Potty/Mouth

Oh, Miss Raegan. How you delight, amaze, and challenge us on a daily basis. Life with our Sweet Miss is in that really fun toddler stage where they can do quite a bit on their own (and in her case, insist upon such!) and you can actually trust them to do a lot of it by themselves. We are also in what I will call the High/Low of toddlerhood where we can go from happy to sad to happy to sad in the span of two minutes or less, which is usually the result of a following exchange:

RL: Me want Crispees (Cripex).
Me: You want more Crispex?
RL: No. *tears*
Me: You don't want more Crispex? You're done?
RL. No. Me want more Crispees. No Crispees! *tears*
Me: No more Crispees. OK.
RL: YES! Crispees!
Me. *gives Crispees!*
RL: *tears* Crispeeeeeeeeeees! (is this because I gave them to her or didn't or what? seriously. can't keep up.)
Me. *tears* (just kidding. High/Low gives me whiplash but has yet to reduce me to tears.)

And trust me when I say, I'm not exaggerating that for you; that scene plays out in a hundred different ways every week. But eventually we sort it all out and get her what she wants (doesn't want?) and we move on with life. Also moving on in RL's world? The potty progress!

As you may remember, Baby Girl decided on her second birthday that she was going to start using the potty. This was highly unexpected and was highly messy and honestly highly bothersome for quite some time. Finally, in the last couple weeks, we hit a smooth patch where she is actually consistently listening to her body and getting herself to the bathroom on time and - get this - I can feel (fairly, sort of, a little) confident leaving the house with her in undies! WhooHoo! And again - this is all her. I would have never even bothered potty training what with everything else going on in our world right now, but RL had other plans. May all of her independent streaks be so productive! ;)

The other delight of Life with a Two is, of course, the language. I love, love, love listening to a Little learn to speak and Raegge has not failed to deliver in this regard. As for the family, she's got us covered: Ben is Daddy, I am Mommy (why? I am Mama, but she's calling me Mommy; we'll work on that), Brudder has become Heh-i-sun, and Winkun is still Winkun or Winky; it's all very, very sweet. Oh, and when my parents visit, Mara is Mar-na which we all love! And just like the potty progress, her speaking has really taken off in the last few weeks. She was talking a lot prior to that, but suddenly we've got full phrases and sentences popping out all over the place and it's just fun. Here are some of the highlights of Raegan-ese:

     * Take the "tr" out of "truck" and replace it with "fw" and you have quite the loud word being yelled at quite loud volumes, quite often. Actually, this got better for a few months but all of the sudden, it's back. Oh, truck!

     * "Mama. Ihaffaqueshton" She must listen to her brother. A lot. Because Harrison says to me, a lot: "Mama, I have a question." :)

     * MenkYou & WelkUm - the sweetest version of toddler manners you've ever heard, and hilarious because she says it all as one phrase. You give her something she asks for and she responds, "MenkYou(short pause)WelkUm" all the time.

     * Fingees. Raegan's digits are not her fingers. They are her fingees.

     * ME DO IT! Seriously. What two-yr-old doesn't use this phrase all the time? But wow, my little peanut is quite independent. She likes to dress herself, feed herself, sing by herself - she can do it all! And in case you don't quite hear her when she hollers ME DO IT! at you, she'll put her hand up in the stop motion to clarify.

     * DaddyMissaMe. I heard this a lot last fall whenever Ben hit a streak of meetings and was gone for long days. She would wake up from a nap and when she found out that Daddy was in fact not at home yet, she would dissolve in tears and sob, "DaddyMissaMe! DaddyMissaMe!" And I would hold her and say, "Of course he does, Honey. Daddy misses you! And you miss him, too."

     * Seek-a-boo! This is one of my favorites. I love when she hides and then calls out, "SEEK-a-Boo!"

What's next on the docket for The World According to Raegan? No idea. But you can best believe it will be both amazing and adorable, just like her.