Twenty-Nine Months of Toddler Frances

On Frances's twenty-nine months birthday, we went to an Easter egg hunt in the next suburb over.  It was a bit nuts, like this:

That's us waiting in line for the hunt to begin.  The hunt was advertised as offering 5,000 eggs to find, but there were so many kids hunting those eggs that I think the whole thing was over in less than a minute and a half.  No kidding.  Another mother waiting in line told me that egg hunts are being cancelled because the parents are getting overly aggressive.  I thought that was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever heard, and then some big five year-old with a bucket full of eggs was eyeing the last egg I could see available for Frances.  It's possible I gave the five year-old's father a dirty look, completely involuntarily, of course, and he kept her in check.  And here's Frances with the one egg she got. One. Uno. Un.

Now the monthly update:

• Learning:  She now counts from One!  And can sometimes make it to 19.  Sometimes.  She can also identify some numbers, especially if they correspond with one of her favorite train friends.  She's strongest on the numbers 1 and 6, because those are Thomas and Percy's (everyone else talks about trains all day with their kids, too, right?).
• Favorite reads:  I'm really enjoying Frances's favorite reads right now.  The heavy hitters are Blueberries for Sal, by Robert McCloskey; Where The Wild Thing Are, by Maurice Sendak (the perfect length for us right now); Here's a Little Poem: A Very First Book of Poetry, collected by Jane Yolen and Andrew Fusek Peters; Pinkerton, Behave!, by Steven Kellogg (I edit the content a little, but Frances doesn't notice); and Cops and Robbers, by Janet and Allen Ahlberg.  Oh, and then there's the giant book of Thomas the Tank Engine that Frances's Auntie Jocelyn sent us, complete with 700 Thomas stickers.  Thanks so much there, Auntie Jocelyn.
• Favorite phrase: "Two at once, mama, two at once."  This falls firmly into the camp of things I can't explain, but Frances loves instances of things happening "two at once," like when she brought me two shoes at one time.
• The L Word:  Early in the month, Frances said to her father, "I love you, daddy."  Two weeks later, she came up with, "I love you, mama."  Two minutes after that, she said, "I love you, Henry."  Henry is not some other adult who has been caring for her night and day for the past twenty-nine months.  No.  Henry is a little boy who frequents the gym nursery.  She's also managed to throw out "I no love you, mama."  A five-word phrase.  I'm so proud.
• Food wars:  She's big on powdered milk and toothpaste, separately, not together.  And I've more or less given up hope.
• Sleep: She's mostly given up napping, but it means she's asleep for the night around 6:45.  Not ideal, but not awful.
• Obsessions: Trains, trains, trains...