Little Miss Sensitive

So this is something new. Not sure if it's her tender age or a sign of things to come. Whenever you tell Arden 'no' she breaks into a torrent of tears. We were at the doctor today and she touched the outlet covers (and I didn't stop her because - that's why we have COVERS) and the doctor gave her a sharp "No! No!" and you would have thought somebody had just cut off her pinkie toe. Even the doctor totally backpedaled and apologized to her. She reacts like this to even the slightest reprimand, which is funny at first and then just kind of annoying because you have to be like: um, 'Arden, would you mind please not opening that cabinet door because all the expensive china is in there, thank you,' unless you want a 5 minute shrieking and crying ordeal. It's difficult, especially when you are used to barking out orders at an obstinate 2-year-old who will cut his unfazed eyes at you and then do whatever it was anyway. Arden's the same way about tumbles and spills - which I know Sawyer never was. This is probably where the nurture comes into play because I know we were better about telling him to brush it off and move on. She opens her mouth to for a giant wail but no sound comes out for . . . . 5 . . . . 10 . . . . 15 . . . . seconds and we can't help but pick the poor thing up at which point she lets out a lungful and then sticks those two fingers in her mouth and nestles her head against us. And, since I've seen the future and know what's to come in another 6 months or so, I can help but take that moment to snuggle my Little Miss Sensitive and kiss her tears. But maybe we're creating even a worse kind of monster.

Come down from there!

Whenever Justin leaves, we explain to Sawyer that he's getting on an airplane and that we won't see him for a while. It's funny how these things translate in the mind of a 2-year-old. Sawyer must actually think Justin stays on the airplane THE WHOLE TIME circling over us. Then somehow that airplane morphed into a helicopter because every time we hear a helicopter flying over the house he starts screaming IT'S JUSTIN, IT"S JUSTIN! HE'S COMING DOWN TO VISIT! Another funny toddler translation, because whenever somebody comes from the Northern Virginia area we say that they are 'coming down to visit.' Happily, he will actually be 'coming down' in a few weeks. We can't wait!

It may be torment

When I was young I did my best to convince my brother that he was actually adopted from China. You can muse over the many ironies there. And, as I pointed to the lack of baby pictures and the dark spiky hair in the one photo we had as evidence, he always returned a look of skepticism. But somewhere along the way I must have cracked a fissure in his disbelief because when he brought his bride-to-be home for the first time and my mother could not find a single photograph of him under the age of three, he came undone. Ever since then, I am reminded at every family gathering of the myriad ways I abused my poor brother - The Sharpie Incident, The Cleaning Incident, The Ugly Smile Incident - mind you all these incidents took place before I turned 9. Yet, here I am, two kids, and poor Numero Dos has drawn the short straw. Ross pointed it out from the very get go - as only a younger sibling could. Since then, I haven't documented Arden's every word (not that there have been many to document) and I haven't mentioned that at 14 months old she still only has five teeth (isn't that CRAZY?) and I definitely haven't posted enough photos. Sawyer just keeps snagging all the firsts. Oh, and - by the way, as it turns out - my brother's son looks just like him as a baby. Aren't those adoption agencies amazing? (Please note: I'm an older sister. I continue to torment whenever possible. Neither my brother nor his baby were actually adopted)

The barn house

A late winter snow

P.T.

There have been no major milestone moments for us in the potty training process. Just before Christmas I bought one of those small seats that fits over top the regular toilet, two cans of jelly bellies and about 20 pairs of underwear and decided to just go for it. Whenever we were home, Sawyer wore underwear. He got one jelly bean for a number one, two for a number two. He caught on to that fact pretty quickly. (My playgroup friend assured me that once going to the potty is second nature, the treats get moved to the kitchen and eventually they forget to ask for them.) He loved the underwear - Buzz, Nemo, Spiderman, Wall-E, Cars, if Disney sponsored it, he dug it. And we've had plenty of accidents. About three weeks ago I started sending him to school in underwear. He'd come home some days with two or three knotted grocery bags of clothes (the accidents) and recently he's been coming home in the underwear and pants he wore to school. Now he wants to sleep in underwear, but its hard to convince him that he can't drink a full cup of water before he goes to sleep if he wants to wear underwear - that's going to be a hard habit to break. On long road trips I still put a diaper on him, and he cries when he has to pee. I have a mom friend that travels with a porta-pot in the trunk for roadside emergencies, but I'm just not there yet. Which brings me to my final potty training note: I've decided it's not the kids who have to be trained, it's the parents. It's such a lifestyle adjustment, something that has to be remembered and maintained and until the parent is ready to be potty trained, the kid will never be.