Toilet learning on a whim

I think Beebster is going through a phase.

For the past 2 days, she has consistently come to me saying "Momma, esss" and pointing to her diaper and then towards the bathroom. This has meant that she has pooped or peed, and I think she is relating this to going to the bathroom like Maddie. Twice today she had peed in her diaper, and then peed in the toilet after sitting up there. And, yesterday she pooped in her diaper but then wanted to go sit on the toilet and pooped in there too. She looks SO small on the big toilet, and her little toosh can almost fit through the Sesame toilet seat. Maddie and I clapped big time for her when she peed those two times this morning, and she went and woke up Dan telling him "Da Da, ess!" She was quite proud.

I am 99.99% positive that this is just a phase that she is going through where she is wanting to be just like her big sissy, her hero. She desperately wishes she could climb up on the bench like Maddie does to get up to the toilet without help, but has nearly fallen each time she has tried this.

I am certainly not going to promote or push this whole toilet thing right now with Faith, but I'll definitely think it's wonderful if she wants to keep trying. I'm sure it helps that she always goes to the bathroom with Maddie when Maddie goes, and therefore has plenty of firsthand knowledge of all things related to the toilet, etc. It's funny because now Maddie is the one that sprints with Faith when Faith says she needs to go, and Maddie stands next to her as Beebster's cheerleader. They're quite the team.

22 months old

Miss Faith-y turned 22 months old this Tuesday.

It is deja vu in so many aspects. I keep telling Dan that it's crazy to think that when Maddie was this age, she would be a big sister to her Beebster in another 12 days. 

Now, Faith is at that age that I seem to remember specifically well with Maddie. I remember right before Faith was born, Maddie had started to want to walk almost the entire length of our daily walks all by herself. Faith has been doing this for two weeks now. She barely ever sits in the stroller now, although I take it with me just in case. She LOVES picking up acorns, "cherries," rocks, etc.  We collect everything and bring it back here to paint them or color them with whatever we happen to have- markers, glitter paints, glitter and glue, etc. Maddie used to love that too at this age. 

I don't remember Maddie being so incredibly attached to Dan though. She's always been Dan's little Cran and considers him to be her prince (when she and Beebster were looking for Dan on TV this past Sunday during the Eagles game, Maddie kept saying "oh, Momma.. where is the prince of my dreams?!"), but I don't remember this funny stage of complete and utter fascination the way that Faith does with her Da-da. She LOVES him. She breathes him. They are the best of friends. I think it's awesome. Dan went to the Eagles game on Sunday, and Faith walked around with his car keys the entire day. She did not put them down. She took them to bed with her. She got incredibly angry when Cole tried to snatch them from her twice that day-- which, she definitely is not as submissive as Maddie about stuff, but she usually doesn't put up that much of a fight either. While Maddie played with Cole, Kayla, and Chloe that afternoon, Faith sat in the grass with her Da-da's car keys. I asked her constantly if she wanted to play with everyone, and she would just shake her head and say "Da Da" and hold on to the keys. It was precious. Needless to say, she was one happy little Beebster when she saw him on Monday morning!

We went to cousin's house again on Wednesday, which is always a blast for Maddie and Faith. She is so funny about waiting right by the window at 11pm (after I've woken them up to get them ready to go) looking for Da-da and his car lights. I've never seen her run so fast like she does when I announce that it is indeed Da-da's car. Dan was telling me in the car that night that he'll always remember and cling to these moments as his little women's best friend at this age, just in case they don't want to be around as much later on in the good ol' teenage years!

The story of a little chipmunk

Beebster cracks me up.

She was so upset to not see the chipmunk today on our walk. By chipmunk, I mean a DEAD chipmunk. A dead chipmunk that had flies and ants on its head just yesterday.

When we went for our walk yesterday, we came across a little dead chipmunk laying by the sidewalk. Poor little guy (or 'fella' as Maddie and I say). Of course, I told Faith that he was sleeping. She kept crouching next to the little thing saying "awwww" with her little hands on her knees and her head cocked to the side. I had to warn her not to get too close to the poor, little fella'. Before we started walking away, she goes "Bah!" and blows the dead chipmunk a kiss. It was so darn funny. We walked a little bit, and then in her Beebster language asked me if she could go back to the chipmunk. She enthusiastically responded "ESSS!" when I asked her if she wanted to go blow him another kiss. She ran as fast as her little Beebster legs could carry her, crouched beside the little guy's carcass, and blew him another kiss before saying "Bah!" 

That was Dan's favorite Beebster story of yesterday when he called for his daily updates of what the girls had been up to for the day. We both thought it was hilarious, and totally Beebster!

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She has watched a few more clips of other Disney's recently. She loves "101 Dalmations" and now realizes that her one pajama shirt has a dalmation on it! She loves seeing the puppy when she wears the shirt. She loves Tod and Copper in "Fox and the Hound 2," and saw a little bit of "Bug's Life" and "Lilo and Stitch." My girls and I will have the time of our lives when we finally get to DisneyWorld one of these days. 

little Beebster

Leave it to a Beebster

We went to the big Spirit Halloween store today just to look around at costumes. Maddie is super excited about picking a Halloween costume, and Faith loves roaming around big warehouse stores so this was right up her alley. It was basically as though we had access to a free haunted house because of all the decorations that they had set up, including the large ones. Faith was making Dan and I laugh so much. Maddie was intrigued by all the "spooky" stuff, but would then run around in a circle acting goofy and saying "oh my gosh, this is too creepy." Beebster, on the other hand, absolutely LOVED the creepy head bowls that say funny things and have blood dripping out of their mouths. She stood there with her mouth opened in awe just listening to everything that they would say. She didn't even move an inch. Then, after they would be done saying what they had to say, she would say "Bah" ('bye') to them and blow them a kiss! Haha. Dan thought this was hilarious, and I had to agree. She also loved the big cauldron pots that had mist coming out of them (she wanted to put her hand IN them!) and kept giving kisses to all of the pumpkins. Halloween just might prove to be Beebster's special holiday!

My little woman is pointing out all of her colors these days. She's been pointing out her colors for awhile now- probably a few months- when you give her certain things that have limited choices. For example, if she's playing with her cookie toy that has red, blue, yellow, and green cookies, she always knows which color is which when you ask her. But, lately I've noticed that she finds objects of certain colors when you ask her in random places. When we're on a walk, I'll ask her if she sees a blue car and she'll look forever until she can find one. She starts pointing and going "DIS!" It's so cute. She also loves to pretend to count. Whenever we give her a bunch of something (like grapes or cars or whatever) she points to each individual thing and counts in her Beebster language. I hope I never forget what the Beebster language (and the Crandall language for that matter) sound like!

She went to sleep with her new beloved book: "Where's God When I'm S-s-scared?" It's a little Goldenbook that she loves with one of her favorites from Veggie Tales fame, Junior Asparagus. She's now obsessed with two pages in the book that show a big slime monster and what appears to be a corn flake monster. She'll sit there and repeatedly point to the monsters asking us "diss? diss?" prompting us to tell her it's either the slime monster or the corn flake monster. Then she pretends to hide her eyes as though she's scared, but peeks out to smile. She's so funny!