I have instituted a no-falling-behind-in-the-housework rule for myself over the past week, therefore I have no energy left for the words.

Sunday:

Please notice the nice healthy cheese snack and ignore the cookies.

Dual couch nap! On a Sunday! Nirvana!

You know that commercial about doing two things at once? This is Evan’s version.

Monday:

Macaroni necklace making

Caroline is fake-napping because she is fake-sick so Evan is fake-doctoring her

Hey, you’re not allowed to sit like that. Stop. Immediately. Stop.

Tuesday:

I sleep in a drawer!

Gym warm up

We stopped at the boat store so I could talk to the boat guy & I found them “fishing”

Wednesday:

Spider walks

Practicing her beam/dunking skillz

I made a lot of dip this week

Thursday:

This is how I get to stay in bed an extra 30 minutes

Waking up to this instead of the dishes from last night is nice

Trying to climb onto the cutting table at the fabric store

Friday:

I can tell she’s my kid because she loves Home Depot

ATTACK OF THE GIANT CAROLINE

I got to eat about 30% of this – Caroline ate the rest

Saturday:

An ominous start to a road trip

Caroline’s favorite toy everrrrrrr

Tiny slumber party

That was exhausting. Only EVERY OTHER WEEK OF MY LIFE left to go!

Did you take iPhone photos of your week? Link up with one or several below! Please consider joining, even if you haven’t done it before – it’s really fun!

The list of skills Caroline has mastered is pretty long, but the list of skills she THINKS she has mastered is hilarious. She’s like a walking internet meme. Eating yogurt? NAILED IT (as long as you don’t mind that she’s covered from head to waist in just as much yogurt as she got in her mouth). Dressing herself? NAILED IT (even though both her legs are in one leg-hole of her pants and her shirt is on backwards). Reading books? NAILED IT (all our books go like this: “One day…kitty, uh oh, look! The end.”) Torturing her brother? NAILED IT. For real. Every. damn. time.

Because of the snow plus more snow, this is only Caroline’s second week at school but so far she loves it. When I picked her up today she told me she loves her teachers and loves baby school and wants more. I’m thrilled she is happy there and thrilled I don’t have to even pretend to feel bad about enjoying my childless mornings twice a week. My hope is she has the opportunity to be a leader in her class, since at home she get bossed around when it comes to play time. I’m trying to make sure she gets to develop as her own little person (especially since the brother-copying at home as gotten OUT OF CONTROL in both good and terrible ways).

As well as Caroline tolerates winter (she is a true New England December Baby) I am so looking forward to the adventures we’re going to have when the weather warms up. Now that she’s big enough to walk/eat human food/drink from a regular cup/stay out all day without a nap we can go on longer and more interesting day trips. It’s like hanging out with an adorable little friend instead of dragging around a reluctant baby. She can still be a major handful (Confidential to the people at Target the other night: SO SORRY. AGAIN. SORRY.) and is by no means an angel but she can be reasoned with 75% of the time. And by reasoned with I mean bribed, mostly. Some weeks are better than others but there are whole entire days where I don’t have to scold or put her in time out because she listened to my requests and followed through. I suspect this is just an up-phase and we’ll be back in a down-phase of listening soon – but at least in a few weeks we won’t be trapped in the house anymore.

I think she’s finally gone through a growth spurt, since her 18 month clothes are officially too small. We’re moving up to all 24 month stuff but even some of her 2T clothes fit. She’s still squeezing her feet into her size 5 sneakers, but I think they’re probably too small. Don’t tell her that though, because girl NEEDS her ” pink ‘parkly shoes!!”

Likes include apples, oranges, grapes, strawberries, peanut butter, noodles, drinking from a straw, The Backyardigans (she knows all their names), singing, dancing, shouting, Brutus, Blushes, her brother (mostly), Daddy, splashing, reading, puzzles, swimming, princess skirts, eating snow, rock’n’rolly music, school, Monsters Inc, cuddles and pretending to be a kitty cat named Ninja who meows instead of talks.

Dislikes include nightmares, cleaning up, wearing hair clippies, being hungry and not getting her way.

26 Month Milestones (from BabyCenter, as usual)

Mastered Skills (most kids can do)
Stacks six blocks – Piece of cake.
Walks with smooth heel-to-toe motion – She’s too busy skipping, running and dancing to do much walking.

Emerging Skills (half of kids can do)
Uses pronouns (e.g., I, me, you) – Me me me me me me mine me mine allll day.
Washes and dries own hands – Like a champ.

Advanced Skills (a few kids can do)
Speaks clearly most of the time – Other parents can understand her. Childless grown ups less. Her teachers understand more than I do.
Draws a vertical line – She’s must more interested in coloring in the entire page blue (ALWAYS BLUE) than drawing a stupid old line.

*Giveaway now closed*

I am blond-haired, blue-eyed, very freckled and of Swedish and English decent…but compared to the rest of my family I have a fantastic tan. E isn’t so much “pale” as “transparent” and the kids definitely take after him. With all that paleness comes the usual complaints – dry itchy skin, sensitivity to all sorts of soaps and additives and cleansers, and chapped cheeks from runny noses and cold air. On top of that, my husband has a mildish case of rosacea (I say mildish, since it doesn’t bother him much – “vain” is not a word in his vocabulary – but it is persistent.)

So when Aquaphor emailed me and was like “Hey, can we send you some Aquaphor to try?” I was like “You mean send me MORE Aquaphor? Since I already buy it in the giant tub since we ran out of the giant tub the Navy prescribed to E for his face? Yes, yes you can.”

They sent me the Aquaphor Baby Healing Ointment and the Aquaphor Baby Gentle Wash & Shampoo, both of which are favorites already in our house. The Healing Ointment is great on diaper rash, itchy spots and especially on the chapped skin on Evan’s face:

7:30 pm, right after bath. Poor baby. His nose runs and he wipes it with his right sleeve so the right side of his face is always the worst (We’re working on using tissues, I promise).

I used a teeny tiny bit of the Aquaphor Healing Ointment right before bed and…

8:00 am the next morning. Still a little dry but SO much better. Luckily a tube of Aquaphor lasts a long, long time so I just dabbed some more on throughout the day.

It even worked wonders on my thumb last night, after I burned myself lighting E’s birthday candles at 1 am (free tip: don’t play with fire when you’re really, really tired).

The Baby Gentle Wash & Shampoo is tear-free, fragrance-free and washes out really easily – all very important factors when trying to wash two squirmy kids who FREAK when you get water in their eyes or ears. Now that Caroline has hair long enough that I need to Deal With It regularly I appreciate that the Aquaphor Wash & Shampoo leaves it soft and shiny. It also took the marker right off both kids hands (and arms and knees and faces…) without drying or irritating their skin. We are Aquaphor devotees and I couldn’t imagine going through a whole winter without it.

To help YOU and your family enjoy your winter, Aquaphor wants to send one of my readers this amazing prize pack:

Bundle of Joy Package 

•  $50 Visa Gift Card
•  “Warm Buddy” to cuddle with
•  Ice Age Continental Drift (2012) DVD to watch with your family
•  A Pottery Barn kids picture frame to keep and share your memories!
• Godiva hot cocoa mix, perfect after a cold day
• Aquaphor Baby Healing Ointment  is a dermatologist and pediatrician trusted product that helps protect and relieve dry, cracked skin. It provides effective soothing relief for dry skin and its mild formula is safe for external use on your baby’s delicate, sensitive skin.
•  Aquaphor Baby Gentle Wash & Shampoo is a mild, fragrance free cleanser that gently cleanses both skin and hair. Enriched with soothing chamomile and provitamin B5, the tear-free formula is specially designed and clinically proven to be gentle for baby’s sensitive skin.

To enter, just leave me a comment on this post sharing something you’re excited about this month!  I’ll pick a winner on February 19th and notify them by email, so be sure to enter one when you comment! The giveaway is only open to US Residents who are 18 years of age or older.

p.s. The Warm Buddy in the prize pack is fantastic – it has a bean bag in the middle you can microwave and then tuck inside. Both kids love cuddling it after we’ve been playing outside and I swear it leads to extra couch naps. Exhibit A:

If you find that Aquaphor #WorksWonders, we’d love for you to take and share pictures of how your family is able to enjoy time together with us on Twitter and Facebook!

I was provided with the prize pack listed above as part of my review but no other compensation was received. All opinions are my own. 

And the winner is…Comment #1! (I love when Random.org choose #1)

Congrats to straderspiel for winning the prize pack! Watch for an email!

I don’t know if I’ve ever said this out loud before but we are officially a no-nap household. Neither kid – the 3 and a half year old or the just-turned-2 year old – naps anymore. It a) SUCKS and b) isn’t so bad.

Back in November I took ALL the advice I got on my post about Caroline refusing to sleep if I gave her the iPad, which was the only way to get her upstairs and into nap-time mode without a fight. I tried putting a time limit on it, which was about as effective as just punching myself in the face. I tried just taking it away and letting her cry/play on her own, but she responded by murdering several library books and a stuffed rabbit. I tried lying down with her, which lead to being actually punched in the face.

None of it really helped and fighting about napping is even more exhausting than not napping – so I gave up. I let her win. We went from 3 hour naps to no naps, which also means Evan almost never gets a chance to nap on the couch or floor so there is NO SLEEPING in my house between the hours of 6:30 am and 7:30 pm.

(Well, unless I turn on some Mickey Mouse Club House and leave the snack drawer open and let the kids fend for themselves while I lie on the couch and periodically shout “Stop jumping on your sister! We do not ride Brutus like a small horse! No, markers do not go in your nose!” with my eyes closed. That’s not exactly restful, although it does save me from going totally insane at least once a week.)

Since they’re not napping anymore other than an occasional car nap between errands, bedtime is almost always cake. Delicious, quick, easy cake that involves me sitting on Caroline’s bed playing on my phone for 30 seconds before she passes out. Mornings are also pretty good, unless a certain ginger wakes me up at 5 am by staring at me silently until I jump up mumbling “OMG I’M UP WHO WHAT TACOS”.

I’ll also admit it’s sort of awesome not to schedule our day around naps. Blocking off 3 or 4 hours a day really put a cramp in our activities, especially in the winter when nothing is open until 10 am and it gets dark at 4 pm. OK kids, let’s go have fun for exactly 43 minutes before we have to head home for lunch and Caroline’s nappy nap! I now have the freedom to lounge around in my fleecy pants all morning, take a shower and noon and THEN drag the gingers out to the totally deserted (no seriously, we were the ONLY people there at noon on a Wednesday) Children’s Museum or to run errands or whatever.

On the “SUCKS” side of the no napping is everything else you would expect. Yesterday Evan fell asleep in the car in the 15 minutes between the museum and his super quick second flu shot (NOT EVEN A SHOT just the nose spray) appointment and he turned into a monster. Thrashing, screaming, throwing himself down in the parking lot, trying to kick me, trying to kick the nurse, shouting “I DON’T WANT A POKE!” etc etc someone please bring me a large bottle of wine etc forever. There are meltdowns. Sooooo many meltdowns. Not to mention the amount of TV the kids are watching some days. It’s disgusting. I’m ashamed. But not quite ashamed enough to cancel Disney Junior and declare us a screen-free household. Nope.

To sum up: I love my kids, I love spending time with them, and I am absolutely signing them both up for preschool over the summer.

p.s. New blog header!! I’m going for clean and modern, although I’ll probably go back to copious ginger photos in a few months. I can’t help myself.

Caroline is still sick with some sort of head cold that manifests itself in snot, misery and a need to be held constantly. Evan isn’t sick with anything I can identify, unless you count being incredibly three-ish a medical condition. Even my new and improved hug-my-babies-tighter-appreciate-every-moment mentality is being put to the test by his completely unreasonable screaming and hitting. I am still hugging him tighter and appreciating my children but I’m doing it while holding back tears of frustration. Those are the days when the best I can do is be thankful that tomorrow will be (HAS to be) better and I am still lucky in so many ways.

Despite the less than ideal conditions in the Davis house now life goes on, the holidays get closer, and everyone needs to be fed…which means we have to leave the house. I’ve been dreading it with every fiber of my being clenched so hard I might break a bone. At home my children can only bother me. In public they can bother everyone. Everyone just trying to get their last minute packages sent and pick up their Christmas ham and buy wrapping paper and get through the day. Everyone who probably has bigger problems than a kid with a runny nose and who don’t deserve to be coughed all over in line for coffee.

But instead of scowls and angry glares, we experienced nothing but kindness. I came home on the brink of tears (I feel like I’m always on the brink of tears these days) not because I was upset but because I was so touched by the kindness around me. Thank you, to everyone:

Thank you to my friend Sara who was extra patient and helpful with my kids during her visit, although I’m afraid I might have scared her out of ever having children.

Thank you to the elderly gentleman in the parking lot who brought me a cart when he saw me trying to bundle a whining Caroline out of the car and into the grocery store.

Thank you to the deli counter ladies who did their best to cheer Caroline up with slices of cheese and compliments.

Thank you to the meat counter guy, the produce guy, the man in the frozen section, the lady in the baking aisle and the cashier who all sympathized with me over how hard it is to get things done when your child isn’t feeling well and wished us health and happy holidays rather than judging me for bringing my sad baby out in public.

Thank you to the Toys R Us employees who were pleasant and helpful during what I know must be a really rough time of year to be a Toys R Us employee. You helped me make a little kid in New York’s Christmas wish come true.

Thank you to the woman at the post office counter who helped me label and box a last minute package while my arms were full of a toddler who wouldn’t let me put her down for even a second.

Thank you to Evan’s teachers who sent home a second jingle bell in his backpack for his sister so they can both believe in the magic of Christmas when we read The Polar Express tonight.

Thank you to everyone going out of your way to be just a little bit kinder or more patient this year. I don’t know if it’s the holiday spirit, our sense of community in Connecticut right now, or just extremely good luck that I’ve encountered so many nice people but I appreciate it more than words can say. My faith-in-humanity meter is no longer hovering below empty. I promise to return the favor.