Delightful Caitlin

Caitlin has always been our little delight.  With her super sweet laid back temperament, we can count on one hand the number of times she's had a melt down.  She fell easily into a schedule as a newborn, she ate great, slept great and I could leave her to entertain herself for long periods of time.  She was always fine in whatever new situation she found herself in (well, except for that one time in MOPPETS last year!) and is super easy to make happy and keep that way.  What can I say, she's easy to find delightful!

I knew it all had to come to an end eventually.

Not that she's any less of a delight in general, let me clarify.  It's just that all those easily endearing qualities are now moving over for other, more independant "I want to figure out the world my way now" toddler traits.  Wonderful.

Gone is our ever compliant daughter, in her place stands a little girl who, when I say "No" says "Yes" and when I insist "Yes!" she has to say "No!"  It's rare to greet her in the morning and find her playing just with her toys and books anymore, instead she is streaking around having apparently discovered how to free herself of her pajamas or has pulled her rocking chair over to the dresser and is unloading her sock drawer into the laundry hamper.  I'm starting to doubt my decision to put the animal wall calendar within her reach because I'm convinced one of these days the tack will become firmly embedded in my foot once she's decided to pull it off the wall.  "Go play" used to be the only thing we had to say to her to fill up all those extra hours in the day between actual "activities," but she can't help but follow me around incessantly, trying to draw me in to her play or just join in with my preoccupation.  I have tried a couple unsupervised drawing sessions but am now fearful that the crayon marks will all too soon be anywhere but the paper.  It's those slight hesitations where immediate response had been her norm that can wear a mama out!  Not to mention she's now seeking attention by sucking her thumb, swiping and sucking on Connor's paci, climbing in the exersaucer and requesting to play in the playpen.  Obviously an attempt to "regress for more attention" but honestly kid, your brother is already nine months old and you kinda missed the boat on that one!

Was she really ever that sweet? I can hear some of you asking.  Yes and yes.  She was.  She had her moments but overall nothing thusfar has prepared us for the complete shock of the actual two and a half year old stage we now find ourselves-!

She has started singing real songs with real words (and sometimes her own words!) and her vocabulary has skyrocketed.  Everyday a new phrase jumps out of her mouth and we can't help but smile.  Today at breakfast it was suddenly counting to 12 without skipping from 6 to 9 as she usually has!  She can run like the wind and loves it even more when holding hands with one of us.  She even insists on pushing Connor in the stroller on walks and "by George!" I'm not going to say no to that one!  She is the first one to point out a train whistle, siren, airplane, garbage truck, schoolbus or playground.  She is always sharing toys with Connor and bringing us "soup" to taste.  Just yesterday Grady was explaining that Grandma and Dziadiu live in Canada and for the rest of the evening she was talking about putting on her shoes and coat to "go to Canada."  Not to mention now that I've sang the Canadian anthem to her twice, everytime she hears "Canada" she starts, "Oh, Canada..."  One of her main goals is to get Connor to laugh at her antics, but she is the one who now decides how and when that will be--any prompting from us just gets the opposite reaction from her (also new to us!).

You are a delight to us, dear girl, and we are so blessed to "be on our toes" as your parents!