This was my WordPress dashboard yesterday:

See that little number up there next to “posts”? The one that says 999? That makes THIS, the post you are reading RIGHT NOW, my 1000th post here on Bebehblog. Or maybe bebehblog. Or Bebeh Blog. One thousand posts in and I still can’t decide how I want to print my own name. Or how exactly to pronounce it, for that matter. Hey, free tip, if you start your own blog, spend more than .352 seconds coming up with a good name.

You should listen to me, I’m obviously an expert. I mean, I’ve written a THOUSAND THINGS on the interwebs.

I also passed my 3 year bloggiversary last week. July 24th marks three full years of me documenting pregnancies, births and babies in far too much detail. I posted twice my first day,  here and here, and got an earth-shattering 1 comments. If, for some reason, you find yourself trapped on a dessert island with no way to contact the outside world but somehow still with access to my blog, you can read every single post ever in my archives, right over there on the left hand side. It would be an excellent way to drive yourself insane even faster than just the starvation and isolation alone.

If I was a better blogger, the kind of big time internet famous I secretly dreamed of being when I posted that first day, I would have done some epic giveaway to mark 3 years of blogging. And then something even MORE epic for the 1000th post. I’m also coming up on 10,000 comments (well, sort of) and that probably deserves the MOST EPIC GIVEAWAY OF ALL (You get a pony! And you get a pony! And you get a pony!!). But alas, even after three years I haven’t had a single company hammer down my door to give me (and you) free stuff. It might have something to do with the fact that out of 1000 posts, approximately 976 mention my boobs. I am nothing if not a true professional.

So instead, you get the same thing you always get here: ramblings and bad jokes and pictures of my kids – although in reality, most people come here because they’re looking for circus birthday ideas or the baby tutu tutorial. Let’s pretend YOU came here for pictures of the kids doing fun summer things:

Watermelon Face

We call this look "wrapped around my little finger"

I'll take my ginger To Go

It's COLD!

He's actually fighting to get back IN the pool, despite the chattering teeth. He's turned into such a water baby.

Just the toes

One chubby peanut, nomming on a sandy pretzel

This is the life

This game is called splashy splash. Go ahead and try to guess the rules. (Also, pretty good for a point & shoot camera, right?)

Boating

My baby boy is now one of the guys

I hope three more years from now I’m celebrating my 2000th post.Although I don’t expect anyone to still be reading, I appreciate you today and always.

xoxo

I want to start this post out by telling you that Caroline the best, cutest, smartest, most advanced baby ever in the whole world, but I know you would think I am just saying that because I am her mother and I am SUPPOSED to think she is the best and the cutest etc. And yes, that is true. But she also is a really, really awesome baby and if you were to come spend the afternoon with her you would also agree she is the best – except, of course, for your OWN baby, because obviously you feel the same way about your baby as I do about Caroline.

But I also don’t remember thinking these things about Little Evan as much. I thought he was the cutest and the best, but I was constantly worried he was behind in his development – not rolling soon enough or catching on in baby sign language class. Some of that was true – he did take longer to roll and crawl – but I suspect a lot of it was first-time mom worry-warting for no reason. In fact, I think I STILL spend a ton of time worrying that Evan might not be hitting his milestones as fast as other kids, while when I think about Caroline’s milestones I think “meh, she’ll get there.”

Wow, that was a lot of words to say what I really mean, which is Caroline is awesome. Other than refusing to take a bottle (ARG BLERG BLAH) she is the perfect baby – easy, predictable, happy, and a good sleeper. She gets up sometime between 5:30 and 7, takes a short nap almost exactly 2 hours later, is awake until around noon when she goes back down for her long afternoon nap (conveniently at the same time as Little Evan!). She wakes up again around 3 and is her happy, playful self when Daddy gets home from work and while I make dinner. We’ve started giving both kids a bath together right around 7 pm and Caroline is asleep before 8. She usually gets up to eat once at around 2 am, but occasionally needs me twice and even more occasionally she’ll sleep straight through. She still sleeps in the swing at night in our room, but it is broken and doesn’t actually swing anymore. I’m just too lazy to set up the pack’n’play. Mother of the year, right here. We run a nightlight and a white noise machine and the classical music on the swing for her to make up for it.

I have no idea how we fell into such a pleasant schedule so easily, but I suspect it had a lot to do with already HAVING a schedule with the toddler and Caroline being easy-going enough to just fit herself in. Sometimes I feel bad for that – I don’t want her to suffer from Second Child Inadequacy Issues – but she is so obviously loved by everyone she meets I think she’ll probably avoid therapy at least a few more years.

She is still kind of a peanut, wearing mostly 3-6 month clothes with an occasional 6-9 month sleeper or dress. I like to think she’s conveniently pocket-sized for those times I need to carry her while chasing a toddler across a playground. It’s nice of her to accommodate me like that.

Caroline’s favorite things include boobs, the dog, the cats, crawling, pulling up on things, eating mulch, swinging, Twinkle Twinkly Little Star, her brother, biting me with her one teeny tiny tooth and nomming on things. Dislikes include bottles, sippy cups, purees, falling on her face, the sun in her eyes and not being able to walk. It fills her with Baby Rage.

Other things that fill her with baby rage: being forced to pose for photo shoots. Although I may have gotten just a FEW shots to post. And by a few I mean a bazillion.

All my tutu pictures are out of focus, because she wanted to eat it.

There was a little girl, who had a little curl

You have a baby...in a camera bag!

7 Month Milestones (from BabyCenter, as usual. New chart this month!)

Mastered Skills (most kids can do)
Sits without support – Yes, easily. We’ve reached the “oh just set her anywhere” stage where I don’t worry about putting a pillow behind her.
Drags objects toward herself – Yes, although it’s much more likely she’ll move herself towards an object.

Emerging Skills (half of kids can do)
Lunges forward or starts crawling – Crawls like a champ. She can do both a regular baby crawl and a funny half-sitting monkey butt scoot, where she has one leg up.
Jabbers or combines syllables – I swear on a stack of Twilight books she’s started saying “Mama”. I wouldn’t bet any money she actually MEANS mama, but she can say it.
Starts to experience stranger anxiety – My kids have never met a stranger they wouldn’t go home with, although today at the park a friend tried to hold Caroline and she was NOT HAVING IT. So maybe?

Advanced Skills (a few kids can do)
Waves goodbye – No waving, but she can sign milk. Like I said, smartest baby ever.
Stands while holding onto something – Yes. Our hands, my leg, the couch, the bouncy seat. STANDING IS HER FAVORITE.
Bangs objects together – Well, she’s not going to be playing cowbell with the Blue Oyster Cult anytime soon but she could probably whack a couple sticks together if I gave them to her.
Begins to understand object permanence – If I am in a room and she is looking at me and I leave a room, she sometimes gets upset. She will crawl around a corner to look for me. But I don’t think she does that with anyone else, so it’s more likely “Oh no my food is too far away!”

Sunday:

Tug of War. Caroline won.

To really drive a speed boat corectly he's going to need a beer and a sunburn.

Chubby arm

Grocery shopping. My what a lot of carbs you have.

Monday:

No YOU'RE wearing mismatched pajamas!

Kisses from a friend at Stroller Strides

Chillin' in the only room with A/C and a tv - our super messy bedroom

Tuesday:

I made a mess! Look how happy I am!

My official water sprayer at Stroller Strides

Temp at 9 am. Blerg.

Sibiling bath time is now everyone's favorite part of the day - they love the tub and I love that it means it's almost BEDTIME.

Wednesday:

I started my first new knitting project in months. Very excited.

"I am just going to warn you now, I am thinking about standing up. Just so you know."

DADDY HORSE GO!

 Thursday:

Mom mom mom mom mom mom are you watching mom?

TA DA!

Maybe I should have named her Clementine

Friday:

Visiting the knitting shop means knitting for me, dancing with adorable little girls for Little Evan

This is what the clock said when I woke up from MY nap. Yay naps.

We tried out the video chat on Google+ (I love it! We should do it!)

This is literally the first time she has ever been in the crib. Ever. I had to empty all the junk out.

Saturday:

Homemade teething biscuits. They were not crunchy, but good for baby nomming.

I have no idea what's going on here.

Target dressing room self portrait. I bought it.

Aw, look at my adorable pale family.

It was one of those weeks that FELT super busy but we really didn’t do much. The feeling-like-crap for a few days didn’t help – neither did the heat – but the weekend so far as been good. I’ve got another book review to write (as soon as I finish the book)(which is due tonight)(eeek) and some BlogHer conference freaking out to do and dinner on the patio to plan and children to snuggle, so I’ll be back but probably not until Tuesday. Hope your weekend was fantastic!

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!

Starting a post with a disclaimer always feels sort of cheap and pointless, because if I’m able to sum up everything I’m about to say with “I don’t really MEAN it” then why write the post at all? And why would you bother to read? But blogging is the equivalent of spending 45 minutes picking lint out of your belly button so I’m going to do all the navel gazing I want and you can just come back tomorrow for some pictures of my TWO YEAR OLD.

Here’s the disclaimer: I’m not pregnant and don’t plan to be any time in 2011. My uterus is taking the year off.

Here’s the introspection:

I was approximately a week pregnant at Little Evan’s first birthday party. We had decided to start trying for baby #2 once baby #1 was 12 months old. We picked that date totally arbitrarily – it SOUNDED like a reasonable age gap – but I was really really not ready just then. Evan was not an easy baby. But because – TMI ALERT – I never got my period back we weren’t really trying trying but weren’t not trying and then bam! Knocked up. No time to think about how Little Evan was still nursing 6 times a day, still wasn’t eating any solid food, didn’t drink milk from a cup, didn’t sleep through the night, and didn’t listen to a thing I said.

Three months later he had totally weaned, drank whole milk like it was going out of style and slept 12 hours straight at night. He still doesn’t listen but if I waited until that happened before getting pregnant he’d be an only child. So besides the time during those first 3 months when I lay on the floor wishing I could go back to being totally childless (nothing like getting up at night with a toddler screaming for milk when all you want to do is hug the toilet) having babies 20 months apart seemed like a totally reasonable choice, even though the first baby was a, uh, challenging infant.

At my first prenatal appointment with Caroline, the doctor looked at my chart and said “Have you considered what kind of birth control you’ll use after you have the baby?” And I said “Can you put in an IUD while I’m still in the hospital? I think 2 babies in 2 years is enough.”

Three months later, I’m a little sorry I got that IUD. I mean, NO. GOD NO, being pregnant again so soon would be AWFUL. The last two months of pregnancy kicked my ass so hard I need at least a year to recover. The kidney stones, the time in the hospital, the pre-eclampsia…Ugh. I’m exhausted just thinking about how exhausted I was. But in some sort of cosmic apology for all that, Caroline is still a super easy baby. She’s happy and smiley and a great nurser and a good sleeper and I’m not struggling at all the way I was when Little Evan was this age.

I guess what I’m thinking is, if I was ready for baby #2 after a year with a really difficult baby #1, how long can I possibly want to wait before having baby #3? But if baby #3 is going to be my last baby do I really want to be done having babies so soon? On the one hand, finishing up all the newborn stuff now sounds really appealing. No more diapers! A wardrobe that doesn’t involve boob-accessibility!  A child-free bedroom! On the other hand, I know my baby fever will be COMPLETELY out of control in a few years when my friends are getting pregnant and I don’t want to end up fighting with E over whether or not 4 is too many kids for us. We have not yet decided with ANY certainty how many children we’re going to have, and I know even if we did pick a number now it’s not like someone etches it in stone somewhere and I couldn’t possibly change my mind 5 years from now. But it sort of feels like I’m using up my baby allowance rather quickly. I never did learn how to save my babies. Er, pennies. No wait, babies. I think I killed that metaphor.

Now here’s the part where you unload your thoughts on child spacing and family size. You know you want to.

Three months in and Caroline is still the happiest, smiley-est, cutest baby ever in the whole history of the world. Obviously I’m a little biased but seriously, she gives newborns everywhere a good name. I should rent her out to people who are scared that having a baby will be super hard. Of course, then their baby will end up being all colicky and refluxy and screamy and they’ll hunt me down and punch me right in my smug face. To which I will just say I paid my dues, suckers, and his name is Baby Evan.

For the record, Toddler Evan is pretty awesome. But Baby Caroline makes me want a dozen more babies.

Unfortunately, we don’t have a 3 months well-baby check so I don’t have real stats for height and weight, but she is definitely big and chubby. We’ve moved up to 6 months sleepers and dresses and I’ve already started a pile of too-small stuff to put away. I’m super excited that spring is almost here so I can start putting her in the dozens and dozens of adorable barely worn hand-me-downs my friends and sister-in-law have given her.

Caroline is now awake for a lot of the day, but will fall asleep if we go anywhere in the car or if we wrap her up and bounce her in the bouncy seat. She sleeps for an amount of time that is technically considered “through the night” by baby-sleep experts but still involves feeding her at midnight and 5 am. Which is fantastic, as long as I get an occasional nap to make up for those couple of lost hours. One of these days we’ll work on moving her to the co-sleeper or the crib – or a new crib, if I can convince E we need one – but for now she’s still sleeping the the swing most of the time. Ok, all the time. No judging unless you’ve lived with a baby who gets up every 90 minutes to nurse for 8 months straight.

Favorite things still include smiling, looking at people, sleeping, and making adorable baby sounds. Dislikes are gas bubbles and having onesies pulled over her head.

And now for the gratuitous picture section. Milestones are below:

Ah! It's trying to eat me!

Bebeh feet of the month

2 Month Milestones (from BabyCenter, as usually)

Mastered Skills (most kids can do)
Recognizes your face and scent – Yes, although I’m afraid if I ever start taking regular showers again I might confuse her
Holds head steady – Yes, there is definitely less slamming of her head into my face when I try to hold her on my shoulder
Visually tracks moving objects – Yes, which I find ridiculously adorable

Emerging Skills (half of kids can do)
Squeals, gurgles, coos – OMG the noises she makes are the absolute cutest noises ever in the whole world
Blows bubbles – Yes
Recognizes your voice – I think so, she definitely smiles the most when I talk to her
Does mini-pushup – Yes, she’s super strong!

Advanced Skills (a few kids can do)
Rolls over, from tummy to back – YES! She did it for the first time right on her 3 month birthday. She can also go halfway from her back to tummy but can’t get over her arm
Turns toward loud sounds – Sort of. There are a lot of loud sounds around here. They only bother her about 50% of the time
Can bring hands together, bats at toys – Yes and yes, I’ve started giving her small toys to hold, which doesn’t last very long but she likes to try

Aaaaand one more picture for the hell of it. I was trying to catch her smiling but this is actually more awesome: