joys of motherhood: March

A lot of times there are things that happen that remind me of the "joys of motherhood"... both in a real way and also in a sarcastic way. (You'll have to sort out which are real and which are sarcastic for yourself). These are little things that I want to remember but not necessarily make a whole individual post about, and I'm sure that as more kids come there will be countless more joys. So here's a list I've compiled from this past month.

-Caitlin is finally taking baths by herself and the other morning everything was going great and then i look over to find that she had totally POOED in the tub! Just a floating log. So disgusting.

-Caitlin can do all the signs to "itsy bitsy spider", although she only performs them when she wants to. But it's the cutest thing when she does. She also requests "popcorn popping" and "wheels on the bus" when we are driving in the car and her favorite part of wheels on the bus is when the babies say "waa waa waa" and the mommies say "shh shh shh"... she sings along with those parts.

-Caitlin says "no no no" all the time now and it seems to be her go to word for everything. Someone was asking the other day if she knows how to say "yes" and i said, not really, we just know it's what she wants by her absense of "no". But even when she's not asking for something she will say it. The other day we were walking out of Walmart past all the cash registers and she was sitting in the cart and there was a little girl holding a brand new bike that she had just bought. Happy as can be and we walk by and Caitlin looks and points to her and says "NO!". So sad! Geez Caitlin just rain on her little parade.

-The neighbor kids have been playing outside a ton in this gorgeous weather and they come and ring our doorbell and ask if Caitlin can come out and play. It warms my heart... they are so cute and they just love her. Caitlin loves going outside too. Now that it's nice weather she brings me her shoes and jacket at least a few times a day and demands to go outside. She thinks that if she has her shoes and jacket on then automatically she earns the right to go outside.

-Pretty much every morning, Caitlin asks for chocolate chips in her oatmeal. She either asks for it right at the beginning or she stops midway and says "dada!" (which means many things but chocolate is one of them) And then she pulls me over to the pantry and points up at the bag. I put one on every spoonful, but i try to limit her so she doesn't have a ton. I started doing it one morning when she wasn't wanting to eat and now i've created a monster. But to be honest, i have chocolate chips in MY oatmeal every morning so i cant be a hypocrite.

-I had to do the saddest thing i have ever done for Caitlin (to date). She had to get her blood drawn for some testing and it broke my heart. I know mothers have been through way worse but for us so far this was the hardest thing. Holding her still and tightly on my lap while they had to poke in both arms to try to get blood out and just hearing her cry and scream and say "no no no" brought me to tears. I tried to sing her songs and distract her and she really was so brave. As soon as they were done she stopped crying and then the lady gave her a little rubber duck and Caitlin looked at her and said "thank you!" and smiled at her just so sweetly and took her little ducky and started walking out while still saying thank you and waving bye. It was the sweetest thing it melted my heart.

-She loves singing (in general, but..) in church. She has to hold the hymn book and she flips through the pages the whole time and points to different words and sings "la la la". Sometimes for all 4 verses.

-Background: She (still) loves her spot books and one of her favorites is "Where's Spot?" You have to lift the flaps to find Spot (i.e. "Is spot in the piano... or in the closet..." or wherever and there's always a different animal in there instead of Spot so they all say "no". One page there is a box with 3 penguins inside so you lift the flap and they say "no no no".
So: the other day we were looking at a completely different book that had lots of animals in it. She started pointing to the different animals and making their noises and then she pointed at the penguin picture and said "no no no" HAHA I asked her a few more times what the penguin says and she legitimately thinks they say "no no no". I thought it was so funny so i didn't correct her, also because i don't really know what to substitute- i can't make a penguin noise.

-Caitlin's naps have been touch and go, usually i can get her to be in her room for at least an hour without noise.. whether she is sleeping, trying to sleep or doing who knows what. I've learned that i need to do whatever it is that i HAVE to get done right away because i never know how long it will be til she's yelling to get out. Sometimes she will still take a good one so i'm hoping it's a phase.

-Thursday is usually my laundry/clean the house day. If you ever show up at my house on a Thursday I will most likely be in my sweats with no makeup and a ponytail. Today while i was cleaning i decided that the way i feel about cleaning my house is the way i feel about working out: I hate doing it, but it feels so good to know that it's done and you did it. Then i decided cleaning is actually better because you (not me, anytime soon, but i'm just saying...) you could hire someone to come do it for you and still feel the same satisfaction is knowing it got done. But working out will never be that way. blast.