Two and a half, speaking in multiple sentences

One of those milestones that just creeps up on you crept up on us as Maggie went from simple statements “I hungry,” “we go school?” etc to full on multi-sentence related statements and inquiries with past tense and future tense. More or less.
It’s one of those things that we somehow missed catching right at the start as attention has been turned to the new baby and her latest leaps taking her into an infant that can understand to hold off crying for a minute because food is coming.

We’ve now met Santa twice, on our way tonight to meet a hipster Santa. This is significantly more for us at the moment than it is for the kids as Maggie doesn’t quite get what Santa is and why we keep seeing and talking about him.
I’ve been pleasantly surprised that Maggie both loves her new sister and that there doesn’t seem to be much jealousy when I’m holding the baby and Maggie wants to do something. So far the worst that Maggie’s said was “put down baby, play with Maggie”. I was able to oblige within a couple of minutes so there was no situation.
Aerin also seems content to watch me and Maggie play quite often, so it seems there’s harmony. I keep waiting for that spell to break, but I’m enjoying it now.
We did Christmas early this year as we’ve got multiple Christmases to attend. Baby lump Aerin didn’t care one way or the other, and Maggie was content opening one present and then playing with it and the wrapping paper.
After three presents of having to try and convince Maggie to keep opening we gave up and just let her play with the first one. We’ll just leave the other present there and see if she discovers it.
Currently highlight of Christmas is an old lollipop ornament in the tree she keeps grabbing and pretending to lick.