May 4, 2006

Caelan is fully into the sassy, independent, defiant, push-all-the-buttons, toddler stage of life. Whoa -what a time we have been having. There are times when she says things or does things that are so cute, you can hardly resist just eating her right up, and other times, when 1just want to send her to her room for the rest of the day (at 2PM in the afternoon). Don't get me wrong, for the most part she really is a good little girl, but this age is just a trying stage of life. They want to exert their own independence and show that they are in charge of themselves, and often this can create quite the conflict. She spends a couple times everyday in time-out,but at least she is learning...I think. I know she remembers why she goes in time-out (even days later) because she will rehearse to me the whole conversation beforehand (which can often be pretty comical). She loves to play with Ben. She helps him in so many ways. She also knows that she is bigger than he is, and sometimes she takes advantage of that fact (taking toys away, etc), but he will catch up to her eventually and then she will probably change some of her ways. It's pretty fun to watch them play together in their room (the best way to have fun apparently is to take out every toy and book in the whole room -at least Caelan is pretty good about putting things back and cleaning up her messes). The summer is quickly creeping up on us. We went swimming in our pool in the backyard a couple of times in the past week-1think she could stay in there all day long if we let her. She is getting pretty brave. She realized that she could touch the bottom of the shallow part of the pool just barely), and she let go of the sides a couple of times (which basically scared me to death). A few times in the past couple of months we have been in the backyard just sitting, and all of a sudden Caelan drops all her clothes and steps into the pool. I have to remind her that she needs to wear a swim suit or something -she can't just go naked. The other day we were at the park and I looked over and saw her stark naked looking over a little blow up pool that someone else had brought with them. I ran over and gave her the same reminder. I guess she likes the feeling of being free.