I don’t even remember this week. Seriously. It’s all just  a blur of hot, hot, rain, rain, hot, rain in my head.

Sunday:

Recycling is fun!

Slip and slides are NOT fun. Especially as an adult.

Yes, clearly that part of the immensely overgrown garden needs more water.

Monday:

I found 100 of these photos on my camera roll. I did not take them.

Working on potty training. I took the carpet up not long after.

They’re surprisingly fast for small children. I didn’t get in a real focused run, but it was definitely exercise.

Tuesday:

First day of summer school is a happy day for EVERYONE.

Exhausted from summer school.

MOMMY TIME.

Wednesday:

Funny, that’s the outfit I wear when I clean too.

Grilled cheese love

She cried off all her butterfly facepaint (from being super tired and cranky) then passed out.

Thursday:

Morning Netflix in the bounce house.

The bush in my yard exploded with hydrangeas, so I filled my house with them.

“Mommy mommy mommy sumpin’ else to eat” – REPEAT FOREVER

Friday:

My house always gets messier before it gets cleaner.

He suddenly remembered he loves trains

Looks: Innocent. Acts: Like a TERROR.

Saturday:

The kids were SO excited to see the Pigeon.

Selfies during story time

Adding their own pigeons to the wall

This week is going to be another one I barely remember. I’m determined to get my house – and life – more organized, so we’re alternating busy days out doing stuff with boring TV days for the kids while I CLEAN ALL THE THINGS. I’ve made it 75% through the first floor and am officially able to have people over for playdates again without dying of embarrassment.

Evan’s first day of school post here.

Caroline’s first day of school post here.

Their last day:

29. She’s 29 months. Or really, she turned 29 months back on the 19th and it never even crossed my mind. I only realized yesterday I had missed it at all, when someone asked how old she was and I said she was almost two AND A HALF. I’m going to try to stick it out and keep these up until she hits 3 – WAY TOO SOON! – but I’m sure the rest of them will be late too.

Caroline no longer approves of nicknames. I used to call her “babe”, which was short for “baby baby”, but now she shouts “DON’T CALL ME BABE CALL ME CAH-YINE!” (She has trouble saying Care-o-line. A lot of trouble. It probably doesn’t help that we say “Care-line” with just a tiny “eh” where the “o” should be. And like I said, she doesn’t approve of nicknames.) Evan has realized she hates being called babe, so of course now he does it constantly. We’ll all be sitting on the couch nicely, everyone getting along and being adorable and homey like a Norman Rockwell painting, and Evan will look at her and go “BABE.” Then it’s like The Scream up in here, but with sound effects.

She’s just about the bravest 2-year-old I’ve ever seen. She likes people in animal costumes. She likes petting sharks. She likes when her Daddy jumps out from behind things and roars. She likes old ladies in the grocery store who talk to her. I’m sure she’ll get some stranger danger awareness at some point, but right now it sure is nice not to worry about it. I’m pretty sure I could drop her off at the mall and she’d take care of herself by conning the pretzel guy into feeding her and the lady in the educational store into playing with her and the security guard into giving her rides on his Segway. I WON’T, obviously, I’m just saying.

Of course, she’s also VERY VERY TWO sometimes. So very two. She’ll look me right in my big, stupid face and do the thing I just told her not to do. She insists on putting on her own shoes and coat and backpack and hat and doing her own top buckle on her car seat. She is very bossy about the radio and wants me to play “More Macklemore! MACKLEMOOOOORE MOMMY!” in the car, although she’s also a fan of Beethoven and Laurie Berkner.

She absolutely REFUSES to look at the camera when I want to take pictures.

Likes including singing, dancing, jumping, water, running, ducks, apples, watermelon, juice, cheeseburgers, dogs, kitties, sharks, the aquarium, boats, princesses, pants, sparkly things, lollipops, rainbows, caterpillars, school, making a mess, ruining things, “helping”, insisting on going potty in disgusting public bathrooms, Phineas & Ferb, Diego, Minnie Mouse, books, more books, socks, ALL THE BOOKS, cuddles, Daddy, Mommy, Evan, cheese, sprinkle donuts, and swinging.

Dislikes include nicknames, being told “no”, going home when she’d rather be at the playground, getting stuff in her eyes, and when people won’t share food.

p.s. ERIN DON’T LOOK THERE ARE BIRDS!! (Erin doesn’t like birds.)

Humidity makes her hair super curly. I’m so jealous.

29 Month Milestones (BabyCenter changed their milestone chart so it’s just a list. I’m using Evan’s old milestone posts to see specific months – here’s his 29 month post!)

Mastered Skills (most kids can do)
• Brushes teeth with help – She mostly brushed them on her own and does a great job – no cavities! AND AND AND she let the dental hygienist brush her teeth at her appointment without a single complaint.
• Washes and dries own hands – Washes, yes. Dries, yes, if you mean “wipes them on Mommy’s pants EVERY TIME.”
• Draws a vertical line – She draws circles. Just circles. Counter-clockwise circles. It’s a little creepy at this point, like she’s trying to convey some alien message.

Emerging Skills (half of kids can do)
• Draws a circle – See above.
• Balances on one foot – Balances on one foot ON A BALANCE BEAM because my kid is totally better than yours.

Advanced Skills (a few kids can do)
• Puts on a T-shirt – Sort of. She can put on her jammies but usually backwards.
• Names one color – She can name a whole bunch of colors, but mostly only notices if stuff is PINK or PURPLE.
• Names one friend – I just asked her if she had a friend at school and she said “Yes! William! William just pushed me at school!” so apparently she has a friend named William and also WTF WILLIAM??  Mostly she tells me I’M her best friend (or Daddy, or Evan).

Last week I spent a great deal of time thinking about and researching preschool options or study abroad programs for Evan next year, but instead of helping me make a decision I’m just MORE confused than I was.

When I looked at a 3-year-old preschool program, my biggest challenge was just tracking down basic information. Where are they? When are they? How much do they cost? You’d think that was all classified information – ESPECIALLY the “how much does it cost?” question. No one wants to tell you until you’ve already taken the tour, brought your kid in for a visit, filled out the paperwork and totally fallen in love with the place. Then SURPRISE! Three day a week preschool costs almost exactly as much a my annual college tuition did! But look, did we show you the llamas the children help care for as part of our animal husbandry program for toddlers?

NO LLAMAS, NO. We cannot eat the things my child learns to knit from your luxurious hair, so we had to choose a less-fancy but totally lovely preschool program. I made my choice and haven’t regretted it for a second since Evan started. I love them so much I started sending Caroline and plan to continue sending her until she’s old enough for one of the public school programs.

So. About those public school programs. There are two options in my town – the charter school and the regular public school. If you had asked me last year, I would have said the k-8 public charter school was absolutely my first choice with our current (not free) preschool as a back up. The regular public school option was third. Of course, that opinion was based on nothing. Truly nothing. Not a single actual thing. I don’t know anyone whose kids go to the public program or take up online English courses from a public school, I just assumed it would be not good based on the fact that my town is slightly economically depressed (am I the only one who pictures a really sad dollar sign anytime someone uses that phrase? Probably). But with that opinion behind me I filled out the charter school application a full year early and then crossed all my crossables.

It didn’t work. Evan is number 15 on the wait list. There are only 22 spots in the classroom, so the chances we’ll get moved up far enough to get in are…not good.

The truth is, I’m not sure how I feel about it. The igcse tuition centre in KL is very, very popular for quality education. There are something like 800 kids on the wait list at any given time – there was a mom on the tour last week who said her 5th grader has been on the list for four years. Getting in through the preschool program is the only way to guarantee a spot in the elementary and middle school programs. But after the tour I wasn’t 100 percent sure it was the place for my kid. There wasn’t anything WRONG with it, I just wasn’t…blown away, I guess? There definitely weren’t any llamas.

Now it looks like he’s going to go to regular preschool at the regular public school. This year they’re starting a whole new consolidated program for all the pre-k’s in our town at one elementary school and it sounds like they’re working really hard to make it amazing. Evan could take the bus – THE BUS – to and from school 5 days a week. They have a gorgeous playground. He will probably know at least one kid in his class, thanks to his extensive social circles. I think I can make the pick-ups and drop-offs work with Caroline’s preschool schedule, so she can stay where she is. But the regular public preschool feeds into the regular public schools and I’m a tiny bit terrified of our town’s middle school. It is a RIDICULOUS thing to worry about, since the chances of us still living here when my children are in middle school are about the same as our chances of winning the lottery, moving to a villa on the coast of France and paying a private online math tutoring teacher for the next 13 years but worrying is my second favorite hobby.

It can really all be summed up as OMG WHO THINKS I AM RESPONSIBLE ENOUGH TO MAKE THESE DECISIONS FOR ANOTHER HUMAN BEING? Just like every other parenting decision. A preschool seems like a tiny choice, but it’s a pebble tossed into a pond – the ripples could echo through the rest of their lives. It’s too much. So it’s important to choose which private co educational school is the best. At least now I don’t have to pick which stone to throw?

This might sounds strange – or it might make absolute total sense to you, because you feel the same way – but having two kids is WAY easier than having one.

I can’t actually prove that, either scientifically or anecdotally, since I’ve never had one kid at this age and compared it to having two kids at this age. Comparing what life was like with one baby or with one toddler while I was pregnant with a second hardly seems fair, since babies and pregnancy are both harder in general than preschool aged kids. Well, harder when it comes to the amount of serious hands-on work, not harder when it comes to handing acts of child terrorism and manipulation. And none of this applies to having twins, since the amount of work doubles at the same rate. I can’t even imagine how hard that would be compared to just having two semi-close together. Plus this probably doesn’t work on kids who are a lot farther apart – I don’t think having me was very helpful to my mother when she had my brother seven years later. I was too busy with seven year old stuff to play with a baby or fetch things or help out.

I think I need to start over.

Evan and Caroline together is WAY easier than just having one ginger Davis bebeh.

They don’t always get along, but I’d say we’re at about an 80% best friends/20% hitting each other ratio. After the zoo on Saturday, I tossed them both in the car while I loaded up the stroller with instructions to take their coats off and get in their seats. Caroline’s coat had velcro and a zipper, which was too much for her to figure out, so she turned to Evan and said “Help?” He immediately un-velcroed and un-zipped her coat, then said “Here Caroline, get in your seat and I’ll give you your juice.” It was adorable, and heart-melting, and a huge help for me. They do stuff like that all the time. Their teacher said every time they see each other at school (they’re in different classes) they hug or touch fingers through the playground fence or say “I MISS YOU!”

Hand-holding so no one runs into traffic, helping with coats and hats, fetching things for each other, finding shoes, finding lost toys – ALL THINGS I would have to do if they weren’t doing it for each other. On top of making my life easier, I like to think I’m making them better, nicer people. They’re both pretty good at sharing and taking turns for small, selfish children. They’re good at playing games with other kids or making friends or joining a group. I’ve been asked four times this week if they’re twins, since even strangers can see how close they are.

I don’t know if they’re going to be best friends forever. I doubt it, although I hope they always like each other. But right now having two kids to play with each other, help each other and help me is awesome. Two gingers are definitely better than one.