Our vacation is quickly approaching – 19 daaaaaaays!!! – and although I am insanely excited about it I’ve started to think about the practical aspects of leaving the kids and house in someone else’s hands for a week and I’m freaking out.  My reasons are two-fold, and I will of course tell you about them now in great detail.

Reason 1 is because how can anyone besides me take care of my beautiful, special, magical snowflakes? They are delicate flowers! Fragile angels! Helpless babies! No one besides me can give them the care and love and constant attention they require to blossom and grow on a daily basis. I am their Mother, giver of Life, completely Irreplaceable.

Of course on a daily basis my love and life-giving mostly involves handing them cheese, playing trains, pouring juice and making sure they don’t kill each other. Not exactly rocket science.

But on the other hand, there ARE a lot of small things that matter an enormous amount to two toddlers but other people wouldn’t know. At bedtime, Evan wants me to sing his songs in a specific order. Caroline likes different sippy cups than Evan does. Her favorite games are hard to understand unless you realize punching you in the face is playing. When Evan asks for a “chocolate bar” he means a granola bar. Are their lives going to be RUINED if someone else does things differently for a week? No, of course not. And because my folks are coming here to our house the amount of change really is minimal. I just want things to be as easy as possible for everyone.

Reason 2 is because there are going to be PEOPLE in my HOUSE and I won’t be here to help them find things which means when they need extra towels or more toilet paper they are going to be opening closets and looking under beds and oh God it’s giving me heart palpitations just THINKING about it. Despite my best efforts and intentions, I am not a well-organized person. Yesterday I “cleaned” the guest room, which consisted of ten minutes untangling yarn, three minutes staring hopelessly at the giant pile of stuff still left to organize and thirty minutes of shoving craft supplies under the bed. Success! Or…not. At least it looks better than the cabinet under the bathroom sink. Or the pantry. Or our bedroom. Or – OH GOD – the basement. THE BASEMENT.

Then there’s the tiny issue that my mother is the kind of person who cleans my microwave every time she visits and my father is the kind of person who builds a new patio every time he visits so things need to be CLEAN and projects need to be FINISHED. Of course, I’ve known about this trip for a year so obviously my anxiety levels aren’t at the level of “get off my butt and do something” yet.

So here is my question for anyone who has left their kid(s) before OR hes watched someone else’s kids for them: How many pages of instructions are helpful vs. crazy-pants obsessive? Evan isn’t helpless, he can ask for the sippy cup he wants, but no one’s going to know what he means when he asks for the “camp-it hoot show” (Captain Hook show = Jake and The Neverland Pirates). Do I need to catalog our exact bedtime routine, or just “Bathtime at 7, in bed by 7:45” good enough? The most stressful part is I’m going to be virtually unreachable, so if I forget to write down “We usually ride the elevator a few times when we go to the mall, even if we don’t need to” I’m imagining the kids sobbing on the floor while my parents look on helplessly.

I don’t think there’s any advice for the house-mess situation, unless you want to come over and clean it for me. Ok, thanks, see you soon.

So it turns out Caroline is not only a genius when it comes to mobility, but a genius at EVERYTHING. I know you’re not going to believe me, because everyone thinks their baby is a genius, but it’s true. She is a tiny, adorable genius.

Caroline is super good at communicating. She can say kitty, mommy, daddy, hi, bye, cheese and yes. Then on a whim I showed her the sign for “fish” and she learned it immediately. Now she can sign fish, hat, milk, more, please and thank you. And she does! She signs please and thank you!! Plus she puts it together to say “cheese” while signing more and then sign please. I’m going to have to get out my baby sign stuff from the class I took with Evan and teach her some more. Heck, I should probably just break out War & Peace and we’ll start reading it at bedtime now, seeing as how she’s a genius and all. She also has a baby language that sounds like “ttkka ttkka ttkka!” that means “tickle tickle”, but it also means “let’s play” and “let’s go” and “I’m happy” and “PAY ATTENTION TO ME.”

It’s kind of weird, having this tiny little baby – because she is still tiny, people are always shocked when I say she’s 14 months – who acts so much like a little person. She will grab your hand, anyone’s hand really, and lead them around the mall or the store or the house or anywhere they will follow. And it’s adorable because people always LET her get away with it. She also does the back-up-into-any-available-lap thing Evan used to do so don’t sit on the floor unless you’re ready for a lap full of ginger. And today at a friend’s birthday she made every single adult hang her upside down. Which is not something people normally DO to babies, especially babies they don’t necessarily know very well, but she is both convincing and insistent. Someone suggested I tie a little sign around her neck that says “If you pick me up I will throw myself backwards” to avoid accidental head-dropping.

She still eats anything, but is on a fruit and cheese kick which is…not so good for the diapers. We’re down to only nursing before nap and before bed and she doesn’t nurse to sleep for either, so E can do it if he’s home. I’ve got 21 days left to wean her entirely, but even if I were to leave right now I suspect she’d have a rough 24 hours and then be totally over it. She drinks milk/water/juice out of any kind of cup and just generally shows up her brother’s super picky habits on a daily basis.

Likes include blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, watermelon, yellow American cheese slices, climbing, dancing, music, slides, peek a boo, shoving her entire hand in my mouth, her brother, the kitty, books, pretending to be a dinosaur, hanging upside down, running, Daddy, smiling, tickles and pretending to use the iPad while really just smearing stuff on it.

Dislikes include raspberries (who knows why), having ANYTHING taken away, shopping carts, sitting still, having her nose wiped and falling on her head. Although she falls on her head so regularly maybe that IS something she likes.

Bazillion pics now, milestones below:

Giant head bump is GIANT. Although she doesn't seem to mind at all.

Vintage sweater & hand-me-down party dress and shoes

Being hauled off to eat cupcakes. Torture!!

Maybe she's a musical genius too!

14 Month Milestones (from BabyCenter, as usual)

Mastered Skills (most kids can do)
Eats with fingers – Score one for baby-led weaning! She can feed herself almost anything, especially if you put it in a snack trap. She can also feed herself with a fork/spoon if you put the food on it for her.
Empties containers of contents – My floors, let me show you them. Oh wait I CAN’T because they are covered in all the things Caroline took out of containers.
Imitates others – Yes! That’s why I started signing.

Emerging Skills (half of kids can do)
Toddles well – Oh Baby Center.
Initiates games – She will grab my hand and make me play things like “pat baby’s mouth while she goes ahhhhhh to make a funny sound” or “everybody try on this hat AHAHAHA THAT’S HILARIOUS”.
Points to one body part when asked – She knows “head” and she can find MY nose, but I don’t know if she knows any others.
Responds to instructions (e.g., “give me a kiss”) – When she feels like it. TODDLERS.

Advanced Skills (a few kids can do)
Uses a spoon or fork – See above.
Matches lids with appropriate containers – I seem to remember having trouble answering this one with Evan too, since we don’t have any container/lid toys. I think she would understand the concept, since she’s a baby genius and all.
Pushes and pulls toys while walking – No biggie.

Although my week here was fine, I spent a good part of it too wrapped up in being sad about a far-away-friend’s tragedy to focus on anything. Don’t let anyone tell you internet friendships aren’t as real as any other friendships.

Sunday:

Too bad he can't ACTUALLY make any donuts

I wonder where Evan is hiding? I can't fnd him!

Caroline's room makes me happy

Monday:

Hey Mom, he's sleeping. Got a Sharpie?

Practicing her "embarrassed teenager" face

Look Mommy! Baby thirsty!

 Tuesday:

Trying to get a Valentine playgroup photo

Caroline ditched the candy to eat an entire tub of watermelon

Hide & Seek at the yarn store

The train table at the library was trashed, so I, uh, HELPED the kids set up a new track. Or maybe I ignored them and did it all myself.

Wednesday:

New morning routine: let Evan play iPad for half an hour while I relax. It's like a snooze button for my kid.

Playing in the foam pit at gymnastics

OMG THIS BATH IS HOT

Thursday:

Couch nap for the boy who insists he doesn't need naps anymore

He also insists he doesn't need pajamas. Oh toddlers.

Friday:

Window shopping at the toy store

Broccoli? WTF Mom?

Trying to look angelic, right before he splashes half the water out of the tub

Saturday:

PEEK A BOO!

Caroline has decided she has a moral objection to shirts

I escaped to run errands alone and celebrated with the world's largest iced coffee

 Right now it looks like E is getting a 3-day weekend (although it’s the Navy, who the hell knows if that’ll actually happen) so hopefully it will be a good chance to recharge. We’ve got a DVR full of stuff we haven’t seen, tons of laundry to catch up on and a 3rd birthday party to attend. I hope your weekend is fun of family, friends and fun too!

Did you take any camera phone photos this week? Link up with one or lots using the linky below and grab the code (so it shows on your blog too!) over at Amy’s . It’s really fun!

First off, thank you all for being so kind on Monday (and in real life since then). I got not one single comment that was anything less than totally supportive and awesome – not even anonymously or in my spam filter. I was LOOKING for someone to tell me to go screw myself for being a lousy mom and a lousy human being – because that’s how I’ve been feeling about myself for months – but now I guess I’ll have to stop beating myself up and just enjoy feeling like a person again.

Ok, phew, back to our regularly scheduled posting.

On Tuesday I took the kids to visit the preschool a friend recommended. I’m SO OVER calling around and trying to find info about every single program we might even consider considering. I HATE making phone calls, especially because  for some reason these schools are harder to track down than Osama Bin Laden (is that still a joke? What else is hard to track down? Big Foot?) They aren’t listed anywhere, they don’t have direct phone numbers, NONE of them have websites, which is ridiculous. IT IS 2012. GET ONLINE. Anyways, I called for info on this particular school a few weeks ago and read through their packet and it seemed nice so we went in to look around.

I liked it. Evan seemed to like it. They have a toddler program Caroline can attend when she’s 2-ish. There weren’t any children chained up in the corners and I didn’t see anyone pushing meth behind the play equipment so I guess it’s…good? What are the standards for preschool? Am I supposed to judge whether their circle time is appropriately circular? Should I be worried that some of the butterfly craft projects were done in non-complementary colors? They had lots of blocks and puzzles and dinosaurs and OK fine, so it’s going to feel a bit like I’m just paying to let him play three days a week but is that really so bad? I like the idea of someone else arguing with encouraging him to pick up after himself and doing the same puzzle over and over and helping him wash his hands every time he thinks they have gotten even the tiniest bit sticky. I think that would be good for both of us.

Based on my completely non-scientific survey on Twitter the cost seems reasonable (although my husband is still having a minor heart attack) and within our price range. I suppose if it was REALLY REALLY important we could figure out a way to pay for a fancier school. And if I started buying our fruits and vegetables off the bruised cart and switched to generic toothpaste and don’t buy ANY new clothes for the next 5 years we might even be able to afford the fancy Montessori school for a semester or two. But do I really want to apply for tuition assistance for a 3-year-old? Am I somehow failing my kids if I don’t send them to the very best thing available? And who even knows if that WOULD be the very best thing? Maybe Evan would hate it. Maybe he’s going to hate any preschool. I’m pretty sure I got kicked out of at least one myself – also known as the Great Block Throwing Scandal of ’86 – so I wouldn’t be too shocked.

This decision really shouldn’t be this hard. I keep telling myself I should just be glad we don’t live somewhere that super competitive waiting list $10,000 a year preschools are our only option. I think it’s helping, a little at least.