joys of motherhood: April

-(4.2) Yesterday Paul looked at me and said "Caitlin is my best friend. I just love her". He is the best daddy and Caitlin and him really have a special connection. It makes me happy that out of anyone in the world Paul would most like to be with his family. And i really believe that.
-(4.3) I know sometimes on my blog i may sound a little over-optimistic and problem-less. mostly because i choose to concentrate on my happy things in life and not the sad/boring/negative. However: lest you think i have the perfect life... today i have major major allergies for the 4th day in a row, so stuffy i can barely keep my eyes open and i can't really load up on the meds. Caitlin has been awake for the past 1.5 hours in her crib in the next bedroom doing any mixture of yelling, singing, talking, crying but i KNOW she is tired and needs to sleep because she was a complete stinker this morning running errands. So im leaving her there. Paul worked really late last night that i was asleep when he got home and still asleep when he left this morning so i am missing my hubby. I haven't gotten a decent night's sleep in about a week. I am gaining more weight than i hoped and quickly getting out of the "cute pregnant" stage, and i am feeling super-frump lately. Yes, that is a word. The other night i drove Paul's truck somewhere while he was with Caitlin and when i came back i had to park it in the garage which is really hard for me to do with the other car in there because of the angle i have to pull in. Usually i just make Paul do it but this time i was determined to do it myself. As i was maneuvering, i hit the side mirror on the side of the garage. Awesome. Turns out it costs $500 to fix. Awesome again. k so there's my complaining.
-Caitlin talks a lot and learns new words everyday but she has a solid 10+ words that she uses for the most part. The only problem is that really like has like 5 words and each words means about 3 things. They all sound the same. For example: "dada" = daddy, chocolate or jacket. and "pedo"= Mickey, open, or pizza. Depends on intonation and situation. My life is a guessing game. We don't know why she says "pedo" for mickey, but she does. She also says "mano" for messy. Se gets really concerned if her hands get too messy or if people around her are really messy. She did start saying "bay bee" perfectly and it is so cute.
-She loves stamps. She gets stamps on her feet every week after gymnastics and i'm pretty sure it's her favorite part of the class. She loves looking down at them for the rest of the day and for however long they last on there. It's like she forgets about them and then when she sees them she goes "ooo!" and points to them and shows everyone.
-She is OBSESSED with lion king. She calls is "raar" and whenever the TV is on or i say "do you wanna watch a show" she asks for it and goes and gets it and will bring it out to me. This happens at least once a day. I tried switching it up the other day and convinced her to try Beauty and the Beast but 10 minutes into it she was going to get raars. She really just likes the beginning part with all the animals and most the songs so to save my sanity i'm very liberal with the FF and we just watch the good parts. 
-(4.5) She sat on the potty twice! We were in the bathroom getting ready for her bath and she started saying "pee pee" and pulled me off the toilet and wanted to sit on there. I figured it wouldn't hurt so i put her on and she sat there for a couple seconds then wiped and flushed. She's done it several times since then but she never has actually GONE to the bathroom. But i figure it's good to have a positive relationship with the toilet for when she is ready to be potty trained so whenever she asks and tells me "pee pee" (usually once or twice a day) I let her sit on there. I don't know if this will help me or hurt me for potty training?
-(4.11) K here's my "Sometimes I'm a bad mom confession" for today: This morning i got up before Caitlin and was in on the computer and i heard her waking up in the next room... usually she takes a little while to wake up before she's ready for someone to come get her. She jabbers and rolls around and stuff but this morning she started crying. I thought maybe she was trying to poo or something or woke up VERY grumpy so i wanted to give her a few more minutes to get under control before i went in. After another few minutes she was still crying so i went in and the first thing she said was "stuck!" I looked and her little arm was stuck between the side of her crib and the wall! She had stuffed her blanket in there and then went to get it and got stuck. Poor thing! I just thought she was in a bad mood! I felt so bad.
-(4.15) Last Sunday we were having a bit of a hectic morning trying to get out the door for church: me not feeling well and Caitlin not helping dad out who was trying to help mom out. Anyways i had set out a little dress for her to wear that was size 18 months. She's been wearing anywhere from 18-24 months lately in clothes. She wore this dress last summer but it was still a little big on her then so i figured it would fit her again this year. Paul dressed her while she was sitting on his lap and when she was ready we all stood up and walked to run out the door.. only to notice that Caitlin's dress was SUPER short. Like a shirt. Like barely covering her diaper. Hmmm, guess girlfriend has gotten a little taller in the last year! But did we change her? no. I just added some lacy tights and mad sure she had cute panties on and away we went. But it was definitely her last time to wear that one.     
-She's gotten really into sleeping with her stuffed animals. Before it was always just blankies (both of them) and bink that she had to have but now she loves to sleep with her pink poodle ("woof woof") her baby doll and her stuffed lion ("raar") She asks for whichever ones she wants with her and often times its all three.
-(4.17) I took Caitlin to the mid-week youth activity with me tonight. She comes from time to time when Paul can't be home in time to watch her and depending on what we are doing it's usually fine. Anyways tonight we were talking about genealogy and for the first little while we were listening to speakers talk to everyone was being quiet and sitting in their seats. Caitlin was making her own personal jungle gym out of the folding chair next to me while eating a ring pop and was being pretty good. Just as the Bishop got to sharing his testimony about the importance of forever families, Caitlin was climbing up on the chair and TOOTS! Not anything super loud or nasty, but a very discernible toot, especially in a quiet room. Of course since the room was full of about 50 teenagers there was an eruption of laughter. All I could do was point to Caitlin and say sorry. Caitlin thought it was hilarious that everyone was laughing and she started laughing super loud too and squealing and raising her hand. Poor Bishop, took him awhile to re-group everyone after that.
-(4.19) I have an addition to Newton's Laws: If you put your baby down for a nap and she has not pooped all day and then proceed to do every. single. speck of laundry in your house while she sleeps and are finishing with the very last load as she wakes up, she WILL ABSOLUTELY wake up with a humongous blowout that calls for immediately washing of pajamas, sheets, blankets and even the occasional crib bumper. Every time.
-She is OBSESSED with this little book that we have that teaches baby sign language so all it has is pictures of babies doing little signs with the word at the top. She calls it "babies" and wants to look at it all the time. The other day she even had to go to sleep with it. She loves looking at the pictures of the babies in it.
-She is also obsessed with the "popcorn popping" song. She says "pop!" whenever she wants to sing it and she asks for it in the car and when she is going to sleep and usually she starts requesting it again before you even get through it the first time.