A Story About Life With A 2 Year Old

I'm sitting at the breakfast table with Lincoln on my lap. We are eating bagels with strawberry cream cheese.  Sto and I are laughing as we recall the movie we saw last night.

Lincoln has some urgent business he needs to discuss and is interrupting us by saying, 'Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom.' I already told him I was talking with daddy and he had to wait a minute, so I was ignoring his repeated requests for attention. He then grabs both of my cheeks and forcefully turns my head. 'Mom, look at me', he says very seriously.

He now has my full attention. His face is about 3 inches from mine. He then, in a very solemn gesture, proceeds to rub his cream cheesy bagel all over his face….What?!

4 going on 14

Well there went another year. Pippa is now 4 years old! Holla. Her birthday this year fell on Thanksgiving so that made it extra special. We started the day with balloons, a princess crown, and presents at the breakfast table. She wasted no time opening them and getting right down to the business of growing up all too fast. 

Later in the morning her Ninang and Ninong came over and gave her the best present ever. Make-up! She decided to do each section of her face in a different color: one eye green, one pink, one cheek purple, one blue, and some sparkles on the tip of her nose for good measure. While no amount of make-up could possibly improve that beautiful face she sure enjoyed the process. In fact, we've all been fortunate enough to feel the uplifting benefits of her make overs. Even Ting has received a make over or two during quiet time. I think the pink nail polish that Pippa is partial to is particularly well suited for her. It compliments her fur. 

We ended the historic day at Lola B's for turkey, stuffing, and birthday cake. What a lucky girl to be surrounded by so much loving family! 

The Reverse Stutter

Lincoln is a total motor mouth these days. School is really boosting his verbal skills. A funny thing is happening, though. He seems to be developing a bit of a stutter. I know this is totally normal and not something to worry about but what's funny about it is that it's not the usual type of stutter. He keeps repeating the end of the word he's saying, not the beginning. I think he is copying the way his teachers emphasize the way a letter sounds. Normally we do that with the first letter of a word, B B B Bear. C C C Cat. But he prefers the emphasize the last letter, beaR R R, caT T T. It started off with just a word every now and then. Recently it's happening all the time and it can take him quite a while to get through a sentence. I'm hoping this phase doesn't last too long. In the mean time, we'll just keep on chattING ING ING.

Trick Or Treat 2013

Halloween is always a fun time of year. This year the kids are a little older and able to stay up a (tiny) bit longer so we were all very excited about dressing up and trick or treating. They had been talking about it for weeks and the big day had finally arrived. Pippa looked fabulous in her blue mermaid costume and Lincoln was very fierce in his pirate costume. Sto was dressed up as one of the Duck Dynasty family members and proudly wore his costume several times this season. He accompanied the kids to Pumpkin Night at school and also donned the beard for the annual RWJ Gala. Surprisingly, each time people were able to guess who he was trying to be. Who knew my husband could double as a red neck millionaire so well!?

I didn't want to be left out of the dressing up fun and luckily I have a tutu handy for such emergencies. We all went trick or treating around the neighborhood together and had a great time chatting with neighbors and gathering far too much candy. When we got home the kids were allowed to stuff their faces and then they left the rest of their loot out for the 'Switch Witch' and were thrilled to find a very nice gift waiting for them in the morning in place of their candy. (Seriously, whoever came up with that one deserves a prize! Brilliant!) We all had such fun that we are now counting down the days until next year!

E-A-G-L-E-S

We raising some Eagles Fans!

Fly Eagles, Fly!

Open Wide!

Lincoln had his first visit to the dentist! He did spectacularly well. We have been prepping for it for weeks. The Dora The Explorer book about the dentist has been particularly helpful. Pippa had her visit last week and we've been talking about that non-stop. It helps that she got a special new toothbrush that Lincoln has been excited to get too.

He he stayed very still and opened his mouth nice and wide. He even let us do the entire visit, clean and all. Apparently that's not very common for this age group. The staff was all very impressed. He did have to sit on my lap and wanted nothing to do with brushing the teeth of the stuffed dragon. But other than that precious melt down he did great.

Lincoln got a sticker to wear (which he showed off to everyone we met), a new toothbrush, and we were told it's time to start flossing. Lincoln could not be more excited about that. Who knew dental care was so much fun. Maybe Lincoln will grow up to be a dentist!

Little Man Big Boy Pants

I don't mean to brag…well, yes I do. I'll brag about this to anyone who will listen. Lincoln is 26 months old and fully potty trained! Whoot Whoot! In the words of Pippa, 'Yeah, really. Seriously. It's true.' He is, in fact no longer in diapers and proudly sporting big boy underwear with Thomas or Elmo on them. Well, OK, I admit he still wears a diaper at night. I mean, come on. I'm not crazy. But even then he wakes up dry at least 50% of the time so I'm sure it wont last too long. (Famous last words right?…)

Why did I even attempt such an early training, you might be asking yourself. Well, for one thing, I was sick and tired of washing cloth diapers. I admit it. As you know I love my cloth but after 4 years of washing them every other day I was ready for a break. Also, Lincoln was about to start going to school at Montessori and I didn't want to deal with the whole diaper thing there either. The teachers all thought I was loony for sure. I know Sto certainly thought I was crazy. When I talked about my plans he would just kind of look at me like I was nuts and nod his head in resignation. But I knew my boy was ready!

Wearing cloth diapers his whole life definitely helped. He knew when he was wet so it was easy for him to catch on. I did the 3 day method just like I did with Pippa. I had the sticker chart and MnM rewards ready to go. I even took a day off from work so that I could have 5 full days for this sole purpose. I swear to God it only took 4 hours. Yeah, really. Seriously. It's true. Those first 4 hours had me doubting my sanity but suddenly he put two and two together and almost never had an accident since. Granted, he was literally going every 5 minutes for the next day or so, which was also testing my sanity, but soon enough he was able to hold it for a more reasonable amount of time and we've been golden ever since.

Everyone told me boys were harder to train but I'm here to tell you that's not necessarily true. I'm not sure if it has anything to do with gender. Maybe it's just that mom's are generally more comfortable with girls so we think it's easier. Figuring out how to get that boy part pointed down properly certainly took some practice for both of us. There were quite a few times when we needed to change Lincoln's clothes, not because he didn't make it to the potty, but because mommy has bad aim! Regardless, I actually think there is a golden window of opportunity for potty training just after the age of 2. If you catch it, it's easy. If you watch it slip past you, it's a little trickier down the road. I missed that window with Pippa because I had an infant so there really wasn't much to be done about that. I'm just thankful to be through with diapers forever and proud of Lincoln for making it so easy!