Mom I love your arm

Edie and I were just looking at a blog where a little girl and mother were featured together and she looked at me and said, "That's MY Mommy" I replied, "Yes, I *am* your Mom." and she then hugged my arm and said (very sincerely) "Mom I love you." Cue heartbreak. Seriously!! Then she said - as if to clarify her earlier statement - "Mom, I love your arm."

2 Years Old

You turned 2 years old today.

During the month I scratch down funny things you say so that I can recount them in your monthly letters. This month, I found the following sentences on a scrap of paper, but I can't remember the context in which you said any of them:

"I'm making my coffee in there. It's very hot, I can't drink it."

"I scared a little mouse in the kitchen."

"Do a potty dance. POTTY! DANCE!"

You make up the funniest stuff these days. At least half of everything you say is completely fabricated. Over dinner tonight Dad asked you what we did today and you said we went to The Fair (untrue). He then asked you what you saw there and you answered, "Bunnies. And a hog." (??)

For the most part, your pronunciation is actually really great, but there are a few words that you mispronounce and it's so cute that I want to make sure it's documented:

Flowers is pronounced "Fwalers"

Sunscreen is "Scun Screen"

Gross is "Gorse"

Your Salt Water Sandals are "Hot Water Sandals"

I'm so thankful that you're as funny as you are because it makes the times that you are horrible so much more bearable. We had a stretch last month of 3 or 4 days in which you were a nightmare of tantrums and generally bratty, whiny behavior but it passed and while things are never perfect, we were doing pretty well for a couple of weeks. Until last week. A friend suggested it was maybe knowing that your birthday was coming, but the 3 days leading up to your birthday party Sunday night were NOT FUN. For you or us. Nothing was right. One morning after flipping out about wanting the pink cup instead of the one I gave you, then flipping out about wanting to go in the backyard while it was raining and cold, you begged for Sesame Street and I eventually relented because, well, because it was 7:15 and I was still wiping the sleep out of my eyes after a night of you waking over and over to ask for ridiculous things like to "Talk about my day Mom?!" at 3am (something we've started doing before bed). After the Sesame Street Begging reached a fever pitch, I just shut down and turned on Sesame Street. At which point you melted onto the floor and wailed, "That's NOT Sesame Street Mama!! It's NOT!" I mean seriously Edie. What can I possibly say to that? Because DUDE, it totally WAS Sesame Street. I try to remind myself that it must be very hard to be you right now and while you are incredibly verbal for your age, you still have a hard time expressing exactly what you want. Especially because I'm pretty sure you don't actually know what you want some of the time.

On a brighter note, you were a rockstar at your birthday party - no flip outs or bullying of other kids (at least that I witnessed) and aside from the occasional "that's MY present" comments (we can thank daycare for you finally learning the concept "mine"), you did a great job - occasionally even remembering to say thank you unprompted. Your party was really fun, but I will say that this is probably the last year we will have a gigantic party for your birthday. The next few years will be family only, maybe 2-3 close friends. We had pizza and cake in the backyard and the weather, much like your actual Birth Day was fabulous. I still remember walking around the hospital block in the sunshine, wearing my flip flops and elastic waist skirt while holding onto your Dad's arm for support during contractions. It actually does feel like a very long time ago to me now. It's impossible for me to remember what it was like to have a grunting baby unable to communicate her needs. Let alone remember our lives pre-Edie.

You now know your left from your right, can sing the entire alphabet without mistakes, and can identify all your letters and many numbers (although 8 is always "2 zeros"). Your favorite foods are popsicles, eggs, toast with peanut butter or cream cheese, broccoli (for real!), and pizza (although you mostly just pick the kalamata olives off, eat them and then beg for more. We've started buying olives at Costco.)


You know your colors, but can get tripped up sometimes. The other day you were pointing to the colors in one of your books and when you got to the picture of the brown teddy bear, you hesitated and finally ventured, "Teddy bear?" I tried to help and said, "What color is the teddy bear? He's the same color as Mom's hair" (you had been talking about my brown hair just that day). You then confidently said, "Gray!" Burn, Edie, burn. Although it's becoming more true these days - I swear you are literally giving me gray hairs.

One new change this month is that you are trying new pronouns on for size. You no longer speak about yourself in the third person, saying "I" and "my" correctly. You like to say "hers" instead of "she" - for example: "Hers is going potty" and will sometimes notice that it sounds wrong and try to correct yourself. Speaking of the potty, I'd say we are maybe 10% potty trained right now? That may be an overstatement. But you ask to use the potty most days at least once, sometimes as many as 4 times and these days you often don't expect a gummy bear (your original reward) after a successful potty trip. The other day you even asked to sit on the potty while in the bathtub. I plopped you onto the mini toilet all soaking wet and you promptly peed and then asked to get back in the tub. Considering how tempting it must have been to pee in the bath, I was pretty impressed. I never ask you to sit on it, so it only gets any play when you request it. I think I'll push in a few months for more of a bootcamp training week - maybe once the weather turns and we're stuck inside anyways.

Random photo of you and Reid enjoying the sunshine, while it lasts.

Jen at daycare reports that you are finally settling into a routine there; participating in preschool activities like painting, volunteering for "helper" duties at snack and lunch time (passing out cups, etc), and singing the "line up" song before going outside to play - which I sometimes hear you singing by yourself at home. You are clearly having a much better time during the day, but I will say that until TODAY, you were still ridiculously desperate for me when I picked you up at the end of the day, squealing, "It's my Mommy!" over and over and immediately climbing my leg begging to go home. When I wrote the first draft of this post on Monday night, I said that I was hoping this behavior would fade over the next month, but just today I went to pick you up and you had absolutely no interest in leaving daycare - it was SO EXCITING! Jen said you had a fun birthday - we baked mini cupcakes for the kids, they made you a birthday crown and Jen took pictures.

I'm thinking this is probably your last formal "monthly letter" from me. Moving forward I will probably just post updates more organically. For now, please know that I adore you totally and completely. Yes, you drive me bananas, but isn't that the whole point? Nothing great ever comes easy. After 3 days of tantrums we had the BEST day yesterday. The weather dropped about 20 degrees from Sunday so we stayed home - carried blankets and pillows to your new tent in the backyard (a gift from Javi and Kathleen) where we read your new books, we baked strawberry cupcakes for you to bring to daycare today, had a dance party to your new Caspar Babypants CD while wearing your new mermaid skirt and fairy wings. You spent time reading books in your pop up castle and when I tried to come in, you said, "No Mama, yours too big." At bedtime you came in from playing soccer in the backyard with Dad and said to me, "I'm very tired Mommy, go upstairs and read a story?" I mean, seriously - you about broke my heart with cuteness.

Happy Birthday Bubsies,

Mom

Spa Day

Without divulging too much about the clients I plan events for, let's just say that they are typically more familiar with the design and look of a $100 bill than I am. Or maybe it's that their familiarity comes more from actually possessing said bills where mine is exclusively from a P Diddy song (is that still his name?).

And while there can be detriments to working with people who are maybe LESS familiar with the experience of clipping coupons than I am, there are also some great benefits. Like thank you gifts. And I may have just received the best one ever yesterday. A client just gave me a spa day at Gene Juarez! PUMPED. Clearly, while this client may be a few rungs above me on the social ladder, she still recalls what being a mother to a 2 year old feels like. Or maybe her assistant picked it out (being the parent of a 2 year old herself). I don't really care how it happened, I'm just thrilled that it did.

Jealous?

Cookies in the oven

I baked 2 loaves of banana bread while Edie napped today (one with chocolate chips, one without - in case you were wondering). After an epic nap (post-swimming naps are the BEST), I finally decided to wake her up. I went into her room and she snapped awake and tried to pretend she wasn't sleeping. Her sweaty, crazy hair and strawberry stained face (she fell asleep in the car while eating strawberries, on the way home from swimming) gave her away. Right away she says, "Mom is baking cookies in the oven." For a second I thought she was still half asleep and referencing a dream, but then I realized she recognized the smell of chocolate chips in the oven and assumed it was cookies.

Orcas circa 3 weeks ago

Edie's daycare closes during the first two weeks of August every year so Jen can have a vacation. We decided to take advantage of the forced family time and spent a week on Orcas Island. The first few days were spent with Jeff's cousin Chris and his wife Beth and son Obie. They live in Vancouver BC so we don't get to see nearly enough of them. After the weekend, the cousins went home but we moved over to our cabin and stayed another 4 days.

Eating cereal post shower on our first morning.

Nap.

It was sunny in the afternoons and Edie developed a MAJOR taste for swimming in the freezing ocean. She would beg for us to take off her clothes, one item at a time and then wade fearlessly in saying, "Oooh, it's chilly!" to Jeff.

Obie joined in the fun.

This was her "mermaid sash". We are VERY into mermaids right now. Like, very. When we rode in the boat that week, Edie would ask if we were going to see any mermaids. I told her that the mermaids liked to live in secret but that we could tell the seals to say hi to them for us. Which prompted a new obsession. About Secret Mermaids.

A man, a boy and a dog.

Family portrait time.

These balloons were an unexpected hit that weekend.Who's the most boring reader ever? DAD. Kidding. He literally read her to sleep for her nap one day. She's still holding her string cheese in one hand - it was actually still pressed to her mouth when she fell asleep, but her hand fell to her lap right when I went for the camera.Quesadillas with black beans and sour cream DIP. Mermaids and Dip are both pretty great in Edie's world.

This moment was so great. Jeff had taken Edie to the beach and came back with her naked and clutching a giant Eagles feather they found on the beach. Edie exclaimed (so proudly) "I found a huge feather Mom!"

Making lemon ice cream with Dad.

Eating it with blueberry pudding cake.

Yelling at Theodore, the local, half-albino deer.

This kid knows how to kill a breakfast. It's probably her favorite meal of the day. Our last bon voyage breakfast - Dad made french toast from Rose's bread.

Kids are funny

Edie was looking at the sky today and exclaimed, "MOM! I see a moon jumping on a cloud!"

A few days ago she came to me and said, "Mommy, I have TWO owies on my skin." I asked, "where?", thinking maybe she had another splinter or had scraped her knee and she looked at me like I was a moron and said, "on my SKIN."

23 Month Letter

I just posted it back-dated to the 30th of July.

The Potty

When I was 2 and getting potty trained, I had a particularly successful day, followed by a trip to the local grocery store. I spent the shopping trip loudly and proudly singing, "I go poo poo in my potty! Make my Mommy SOOOO proud of me!"

Gross.

I haven't been pushing the potty training issue in our house. I know a lot of people who seem very concerned about gradually introducing the potty training process - their kids are peeing once a day in the potty for months and months and that's great, but it's not my bag. I have no desire to drag the potty training process out any longer than necessary. My plan has been to wait until Edie is actively interested in getting out of diapers (not just curious about the potty) and then go hardcore with a week of intense training. I'm told this involves a lot of time in "big girl underwear", large bottles of Gatorade, long days at home, and lots of laundry. Fun!

But then something weird happened this afternoon. At around 5pm, I was using the bathroom when Edie said that she wanted to "sit on the potty like Mommy". Overshare? Sorry. She was rather insistent, so I jokingly took her shorts and diaper off and held her over the toilet. She almost fell in and freaked out about hovering on the edge of the large toilet seat. So we went upstairs to get a new diaper on and instead she went over to her little potty thing in the upstairs bathroom and sat on it. She then proceeded to chill on the mini-toilet for a long period of time. We read stories and shot the shit a bit. It was weird! Not only has she shown a lack of interest in the toilet lately, the few times I've asked her randomly if she wants to sit on the potty (like after a bath, when she's naked and says something about needing to pee and the mini-toilet is RIGHT next to her) she has hated the idea, running scared from the little blue potty. So for her randomly to show such intense interest in sitting on the toilet for what felt like a long time to me, was funny. I got bored pretty quickly. After the 4th book, I said I'd be right back and went downstairs to get a basket of clean laundry. When I walked upstairs approximately 10 seconds later, Edie was standing proudly next to the potty and said, "Edie did pee in the potty". We both peered into the tiny toilet and lo! There was pee! I gave her an extra gummy vitamin (her favorite thing ever) and praised the shit out of the whole thing. She LOVED flushing the toilet and insisted on doing it immediately all over again. At this point I had to run to my dance class so Jeff took over. I'm getting the impression much time was subsequently spent by Jeff on the floor of the upstairs bathroom because she proceeded to pee two more times in the toilet tonight and was one very proud toddler indeed.

I'll be very curious tomorrow to see if this was just a random adventure in peeing, or a new trend. I'll keep you posted. Or maybe not - is this gross? I hate parents who talk all the time about their kid's bathroom habits - GROSS. Perhaps I'll just put a short update in her 2 year letter later this month. Which reminds me that I'm behind on her 23 month letter - Gah!