Flying

All of these pictures are from my ipad, and therefore equal less than decent quality. Boo.

We have gone through this little shift in our family over the past couple of weeks. It's oddly familiar and quite reminiscent. There is a two year old in the house.

Right before Quinn's birthday she became interested in the whole potty training bit. She would sit on her little potty, run around naked and inevitably pee on the floor (and insist on cleaning up "by myself!"). Then she turned two and things have gotten serious. My diaper laundry doesn't even warrant a whole load.  Much like the other two, Quinn is determined to do this! She tells me when she needs to pee and runs to the big potty (she has no use for that plastic potty anymore) and much like a third child (or, our third child anyway) we put Isabella's underwear on her. She waves me out of the bathroom saying, "I need private, I need private." Today I put a diaper on her for nap and she immediately ripped it off and said "no, I need to pee" and marched her little self right into the bathroom and that's what she did.

     She did put all of these underwear on. She was adament that Isabella was not going to wear  them, so being the problem solver that she is, she wore them.  All of them.

  Her vocabulary had just started overflowing as well. Every night after she nurses, she tells me that she wants to sing. So we sit in the dark and go through all of the songs in her repertoire. This consists of Sunshine Away (You are my Sunshine), Heart Family (Laurie berkener's 'Family'), Little Star (Twinkle, Twinkle), Moon, Moon, Moon (another Laurie Berkener song), and her newest: Elmo. I'm not sure what she's referencing so I just sing that Elmos World song and that seems to work. When she's trying to fall asleep, she flips over me to get to the other side of the bed, about five times before settling. It goes like this: Quinn: "I go on this side." Me: "why?" Quinn: "Umm, because yeah." Repeat (just because I like to hear her say that last part.
Food regression? Yep, she's got that covered too. She'd much rather nurse...apparently that's the more efficient way to fill a belly. Her new ploy: she doesn't even ask. She crawls into my lap, positions herself, starts making sucking noises and looks up at me trying her hardest not to laugh. Her sense of humor is definitly ever present. I love two year olds. I don't say that all day long, but for the most part, I do. The learning and practicing is at its peak and watching Quinn attempt to use scissors, peel stickers from a sheet, use dry erase markers and paint a circle, all fascinate me. She wants to do it all. She is bossy. She tells me as we're walking up or down the steps, "hold da railing!" If I ask her not to do something (i.e. man handle Piper's face before washing her hands) and then I dare try to do what I just told her not to do, she quickly reminds me, "No mommy! You no touch Piper! Wash hands!" They are so very different and they are all so much alike. I reflect back on the other two at this age and sometimes it's hard to remember. Right now I soak it up and try my hardest to remember. I seriously love Quinn as she is right now (and I'll love her more tomorrow when she changes all over again).

Isabella is officially ready to begin school. We set up a desk for her downstairs and she immediately filled it with necessities for the common kindergartner: crayons, a puzzle, a workbook, scissors, and a hello kitty figurine. Then she called me teacher all day, spoke in her most polite voice and gave herself recess in the garage (since it was raining). I think this kindergarten thing will be a piece of cake!

Declan can still be found in one of three positions at any given time: on all fours, kneeling, bending at the waist. He is still in constant search for a bug, butterfly, dragonfly, beetle, water bug, june bug, fly, or any other tiny buzzing, flying, crawling creature. When we go to the library every week he establishes his newest fascination upon entering, goes directly to 'his' section and proceeds to check out every book on his hot topic of the week. This week was frogs and tadpoles. My mom had taken him to the pet store last weekend and he picked out a tadpole to add to his fish tank. We now know every possible thing there is to know about frogs and tadpoles. Declan also runs into his room every morning, certain that his aquatic tadpole has morped into an aquatic frog over night. And no, it never gets old. Food and bugs (and sometimes dinosaurs)...the sun rises and sets around these things.

Oh, and I almost forgot the hips. I am convinced that Declan has his own private Pandora app in his brain. There has to be music in there, I'm sure. His hips rarely stop moving. Evidence below:
I will never stop laughing at this picture...

This summer is flying...