Rapidly approaching 2 years old

Here is Natalie at 22 months, getting very close to that magic age of 2!

She has also recently done some funny and clever things:

For a while now, she has had a habit of climbing onto Sarah's lap during dinner - either to eat her entire dinner from there or after she's finished her dinner. Trouble is, Sarah is usually just getting started eating her dinner and doesn't really like the trouble of a toddler on her lap while she's trying to eat (having to feed food to a toddler in addition to herself). In addition, Natalie also has the habit of just helping herself to food on Sarah's plate. This also happens at breakfast most mornings - Natalie just plunges her hand into Sarah's cereal bowl, not caring if it gets wet with milk. Today at lunch, Natalie climbed onto Sarah's lap as she was eating a lunch that included noodles. After grabbing a few bites of noodles with her fingers, Natalie got down, walked into the kitchen, got into the silverware drawer, and got a plastic fork for herself, returning to her spot on Sarah's lap so she could continue eating Sarah's noodles with a fork.

Today I bought a Roomba, a robotic vacuum cleaner, with part of the bonus I got at work. After setting it up, I pushed the "clean" button to see how it works, and it set about scurrying around the kitchen floor. I called Lexi and Natalie to come watch this new machine do its work. Natalie found it delightful - laughing constantly as she watched and pointed at it moving around the floor on its own, whirring away. She followed it as it moved and also moved away as it came toward her. At one point, it gently bumped into her foot, and she instantly changed from laughing to screaming in fright. Sarah told me I needed to pick her up, and she started screaming - she was so scared. Now she is still half scared/half delighted by it.

Natalie has known the word light for a while, but she discovered yesterday that the switches on the wall can turn lights on and off. She had to get up on a stool today to play with the switches for the kitchen and dining room lights. I remember how fascinated Lexi was while we were living in Kenya when she discovered what power she had with the light switches.