Category Archives: toddler

Must do everything!

Camping was… interesting. Ha ha. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t terrible either. Let’s just say that Baby Girl isn’t a big fan of it yet. That being said, at least it was another summer activity that we were able to cross off of our (non-existent) list. I know Summer isn’t over yet, but now that we’ve hit August and the temperatures are getting nicer, it’s apparent that there’s still so much I want to do before Fall hits.

While we never did get the kids in swimming lessons, they have started to actually enjoy water more and more this year, so perhaps this Winter we’ll see about finally getting them swimming so they’re ready for even more fun next Summer.

At the beginning of Summer Phoebe wanted nothing with water and was pretty unhappy during the first water day at day care. While she still prefers to stay on the sidelines and splash with her feet, she’s now at a point where she’ll gladly get in a kiddie pool and splash around on her stomach – if the water is warm enough. If the water is too cool she isn’t a fan, even if it’s 90 degrees out and feels awesome. She might run through a sprinkler, but that’s hit or miss if the water temperature isn’t what her ladyship likes.

Enzo has also gotten much braver this year. It helped when he got to watch his Colorado cousins run through the sprinkler and splash around, and slowly he’s getting more and more into it. He still doesn’t like to get his face wet at all (not even in the bath), but we’re working on it. I’m just thrilled he’s been much more willing to try new things and has discovered how fun it can be. It also helps that there is the whole “Monkey See-Monkey Do” aspect of siblings – if one of them does something then the other obviously has to as well.

Also… why do these little pools always look so much bigger on the box?? I guess we’ll have to get a bigger one next year. It was slim pickings when I found this one.

Things They Say

I feel like Phoebe’s vocabulary has exploded and now she’s talking in short sentences a good deal of the time. She mimics just about everything and good grief it’s adorable. Like when she tries to get Enzo to chase her during dinner saying, “Come get me!” in her super sweet tiny voice that doesn’t quite have the pronunciation down yet.

Some other adorable things she’s saying:

“Where ____ go?” For a while it was constantly “Where Aubee go?” (Aubrey is her cousin).
“Ee you ater.” (See you later).
“I got it” or “I did it”.
“Chocolate milk”. Her version barely sounds like chocolate, but we unfortunately introduced her to the magical stuff and she’s addicted. Mind you, she prefers the super sweet bought from the store kind in the brown jug. If you try to pull out the white jug and add chocolate syrup expect a wee bit of a meltdown while you try to explain you are in fact getting her chocolate milk.
“I farted!” The joys of having an older brother…
Singing the ABC song. She misses some here and there, but loves to try and recite her ABC’s.
And my favorite: “Uv Oo.” (Love you).

While Enzo already has a fairly big vocabulary it’s been fun watching him add to it and also use longer sentences as well as listen to how creative he can be. He’s also been talking more about emotions lately and we’ve been trying to encourage him to express how he’s feeling. Unfortunately, he’s been going through an “I’m scared” stage. Sometimes I think he’s just stalling because it comes up when it’s time to go to preschool or time to go to bed, but at times I do think he’s maybe a little anxious or nervous about things. When he’s not feeling scared, though, he’s usually very empathetic and if someone is sad he’ll try and think of something to make them “So much happy.”

So much potty talk still… sigh. Especially “Poopy Butt or Pee-pee Butt.”
“Watch this! Watch this!” His new favorite phrase.
“Buitar.” He won an inflatable guitar at the fair.
“Why?” My least favorite word. Ha ha.

Recent conversations:

Me: “Why are you guys yelling?”

Enzo: “Because we like you, Mommy!”

20 Months

It suddenly dawned on me that Phoebe is almost 2… well, 4 months away from it, but it still seems awfully close. At times she seems so much older, and yet also so much younger. She is catching up to Enzo in terms of size, but she’s not quite as independent. More often than not, she is my shadow and the request I hear most often is “Up.” If she cries in the night (pretty much every night) I have to go in and pick her up otherwise she will typically throw a sleepy tantrum if Josh tries to soothe her. My cuddle bug usually finds her way into our bed every night, followed frequently by her big brother. However, this arrangement may not last long, especially as we’ve reached the “He/she’s touching me” phase. She does, however, still fall asleep wherever and whenever.

Our lady is a talker and is starting to use a lot more 2-3 word sentences, which is both fun and helpful. We still have plenty of miscommunications, but it’s always fun when she uses new words, phrases and even inflections. There are times when she also uses hand gestures that are pretty darn cute like when asking where someone/something is. Since we’ve been back from vacation she often asks where her cousins are, especially “Aubee” (Aubrey). She misses having a big girl to play with.

While she doesn’t often have full blown tantrums, Miss Phoebe can certainly be feisty when she wants to be. Usually when she’s being defiant she just smiles at you while she continues to be naughty, but she has her moments where she’ll run over and hit you to get disdain across and yell and scream a bit. Honestly, her tantrums are kind of laughable, which is nice. I am not fond of the hair pulling, hitting and occasional biting, however.

She has become a bit more picky when it comes to food, and we’ve reached the stage where she now knows what wonderful things “treats” are (given as rewards – usually to her brother for staying dry overnight/etc, but he shares them with her). She prefers chocolate milk to regular milk now and juice over water… sigh. She has also started turning her nose up at veggies, so I need to get more creative. The stinker has also discovered what a lovely thing ice cream is and I confess she got spoiled one night after they were supposed to be asleep, but she kept crying and crying so I caved and brought her to our bed early. We happened to be eating ice cream and neither of us could resist her charms and how sweetly she says “Please” with sign language while saying “More” and “Mine?” We’re going to have to make it up to your big brother, little lady.

She takes full advantage of being the baby, and in true younger sibling fashion pesters her older brother fairly frequently and doesn’t realize she’s actually pestering… well, sometimes she doesn’t know, and sometimes he only pretends she’s bothering him. We all love this spunky, happy girl and the light she shines.

Oh, the places you’ll go…

I love how much our kids love books now, but I’m even more excited for when they can start reading themselves and we can start experiencing even more adventures together. While both kids tend to favor the same stories over and over again, Enzo is thankfully at an age where we don’t always have to read the same books every night like someone else I know (cough cough *Phoebe* cough cough). I do get how important repetition is, but there are some days when I’d rather cry then read ‘Elmo Says Achoo’ or “Potty” one more time. Admittedly, it is pretty cute that she is starting to memorize them, so she reads along with me.

Many of my childhood memories include books and thankfully I’ve save some of our childhood favorites for when Enzo and Phoebe are older. Granted many of the spines are fragile and it might be better to get new copies in order for the originals to remain intact, but I’d like to at least once pull out the books that I held when I was their age and hopefully read them together. Granted, they may not think they’re as great as I thought they were, but you never know.

As a shy introvert, I could always count on my books for quiet company. My friends were Laura Ingalls, Anne Shirley and Jo March. Curling up with a good book will always be one of my favorite things to do and I can’t help but picture at least one or both of my munchkins quietly curled up next to me caught up in their own adventure.

One thing I can promise is that we will always have a decent selection of reading material, and while nothing will ever compare to physically holding a book in my hands, I confess that having an e-reader is incredibly handy. I can take as many books as I want to wherever I go for all of us, and they take up a lot less space and are much lighter when it comes to moving… and anyone who has ever helped us move will be glad to know I’ve cut back a lot on buying physical books. Ha ha.

Fruits of our Labor

Last year my gardening attempts mostly failed. I had some flowers take off, but many of my endeavors did not pay off, and I blame some of that on too little time and too many plants to care for. This year I decided to just skip planting an actual garden and we’re focusing more on updating our general landscaping a bit. I let the kids pick some flowers for the front and to put in pots (I grabbed mint and marigolds as I always do), and thankfully, they are all thriving! We came back from vacation to find major growth and our first strawberry!

It’s been really fun checking on the flowers with both kids, but especially Enzo because he seems to “get it.” He loves to look for more strawberries and the squash he picked out is going nuts, and I think I’ll need a bigger pot. Watching the kids eat their first strawberry off the vine has me excited to grow food next year.

With luck it’ll also make them more likely to try the different fruits and veggies that they’ve helped plant and grow. This year we just got busy and I decided to make time for other things. Perhaps next year we’ll actually fix up the raised beds and add some chicken wire to keep out pests.

Dino and Bunnies

Every day adventures