28 Months

december has been… a lot of caylin time. especially the past 2 weeks. i’ve been home the last 2 weeks than i have since last christmas. it’s weird, and exhausting. i love spending so much time with her, but my energy and patience are about spent.

still wouldn’t trade it for the world. she has such an incredible personality already.

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  • everything is “mooommyyy! mommy! mommy!” in the mornings. it’s cute, but it sure makes it hard to get ready for work.

  • smothering and super cuddly, all the time. again, adorable, but more oft than not there’s pain involved.

  • there have been several nights lately where i’ve snuck into her room and taken her back to bed with me. she’s so cozy to snuggle with. she even wraps her little arms around my neck.
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  • dinner time, or any dining experience for that matter is becoming increasingly difficult–playing with food, putting food in her milk cups (cups never used to be an issue, i don’t know what the hell happened, she’s 2 after all), being a butthead in general about just getting the food in her mouth, demanding everything, shoving her plate/cup out of the way.

  • so many stickers. they are just everywhere.

  • caylin got her first pet–a hermit crab. she named him lobster.
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  • she also went on her second trip to disney world in the last 6 months. talk about spoiled rotten. my mom is loving it, though.
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  • i pulled some of my old barbies out for her to play with, and in typical caylin fashion, she’s obsessed with their shoes.

  • peanuts! chocolate! milk! water! she always wants something. always demanding something. never content. but lately she’s a lot better about saying please at the end. it’s the worst when she’s just exhausted.

  • she likes the “got your nose” game. except it’s, “MY nose! MY face! MY leg! MY belly! MY caylin!” i love it.

  • she had her first “successful” picture with santa! by successful, i mean we all sat with santa and it was kind of awkward, but she didn’t scream. so… success.
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  • chasing her and tickling her until she’s laughing so hard she can’t make noise. can’t get enough of it.

  • she’s been helping me cook a lot lately :) she loves standing on her ladder while i make dinner. she gets very proud of herself for adding ingredients and stirring.
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  • new big girl bed is a big deal for her. she’s done really well with it. except last night. it has a slide. she hasn’t gone down the slide after i’ve tucked her in until last night. i closed her door, and all of a sudden i heard her baby and water fly down the slide. i opened the door, and she’s under her bed playing. i yelled at her to get back in, tucked her in, and closed the door. this happened 2 more times. then she figured out that if she doesn’t put the baby and water bottle down the slide, i can’t hear her. but i heard her butt hit the floor. i busted in, scared the crap out of her, and yelled at her to get back in bed. that was the end of it. hopefully we’re good for a while. it hasn’t happened tonight.
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  • we recently started watching parts of harry potter with her before bedtime and she loves it–“more barry?!” she loves hagrid. we’ve watched 3 of them so far.

  • books at bedtime, memorized. all of them. she reads along with me now, except on the nights when she’s too wired to concentrate. which is… often.

  • she’s obsessed with riding on brett’s shoulders. she also tries to wash his hair at bathtime.
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  • singing. ohh, the singing. all the time. i have yet to get it on video. she has the frozen soundtrack memorized. it is awesome.

  • last, but certainly the most important, she tells us she loves us. before bedtime the other night, she told brett and i, “i webo”. translation, “i love you”. we about died.

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this is all december.

as for january, it’s only day 2. but potty training started today. let me just say… it’s not fun. we’re doing the “3 day potty training” technique (link). a guy at work has 3 girls, different personalities, worked like a charm. so we decided to do it. we marked our calendars for this weekend months ago.

caylin went downtown with me and danielle and amanda yesterday, and we stopped at the candy store. we loaded up on skittles, jellybeans, m&ms, reeses pieces, you name it. in preparation for today’s “rewards”.

and since i’m a slacker, i waited until the last minute to buy mattress pads. brett slept until nearly noon today, so i didn’t feel as bad leaving this afternoon to make a target run to get all the crap i forgot. along with about 30 new pairs of undies, another training potty, mattress covers, more sheets, and a few bigger “rewards” for when she finally goes #2 on the big girl potty. because, for the love of god, i wish she would just do it already. she has GOT to be uncomfortable.

she was getting sick of hearing us ask her if her undies were dry. sick of us telling her, “make sure you tell mommy and daddy if you have to go potty!”, and above all, just sick of sitting on the damn potty. she’s in a very hit and kick and slap stage right now when she gets ticked off or tired/cranky (she didn’t nap today), and i know the guide says not to reprimand or be negative at all during this process, but i’m not letting her get away with that. not gonna happen.

between all that, and the new potty in general, and probably her ridiculous cheese consumption on a fairly regular basis, she didn’t go today. she was not in a good mood. we will try again tomorrow. i found her some “frozen” shoes, a tinkerbelle doll, and a “frozen” little fake camera (it was like $2).

on the other hand, she went #1 twice on the big girl potty. she did it, and she got SO excited afterward. brett was on a telecon and she ran out to tell him to come look at what she had done. she threw her arms around my neck, “I DID IT MOMMY!” so, progress. she also told us every time she had to pee or was starting to. i gave her the little frozen camera as a reward for today.

we still have the weekend. that sentence alone makes me shudder.

like i said on facebook, i want all the drinks. i think i’d prefer going into labor again over this. at least then i got to lay in bed, eat candy, watch TBS, and take drugs.