We had a super busy day planned for Sunday so of course both of my children went completely insane. Caroline woke at 3 am all HAI GUISE I’M HERE LET’S PARTY. We took turns trying to get her back to sleep for two hours, until I gave up and brought her downstairs so I could at least watch TV while she boogied. We were on our second Law & Order rerun when I watched her nod off to sleep sitting on the floor and fall right over onto her head. I’m not gonna lie, I laughed pretty hard. I blame the exhaustion and also the hilarious look on her face.

Luckily, she forgave me and we took a little couch nap before we had to head out to our friend Thomas’s 3rd birthday party.

Unluckily, Little Evan took one look at the karate studio where the party was being held and ran away shouting “NO THANK YOU MAMA NO THANK YOU”. I eventually coaxed him into the room where he stood in a corner fake sobbing (he is TERRIBLE at fake sobbing, which is how I know it is fake) until the instructors got out a giant box of balls and encouraged the kids to throw them at each other. Apparently that’s just too much fun to pass up.

In the mean time, I gave up on trying to keep Caroline in my lap and let her enjoy the party in her own 10 month old way.

I LOVE YOU BABY IN THE MIRROR

Probably not what this guy signed up for when he agreed to work at the party

I can't stop laughing at this face

Pizza makes all his nervousness disappear

Oh! And! Because our attendance was sort of a last minute decision I was scrambling for a 3rd birthday gift. After having awesome success with the glow stick bath tub thing on Saturday night (here’s the whole scoop: turn down the lights and give your kid glow sticks to play with in the tub) I came up with this:

All found at Target in the $1 section or in the baby shampoo aisle. No risk of giving the birthday boy a toy he already has or a piece of junk that breaks after 5 minutes, and hey, every kid takes baths!

After the party we ran home for a quick nap, threw my gnocchi casserole in the oven and headed over to our CSA for an end-of-season potluck.

Evan was obsessed with the apple cider.

Caroline was obsessed with our cups of wine.

Trying to blow out the fire

It was a super fun, super busy, super exhausting, super long day but I can’t really complain. Having too many friends is the kind of problem everyone ought to have.

There is very little mouth-shutting going on around these parts. Evan’s volume is constantly set at eleven. He repeats everything, shouts everything, sings everything he hears. It’s ear-splitting joy from morning to night, with a few two-and-a-half year old tantrums thrown in. I’ve started pretending I’m deaf when he shouts at me, which is going to become a reality if he gets any louder.

I’ve been trying to write this monthday post for three days now and am finding it almost impossible. He’s such a little person, an actual recognizable human being – how can I sum that up in words? He loves routines and sameness (he not only has a favorite blankie, but a favorite corner of his favorite blankie) but isn’t afraid to try new things (like roller coasters and sweet potatoes). I talk WITH him instead of at him, and am amazed when he understands complicated concepts like hours and days and where daddy is when he’s not home). He often tells me that he’s sad that he doesn’t get to go on the boat anymore this year, but that he will be happy when he goes on the boat next year. I want to buy him all the boats in the world.

Despite what feels like a constant stream of parenting mistakes on my part, he’s a wonderfully kind little boy. He says please and thank you unprompted and I get teary eyed every time he says “I sorry mama!” and throws himself around my legs after doing some naughty. I can’t even be mad when he grabs his toys away from Caroline, because he immediately hugs her and says “I sorry baby! No sad, no. Here!” and gives back whatever he took so she stops crying. Best brother ever.

Food update: My former picky slash non-eater now eats anything. I only got three bites of the quinoa I made last week because he (and the baby) snarfed it down. Don’t be too impressed though – last night he had Cinnamon Toast Crunch for dinner.

TMI Potty training update: The poop goes in the potty about 50% of the time. The pee, not so much. Don’t get me wrong, he LOVES using the potty and goes every time we put him on it. But he also goes in his diaper, especially when he’s sleeping. I think I’m just holding onto hope that when I actually buckle down and TRY (probably using the 3 day method) he’ll be totally on board, but I hate to TRY and have it not work. But the siren song of having only one kid in diapers is getting stronger by the day.

At 30 months Little Evan is wearing a 2T consistently, with some 3T shirts thrown in to make sure he doesn’t outgrow ALL his long-sleeved clothes before spring. He has some comfy new size 7 velcro shoes from Target which are very convenient but end up thrown on the floor more often than not. He’s only had 2 haircuts ever and isn’t even close to needing another one. He sleeps from 7:30 pm to 6:30 am and takes a 3 hour nap in the afternoons because he wants to, not because I make him. He bites his fingernails, just like I do.

Likes include boats, carrots, The Fresh Beat Band, dinosaurs, noodles, garbage trucks, milk, fake driving the car, running fast, dancing, friends, baths, climbing things, dogs, and his sister.

Dislikes include falling de-noun (down), hangnails, being interrupted when he’s watching Nick Jr, and when Caroline jumps on his face.

JUUUUUMPING!!!! BAAAAAAAALL!!!! I'M ALIIIIIIIVE!!!

Throwing rocks into a creek: all day fun.

I WANT YOU!...to go get me a string cheese.

Almost....

...taking a break to bust a move...

...TA-DA!

EVAN RUN FAST! Don't get too far from me, sweet boy.

30 Month Milestones (from BabyCenter, as usual)

Mastered Skills (most kids can do)
• Brushes teeth with help – Yes, and I’m even teaching him to spit so we can move up to real toothpaste
• Washes and dries own hands – Part of potty training is LETTING him wash his hands. It’s almost as good a bribe as the lollipop.
• Draws a vertical line – Yes, but he’s also started drawing things like “T-Rex” or “bebeh” or “Backyardigans” and telling me about them.

Emerging Skills (half of kids can do)
• Draws a circle – Yes, and also the letter C. He gets them confused.
• Balances on one foot – We’ve moved on to hopping on one foot. I’m counting on a sports scholarship of some sort since I’m blowing all his college money on elaborate children’s parties.

Advanced Skills (a few kids can do)
• Puts on a T-shirt – Still questionable. He’s about 50% accurate with dressing/undressing.
• Names one color – Blue, green, red, yellow, and white are all colors he names. I’m a teeeeeny bit worried he might be colorblind since his accuracy seems to be getting worse.
• Names one friend – Still 2 best friends, “Triss and Ayahyah”, still runs out the door to see them almost every morning.

Step 1: Find an inspiration shot from some fancy photographer with actual skills and credentials and convince yourself you can totally recreate it yourself.

Step 2: Collect necessities like matching kid outfits, a back drop, light reflectors, and an assistant to help keep the kids under control.

Step 3: Remember you don’t actually have ANY OF THOSE THINGS.

Step 4: Lay down a dog-hair covered quilt, grab squeaky toy to get the baby’s attention and tell your husband to stop laughing at you because you are CREATING MAGICAL MOMENTS.

Step 5: Arrange the baby on the blanket.Watch her roll away.

Step 6: Arrange the baby on the blanket. Watch her roll away.

Step 7: Arrange the baby on the blanket. Watch her roll away.

Step 8: Decide to start with the toddler. Convince him to lie down for two seconds before he realizes the baby is going to lie down next to him and runs away shouting “NO BABY! NO!”

Step 9: Bride toddler with promise of a cookie (that you don’t actually have), a toy, chips, ice cream, pizza (that you also don’t have) and eventually an ice cube. Yes, an ice cube.

Step 10: Pin the baby down on the blank with one foot while shouting “LOOK HERE! LOOK AT ME! WHEEEEE!!!” and shooting blindly with the camera held above your head.

Step 11: Tell both kids to stop whining so much and look happy! Be sure to use a nice firm loud voice so they understand just HOW HAPPY they’re supposed to be.

Step 12: Give up in a huff. Flounce away with your camera to pout about how uncooperative your children are.

Step 13: Spend two hours staring at the shots in Photoshop, trying to decide exactly which of the 12 different slightly vintage, washed out, lightened filters makes the photos look the fanciest. Then spend another two hours deciding which kid looks best upsidedown and wondering if there’s a name for the specific brand of crazy you seem to have.

Step 14: Enjoy your treasured memories. ENJOY THEM. DO IT NOW.

(Just in case you were ACTUALLY looking for information, the photos were taken with my Nikon D90, my Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6G  lens and edited in Photoshop Elements 9 with the Watermelon Blues free action from My Four Hens Photography)

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

So as I’ve mentioned a time or twenty bazillionty, I’m going to San Diego for a blogging conference this week. In theory I am there to learn more about how to be an awesome blogger (including a class on proper grammar and sentence structure so maybe I’ll learn to stop using words like “bazillionty”)(or maybe to stop interrupting myself with parenthetical statements)(that one’s probably not going to stick) but mostly I am going so I can finally put faces – and arm hugs – to all the ladies I’ve met through the internet and who are part of my life on a daily basis.

One of my biggest fears for the conference is that I will walk right past someone I desperately wanted to meet and I won’t recognize them. I am TERRIBLE at faces (actually, I’m worse at names, so that’s a whole other level of palm-sweating awfulness) and it gets extra hard because the only pictures I’ve ever seen of some of these women are teeny tiny camera phone pics taken from a super flattering angle and edited heavily with Instagram filters. People don’t generally post pictures of their “oh my God I’m so tired and I miss my kids” face or “wow I sure am hungover why is there no Diet Coke in this hotel!?” face on the internet. Hell, even my very own head shot took 40 rejected pictures (double chin! weird eye thing! too smiley!) and 2 Photoshop filters to look like that. And after dyeing my hair and my eyebrows (twice) AND losing 10 pounds (most of which seems to have come off my neck) I’m not even sure I would recognize MYSELF if I was comparing it to that picture up there on the left.

So to be as helpful and servicey as possible, I used my web cam to take some pictures that might make me easier to recognize. (Just pretend for a second I have legions of fans who are all sitting at home RIGHT NOW figuring out the best way to track me down and ask for my autograph in San Diego. PRETEND.)

This doesn’t just apply to BlogHer, by the way. I look like a weirdo in real life too, so this will be a helpful guide to the many faces of Suzanne you may encounter:

This is what I like to think I will look like when we meet, except with cleaner hair and some mascara.

This is what I WILL look like when we meet, because I’m going to be all OMG I LOVE YOU!

This is what I will look like when I’m trying to read your name tag because even though I read your blog EVERY DAY I totally forgot your real name and am trying not to call you by your kid’s name.

This is what I look like when I am trying to appear friendly and interesting. It’s unfortunate I come across so much like a psychotic baby-snatcher.

(Sidenote: I always thought I was imagining that my right eyebrow was way higher than my left eyebrow but IT TOTALLY IS. My face is lopsided. Great, now I can obsess about it until I accidentally pluck the whole thing out trying to make them even.)

  This is what I look like behind a wine glass <—– most helpful picture in this post

This is what I imagine I will look like in every single party picture taken.

This is my listening face. I know it LOOKS like my bitchface, but I swear I am truly a very nice person. This is also why I only have one friend left from college – I looked like this in all my classes.

(THAT EYEBROW. OMG.)

And this is my sexy dancing face. For some reason I think looking up at the sky is the BEST WAY EVER to look cool while dancing. Really, I’m just trying to avoid eye contact so I can’t see you laughing at me.

So please please pleasepleaseplease, if you see any of those faces, be my friend. I just want to survive BlogHer without making a total fool of myself – or at least be the kind of fool people find endearing rather than running the other way as soon as they see me coming.