's word for small objects that she considers to be dirty, such as a smudge of food on her clothing, or an actual insect in the house.)
• She is very good at wiping her hands and face both while eating and after. If I hand her a diaper wipe she is generally good at keeping herself clean and presentable. Z never had that desire to wipe his hands or face. He still doesn't in fact.
• Az also enjoys wiping down surfaces with a diaper wipe. A few times now I've handed her a wipe and she's cleaned off a table for me. Her dad isn't always fastidious about wiping off her highchair tray (i.e. he only does it with some reminding) so I've been keeping some wipes next to her chair so that she can clean the tray herself before eating. This is all very novel to me because as I said, Z has never shown any interest in having a clean environment. In fact, he says it stresses him out to have things be too clean.
• Az is still my rough and tumble, play in the dirt girl. But when she's done, she does want to clean up.
• She always needs a sippy cup of water nearby. I'm getting used to bringing her sippy cup with us when we leave each day so I can meet her demands of "Sippy." I keep bottles of water in the van at all times and she's never minded them but recently she has grown to strongly prefer a sippy cup to anything else. I actually had thought we might be done with suppy cups altogether until recently.

I love watching this girl grow!