Hot Mess

Our girl becomes a bigger mess every day - and I love her more and more every day.  She is absolutely hilarious and she keeps us rolling all day every day.  Some things I want to always remember:

*Today she was laying in our bed (she had gotten herself under the covers and on the pillow) watching Dora and I heard her yell for me.  I walked around the corner and I said, 'Yes ma'am?' and she said, 'I need a drink!'  I laughed and asked her to ask nicely and when I came back in the room with her drink I asked her if her highness would like anything else and she said, 'Uh huh, I need some grapes.'

*When she is doing something like cleaning up and you ask her to get a specific piece she'll say, 'Oh, I'm sorry!' or 'Oh, I missed!'

*When you ask her to do something she'll say, 'Of course I will!  That sounds like a great idea!'

*While she is in the bath playing, she'll ask one of us to come 'take her a bath'.

*While we were home we saw Mimi, Papa, Jeffro, and Penelope.  Every night when Mimi gets Penelope out of the bathtub she runs into the living room naked and Papa gets her butterbeans (pinches her butt).  Papa wasn't there the other night and so Jason was the stand in.  Since then, he has been getting Caroline's butterbeans.  She will scream and run the other way.  Then she'll turn around and say, 'Daddy, I'm going to get your butterbeans!'

*Target has their own Goldfish called Chickadees.  Caroline calls them Chickaneese.

*Every time that Max or Harley get near her or licks her she says, 'I think they like me!'

*The 'friend' count in her bed right now is up to twenty.  I tried to take a few out the other day to give her some room and she called me out and asked me where every one of them were.  I have to sweep them to the end just to get her into the bed.

*Her baby doll came with a stroller and a car seat.  She hasn't done a whole lot with that car seat since she got it at Christmas.  Now, however, that car seat has to go with us every time.  She puts the baby in the car seat, we seat belt her in, and then Caroline talks to her while we drive.

*Monsters Inc has been all over everything lately with the new movie coming out.  We got her a pack of apple juice boxes that have a picture of Mike Wazowski (the little, green, one-eyed monster).  When you ask her who it is she will tell you it's Mikey Owski!

*The girl is obsessed with some keys.  She loves to use them to try to open any and everything she can find. She also loves a screwdriver and she 'fixes' what she can get it into.

*Her new thing when we go out to eat is that she has to unwrap everyone's straw.  It takes her a couple of minutes on each one, so it is a good time sucker while we hang out and order our food.  She has to place them in the drink of her choice or she gets bent out of shape.  The girl knows what she wants...there is no doubt.

*Her attachment to her bobo and dacie was getting out of control.  She would spend the majority of her waking hours getting herself into her crib so that she could have them.  We decided that they needed to be put away while she was awake and only let her have them when she was sleeping and that has made things much better.  With those guys in the top of her closet, she is actually playing and spending time with other people!

*Bubble Guppies has an episode with a cowgirl who says that she is the 'ropingeset, ridingest cowgirl in all of Bubbletuckey County'.  When she rides her rocking horse at home or the carousel at the mall she will say, 'Yeehaw, I'm the ropingest cowgirl in all of Tuckey County!'

*When we tell her that we are going to go somewhere or do something, she starts to run around in a circle and say, 'Yipee!  I'm so sited!'

*When we ask her what kind of ice cream she wants she will ask for chocolate, pink, and white.  Not sure why chocolate is the only one specifically named.

*When she goes swimming she wears her 'babing soup' and she has to be a mermaid like in Dora.

*The flashlight is her 'spying scope'.

*When she runs around in a circle she says she is 'so busy'.


There is no doubt that our girl bops along to the beat of her own drum.  And I am proud every second to be her mom.

Seeing The Good

My mom posted this article last week on Facebook.  I read it and it really did inspire me to want to see the good in what Caroline does.  Since it is the summer and I'll be home with her, I wanted to make the most of every day.  So the day after I read it I headed out to get the pom poms so we could start giving out our 'warm fuzzies'.  We got up the next morning and I was so excited to sit her down and explain to her what the fuzzies were and how she could earn them. That immediately lead into a torrential tantrum because she wanted to play with all of them right then.  She flung herself on the floor, had to go to time out, spent a good few minutes crying - it was horrible.  What an ironic start to something that is supposed to be a good thing!  After she calmed down and I was able to explain the situation again, I asked her to apologize for throwing her fit.  She gave me a hug and said, 'I'm sorry, Mom. I didn't mean to. I was just being a little bit silly! I feel so happier now!'  Whack job!

We started this last week and she has almost filled her jar.  She doesn't ask for them, but she gets super excited when we tell her that she has earned one.  And each time we talk about why she is getting one and she is quick to tell you that you get one 'for listening, sharing, being nice, and helping'!  Doing this has really helped me see the good in what she does.  (Sidenote: this has not taken the place of discipline.  I still fully believe that there are certain times and situations that call for a spanking and time out.)  For instance, she has learned how to take her clothes off.  She has also began to figure out how to dress herself.  So one day she came out of her room and she had taken off her pajamas and was fully dressed.  She did not match at all and there were clothes all over her room, but I gave her a fuzzy because I was so proud of her for being able to do it by herself.  You could see the pride in her face.  It was priceless.  I think this will be a great thing to teach her good behavior and good manners and it was help me see the good that she does through the mess! 

Update:  She did such a good job over the past week that she filled up her first jar!  We told her she could earn a prize and so off to Walmart we went.  We looked at Sofia, Dora, Bubble Guppies and at the end of the day she chose a Mike Wazowski (Monsters Inc monster who she calls Mikey Owski) and a cowboy hat.  I love that when we go shopping she knows exactly what she wants and will tell you to put back what she doesn't.  Makes our fun shopping much easier!

Potty Training - Round 1

It has been a good few months that Caroline has been using the potty.  And by using the potty I mean that she understands that she sits on it, somethings falls into it, and then she wipes and gets up.  She's been peeing before her bath for a while and it has been a fun game that she has been interested in.  She has also been telling us that she needs to go pee - even in the middle of Target.  All of that combined with the fact that summer was approaching and I thought there was no better time to potty train the girl.  So we loaded up on Dora underwear (thanks, Mimi and Grammie!), ripped off the diaper, and gave it a go.  She was doing pretty well to begin with.  I would ask her if she needed to go, we'd run into the bathroom, we'd see if Dora was clean and dry (sometimes she was, sometimes she wasn't), she'd pee, get super excited about being able to pull off the toilet paper and then in about 30 minutes we'd do it all over again!  Things were great for those first few days, but then it became a little bit harder to get her on the potty.  She didn't want to stop playing, she would disappear for a little while and come out with Dora carrying a load.  The next weekend we ended up going to Jacksonville and I asked her if she wanted to put on a diaper for the ride.  She said yes and hasn't put the underwear back on.  I ask her every couple of days just to see, but so far the diapers are doing her right.

This is something that I am totally ready do in her time.  She was totally into it, which is why I gave it a shot, but when it didn't work - I'm ok throwing the diaper back on and hanging the underwear up for a while.  She is not even 2 1/2 yet.  I also found out that in order to get a discount at her daycare she has to be 3 AND potty trained, so I have until March before we will reap any sort of financial reward, which means that there is absolutely no reason to push this if she isn't ready.  I'll just keep asking and when she is ready to do it, we'll do it all the way!