This is just the past week.

1. Taken off all his clothes and his diaper and peed on his brother’s bed.
2. Taken off all his clothes and his diaper and pooped in the play tent.
3. Taken off all his clothes and his diaper and rolled around on his sister’s bed naked for an indeterminate amount of time before I found him and he denied peeing anywhere but I am suspicious.
4. Pooped in the bathtub.
5. Intentionally poured his sippy cup of milk all over the iPad.
6. Drew on himself with blue marker.
7. Drew on himself with pink marker.
8. Drew on the dining room walls with pink marker.
9. Drew on the bedroom walls with pencil.
10. Dumped a bag of chips on the dining room floor.
11. Dropped a towel in the sink and then left the water running.
12. Rubbed lotion all over the bathroom.
13. Blew bubbles in his chocolate milk until it spilled everywhere.
14. Jammed orange peels into part of Finnegan’s exersaucer I can’t get them out of.
15. Refused to stay in his bed at night.
16. Refused to stay in his sister’s bed at night.
17. Refused to stay in his brother’s bed at night.
18. Refused to let anyone in the house sleep because he felt like screaming.
19. Demanded I get him more cereal to eat even though he was currently eating cereal.
20. Cried because I wouldn’t let him watch two tablets at once.
21. Run away at Target.
22. Run away at the grocery store.
23. Run away at Home Depot.
24. Pulled his sister’s hair until she cried.
25. Punched his older brother in the face.
26. Climbed up the dresser and stood in the drawers until they broke.
27. Dumped half a canister of salt on the kitchen floor.
28. Licked the wall mirror.
29. Licked the television set.
30. Licked the baby.
31. Licked a box of cereal at the store.
32. Picked up the cat and carried her around like she was a sack of potatoes.
33. Pull the play tool bench out of the closet and thrown all the pieces all around the room seven different times.
34. Opened several packs of kid card games, ripped up the boxes and spread the cards all over the house.
35. Banged on my laptop until he deleted what I was working on, messed up my desktop, sent random emails and changed all my settings.

I actually saw my husband this week! On more than one occasion! It was actually the best week we’ve had in a really long time, even if the kids were so exhausted by Sunday they both passed out at 5 pm.

Sunday:

Monday:

Tuesday:

Wednesday:

Thursday:

 Friday:

  Saturday:

I had forgotten how nice it was to have someone to help with bedtimes or go out to dinner with or help wrangle the kids at the apple orchard. I know I’m not a single parent – NOT EVEN CLOSE – but doing all the parenting on a day to day basis was really starting to wear me down. But a week of school and TWO meals out (not to mention a beach day where the kids built sand castles while I read a magazine) plus seeing my husband enough times that our conversation didn’t go like this: “HiIhavetobebackatworkinsixhoursbutIneededtotellyouIamoutofdeoderantandalso
canyoufindmykhakihatIloveyougoodnightzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.”

I don’t have a lot of hope the next week will be as nice, but I have two super fun things coming up (a Saturday in NYC with the kids and THREE DAYS in Atlanta without the kids) that are going to make September just totally fly by.

This is me throwing up my hands and admitting my poor second child isn’t going to get monthday updates anymore. I’m not going to make it to 36 months. I’ve barely made it to 30 months. I’m not going to force myself to do these when I’m already posted dozens of photos of her every week and chronicling our lives in detail. But honestly, keeping track of Caroline’s milestones isn’t useful when she’s basically done with them. All levels of toddlerness have been achieved, game over. The only thing that makes her even a LITTLE bit like a baby is wen’re not done potty training. (Honestly, we haven’t started in earnest. I’m so lazy.) Besides the diapers, she’s pretty much identical to her 4 year old brother. And TALL. I still think of her as a peanut but her legs are insanely long.

I left her with a sitter for 9 hours on Tuesday while E and Evan and I went to Boston and she didn’t care. Whatevs, Mom. Just leave me some pizza money and a Princess movie and I’m good. I picked her up at 10 pm and she was talking a mile a minute. The sitter said Caroline seemed tired right before dinner, so Caroline went and got her pillow and blankie and put herself down for a 2.5 hour nap. Because she’s a real human person. A tiny, curly-haired, amazing little person.

Two and a half is basically the very best and the very worst. SO WORST. Taking her on vacation was the most exhausting thing I’ve ever done, including giving birth. She can be incredibly unreasonable one minute and perfectly reasonable the next, so it makes dealing with her more like hostage negotiation than anything else. I’m tempted to videotape our next argument and share it, but anyone who has ever had a 2 year old can tell you exactly what it looks like. Plus I don’t want her to have MORE things to complain to her therapist about some day. Her emotions are just totally unpredictable. At the beach, she rocked over her toe with a huge rocking chair, crushed her nail and bled all over the place. She cried for like, 90 seconds and then was totally fine, even as we bandaged it up. But GOD FORBID you get tired of holding her upside down by her feet after 10 minutes, or she’ll scream at you for an hour straight.

Likes include talking, eating, talking, eating, talking, the iPad, the other iPad, my iPhone, movies, Macklemore, singing, dancing, cats, dogs, talking, running, jumping, pretending she’s a kitty, ponies, drinking water, Princesses, Elmo, pillows, hugs, climbing, dolls, gently sloping sand beaches, seashells, buckets, marshmallows, eating, talking, eating, making up songs, spinning until she’s so dizzy she falls down, ice cream, cheese, Daddy, Evan, and me.

Dislikes include swimming, swimming pools, boats, life jackets, sleeping past 6 am, being told NO, and being teased by her brother.

All pictures are from the lake house portion of our vacation, right around her actual 30th monthday:

 

 

30 Month Milestones (from BabyCenter originally, but they changed their format so these are from Evan’s 2 1/2 year post.)

Mastered Skills (most kids can do)
• Brushes teeth with help – Brushed teeth on her own. I go over them again just to be thorough.
• Washes and dries own hands – Yep.
• Draws a vertical line – Mostly, but would rather continue to draw the sort of creepy counter clockwise circles. I keep expecting Nicolas Cage to show up and tell me it’s part of some secret code.

Emerging Skills (half of kids can do)
• Draws a circle – Yep.
• Balances on one foot – Yep.

Advanced Skills (a few kids can do)
• Puts on a T-shirt – Yep.
• Names one color – Names all the colors and will ask you what your favorite color is and discusses in length which one is best.
• Names one friend – Names all her friends, plus her aunts and uncles (both real and basically-like-family) and all her grandparents.

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).

Caroline is a delightful child, although she’s also what most polite people would call “strong willed”. I mostly call her “kind of a nightmare when she doesn’t get her way” but rarely to her face. She can go from lovely and smiling and laughing to screaming her head off in a matter of seconds. It’s pretty impressive, actually. She will ask so politely for a cup of juice and in the time it takes me to say “Of course honey!” and walk to the fridge she’ll start crying and thrashing and yelling “NO JUICE NO JUICE NOOOOOO JUICE!!!!!” Because obviously I’m trying to poison her. Of course as soon as I put the juice away she goes back to needing a cup of juice RIGHT THIS SECOND or she’s going to die of thirst. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if her head spun fully around one of these days – I’ve got a young priest and an old priest on speed dial, just in case.

But hey, she’s 2 and a quarter. This is not unexpected. And truthfully, she’s easier to reason with than Evan was at this age, just because she’s so very verbal and understands so much. When she does something naughty she KNOWS it was naughty. Of course, sometimes she doesn’t care (ain’t nobody got time for that when you have a whole aisle of cereal to throw on the floor!) but she does sit nicely in time out without a fight. Actually, that might be because she doesn’t truly understand time outs, but we’re working on it.

Mostly she’s wonderful. Super cute, so very very smart, and up for almost anything. The fact that she doesn’t nap anymore is actually nice, since it means we can run errands in the afternoons instead of fighting over going to sleep. She’s going through a cuddly phase and isn’t very discriminating about who gets the cuddles – she’ll sit in anyone’s lap who holds still long enough. Caroline still don’t great at school and we’ve had exactly zero tears at drop off. I love it. She loves it. Best decision I’ve ever made.

Likes include snow, mud puddles, boots, splashing, books, funny faces, drawing, ponies, unicorns, Legos, singing, dancing, Bubble Guppies, Mickey Mouse, mermaids, sliding, climbing, gymnastics, eating, drinking Mommy’s water, talking, screaming, shouting, stomping, kitties, dogs, fish, pirates, money, cookies, and making any sort of mess at any time.

Dislikes include wearing coats, looking at the camera when I say “look at the camera!” and everything on the “likes” list depending on which way the wind is blowing.

 

27 Month Milestones (from BabyCenter, as usual)

Mastered Skills (most kids can do)
Jumps with both feet – The better to stomp as LOUDLY AS POSSIBLE.
Opens doors – HA HA! Something she mostly can’t do! But only because she’s too short!

Emerging Skills (half of kids can do)
Understands descriptions (e.g., big, soft) – Sparkly, pink, rainbow, look a pony! Yes.
Draws a vertical line – Beautifully, but only on my walls.

Advanced Skills (a few kids can do)
Starts to recognize ABCs – It’s hard to tell? She might just be a really good guesser and get lucky sometimes. But she will sing you the ABCs as long as you don’t mind the verse of Rock A Bye Baby in the middle.
Balances on one foot – She moved up to the off-the-ground balance beam all on her “own self” at gymnastics!