Kate is most definitely in that I do it myself phase. It’s both fun to watch her figure things out and so very annoying when you need to accomplish something in some form of reasonable time. She insisted on putting on her coat yesterday when we were leaving the house, but she could only get one arm in. I had to help her but as soon as I touch the coat she starts yelling at me and falling to the floor. I try as best I can to be patient and I always give her verbal warning – and ask, if possible – before doing something. “Can I get you some water in your orange cup? No, your pink cup, okay. Mama has to do it, I know that is upsetting. But I’ll get it for you in your pink cup. See? Water in your pink cup! Now go sit down and drink it.”

The hysterics every few minutes make my head hurt. Some days it feels like I’m walking on eggshells, never knowing what will cause the next freakout. The cat sat on her blanket; she dropped her toy; the song on her movie already started and she missed the first word. Even what seem like simple requests, like crackers… well I got the wrong crackers, or the wrong number of them, or one cracker has the corner broken. All of these are cause for “Kate sad! Kate crying!” or, worse, wordless whining sobs. She’s also started bargaining, like when I say pick out one book for bedtime she says, “Two books? Three books? Fooouuurrrr books??” And of course the now universal, “Finish this FIRST!” It doesn’t matter what I say, she interrupts me to say that she needs to do something else first. Eat lunch? “Finish puzzle first.” Get in car? “Watch Elmo first.” Even if the thing I was talking about is something she really wants to do… she’s trying to maintain control of the timeline.

Ember is full out crawling around the house, which is great for her and not so great for Kate. She’s now pulling up on things too, increasing her reach. It’s shocking when I glance over and see her standing there, holding onto a shelf or table or whatever. This has caused more than a few meltdowns from Kate and I have started frequently hearing things like, “No Ember!!!! That’s mine!!!” along with “Mama, move Ember!” One day I glanced over to see Kate dragging Ember across the floor by the feet, slow inch by inch away from the toys. Ember was giggling hysterically, thinking this was an awesome game, and when Kate let go Ember crawled straight back over to the toys. Kate dragged her across the floor again.

We’ve had some playdates with other kids and I’m yet again impressed with just how well Kate generally gets along with other kids. Yes there is some crying that so-and-so took the toy, but there’s a lot of giving a toy to someone else too. She also just loves running with other kids so if she sees anyone running around she’s taking off after them. It’s so funny how little kids group together and just run in circles giggling. And Ember is generally great because she’s easily occupied with some random object like a credit card. As long as I don’t walk away.

I really want to copy and paste all my FB status updates about the kids so I can keep them in perpetuity. I need to start working on that.