Lesson learned: check your facts before arguing with a two year old

It comes as no surprise that you LOVE animals. Most of your first words were animals. It's the only thing you can hold a conversation about. You even have an active imagination and a friendly elephant by your side at all times. You have never ceased to amaze me how quickly you pick up on anything animal related. So, with all this being said, I shouldn't have found myself in the following situation to begin with, but I did.

A week or so a go you were doing anything to get my attention, and once you had it you would repeat "o-cup-ee!" I thought for sure you meant "a cup please." So I handed you a cup. You only started repeating it more quickly. "o-cup-ee, o-cup-ee, o-cup-ee!" When that didn't work, I found more cups. Now you were not only repeating quickly, you were doing so more and more loudly. I want nothing's more than to help encourage you to use your words and I was failing to understand what you so desperately were wanting me to know. When I had given you every cup with every different kind of drink in it and you were still not satisfied, I gave up. I figured you were ready for a nap and it was over.

Well, it didn't end there. Before going to bed the other night you were at it again, "o-cup-ee!" This time you were showing me a book of African animals. You were pointing to an animal that resembled a brown horse with zebra striped legs. I tried to explain to you that it wasn't a cup, it was a horse with zebra legs. This response was not good enough. I then found myself in an argument with you

Gage: "O-cup-ee!"

Mom: "No, zebra horse, it's a horse with zebra looking legs!"

Gage: "Haha no, o-cup-ee!"

Back and forth and back and forth, you thought it was so much fun. We laughed and argued for a few minutes. I didn't know how else to describe to you in terms you would understand what I was seeing, and clearly you were unable to do the same. I finally pulled out the iPad and searched what we were looking at.

An "Okapi" is a distance relative to the giraffe.

Wow, I screwed up. Turns out I don't need to talk to you like my baby anymore. You understand way more than I give you credit for. I love that you love to learn, and I love that occasionally you will let me hold you while you tell me all about the animals you find in EVERY single book.

 Don't ever stop learning.

How to: really keep a Friday interesting

This post is not for everyone, its simply a documentation of my horrific Friday, all thanks to my one and only Gage. Please do not continue if you get queezy at the site of baby waste

You are getting pretty good at this potty training thing. I still wish you would tell me more often that you need to go, instead of me recognizing "oh, no! he needs to go!' and running you to the bathroom. Well on Friday you decided you didn't need to wait for me to grab you running.

I was putting you down for a nap. On an average day, you lay there in bed and talk yourself to sleep. You will not get out of bed under any circumstances until mom yells "come upstairs." For this reason you have been know to sit there until you pee yourself and start crying. I thought today would be like any other day, but I was wrong. Today, when you felt the urge to go to the bathroom, you got up and went. Problem is, you normally sit on the potty until I hear you yell "all done" and I come and help you wipe. So while I thought you were asleep, you sat on the potty waiting for mom to come help you wipe. Well you must have gotten bored waiting. I could here you talking but didn't realize you were telling me you were done. Soon enough you are screaming and I come running to find this...

You tried wiping yourself and ended up using the entire roll. When you flushed, the toilet was clogged and the water kept running. The water level was getting so high in the toilet that it touched your bum and you started scooting all around covering my toilet in poop. By the time I got there, the water was about 2 inches high and leaking into your bedroom on the carpet.

Panicking, I turned the toilet water source off, put and towel at the door to stop the water from leaking out anymore, and began scooping was much water and baby waste into the tub as I could to prevent any more damage. Meanwhile you were still scared and screaming. I threw my poo covered baby in the shower with a toy and called daddy and made him come home early to help me with the rest of this mess. These are the pics I snapped so daddy could examine what mess he was coming home to.

I feel bad for your bathroom. You have put it through a lot while potty training.

daddy's boy

And daddy thinks I spoil you with affection?! The two of you are pretty attached to the hip.

(visiting the library on daddy's day off)

six months makes a big difference

Six months ago your vocab consisted of mostly farm animals. These days

• Frog is "tree frog"
• Whale is "humpback whale"
• Bird is "duck" "goose" "chicken" "rooster" "turkey" "macaw" "penguin" or "flamingo" depending on what you see
• Your favorite animals of course are pretty exotic "rhino" "hippo" "camel" "jaguar" "rhea" which is relative of the ostrich, and of course your most favorite of all the "elephant"

Six months ago you had 3-4  one worded commands. These days

• "need help"
• "more milk"
• "snack please"
• "Look, snowing!"

Six months ago you could not put words together to make a sentence. These days

• "uh oh, it broke, fix it!"
• "ok, we are coming"
• "I so happy"
• "its stuck, pull!"
• "need drink, thirsty"
• "help I falling"

My new favorites: any man with a beard is "Santa," anything with antlers is a "reindeer," all snow is a "snowman" and of course you fake sneeze just so that you can say "bless you"

Christmas 2012

(A Christmas sneak peak)

We always start Christmas off on the 24th with your Grandma and Grandpa. You must have been cousin deprived because you had no interest in eating this year, just playing. Following a ham dinner is a Christmas themed message. This year as Grandpa read excerpts from Luke, while all the cousins got to open little presents. Each present was a part of the nativity. Next we attempted to do a little musical number with pipes. I say "attempted" because I think everyone in attendance would agree we failed. Next we opened jammies. This is  momma's favorite part, I love new warm jammies on my soft sweet babies. Lastly, we open ornaments. You got a Mater ornament and love it so much you insisted on playing with it for the remainder of the night, you hated the though of it hanging on a tree hen it could be played with.

Once we finish our festivities upstairs all the cousins line up and headed down stairs to see their stocking and open presents. Its a wild experience, and it becomes more wild the bigger this family gets, but you are in heaven. Your favorite present  by far was your playmobil Mommy Mammoth and Baby Mammoth, your grandma and grandpa just know you so well!

As expected, you fell asleep on the drive home. I think Asher may have been more excited for Santa than you because he woke up at 8:30am, and you on the other hand had to be woken up at 11am because momma just couldn't take it anymore. We spent Christmas morning with Nana and Papa. Santa brought you the Noah's Ark and lots of animals. After Noah's ark it was hard to focus and open your life size Buzz, Woody and Bullseye. 

We had a yummy omlet bar for brunch and hung out drinking WAY too much juice until it was time to drive North to Great Gma's house. You were welcomed by all the Neves' cousins who made sure to take care of you and share all of their toys. Nana made the most delicious turkey and you couldn't get enough to eat. We stayed up til midnight chatting and catching up before we decided to head home. 

It was a successful Christmas with lots of food, fun and family.

Festivities

A lot of wild sledding, gingerbread making, temple light seeing, and Christmas tree decorating went down last month. Tis' the season for festivities, and we certainly made the most of it.