Tula- the latest and the greatest

Now that Tula Belle is 2 there seems to be so much less reason to update "her" part of the blog. Other that vocabulary and personality, it seems like not much is changing. But that's sort of a good thing. She is really just coming into being her own little girl, and we are finding out the joys of getting to know her...the good and the bad...maybe I should say the fun and the not so fun. At this stage in her life, she is a little Mommy. She loves to help. She loves to boss her brother around. She loves to pull a chair up to the island and watch any and every thing I do in the kitchen. Loves to wash her own hair in the shower and dress herself. Loves to wash Mav's hair in the shower. The entire time. Her brother will sit there like champ while she puts the soap, scrubs, and rinses. Loves to carry things up and down the stairs for me. Tula has learned that I am half deaf and knows to tell me when the phone is ringing (I have the ringers turned REAL low, from when we were in the "baby stage"). Loves her big girl bed but is having a hard time falling asleep on her own in there still, bedtime can be a pain in the butt cause she wants us to lay with her. Someone usually ends up just falling asleep with her. That's gonna change soon. Oh...here's a good one. Colors on stuff. THIS IS ANNOYING! I can't leave her alone for 5 minutes without her finding a pen or marker. Loves her dollies. Sally and Darla sleep with her most every night. And Barbie doll is kinda the new cool thing too. Today she insisted that Barbie needed a blanket and then laid her down on her kitchen set for a nap and laid down on the floor beside her and pretended to sleep. Loves Mickey ever since Disneyland. Can *almost* count to ten. For some reason, likes the combo 2,5,8 when counting. Will stand at the edge of the pool and could 2,5,8 and then jump? I don't get it...loves to sing wheels on the bus and itsy bitsy spider...loves to sing and show Mav the actions and try and teach him. Loves any activities that require us all to sit in a circle on the floor. I know its sort of cliche but loves to be surrounded by people she loves. Loves to love.

Some Tula "isms" from this month I wrote down...

To Maverick:
-"go see Mom" when he is crying
-"sit and talk to me" while patting the ground beside her, trying to read to him

To Me:
-"I figure it out" when working with Daddy or pretending to fix something
-"that's Tula's favorite" when I tell her we are going for ice cream
-"this is SO nummy" ice cream
-"I'm sorry...I sick...I peed" when she had an accident and peed on the floor

And the best one...

When my Mom and dad were here a couple weeks ago for Mav's Bday and we were getting ready to go I think over to San Tan mall. We told her we were going out and she said "Not enough money". I have no idea where she got that but I was mortified obviously. We all started laughing so then she thought it was even funnier to repeat. Thank goodness she has forgotten that line.

Other big news. Tula is out of a high chair and sits in a booster seat with us at the table, Mav is in the restaurant high chair at the table too so we actually can sit down, the four of us and have dinner as a family. Just this week I have stopped going in and waking Tula at midnight to go potty. It seemed to be bothering her more and more that I was waking her to go, and she was peeing less and less. So we have went almost a week with no accidents! She has been totally day trained for 4 months or so...out of diapers for 6 or 7 months, but the nighttime training takes a little more work. I am excited I can actually, for the first time in months....wait, years, go to bed at 10 if I want and not have to wake till morning. As if that would ever happen though. I am still up way too late every single day. But I have the option of a full nights sleep, which is good enough for me!

Having two toddlers running around is crazy busy but I feel like these are the times, when John and I talked about having baby #2 right after baby #1 and I envisioned them playing together, this is the times that I envisioned. I knew it wouldn't take long before they would be chasing eachother around the back yard and entertaining each other for hours. We are at that stage. yes, they fight sometimes. But they are absolutely best of friends. They spend hours playing in the rocks together, reading books upstairs in one of their bedrooms, and they love to sit on the couch and watch tv. They love to get into things together, like to go into my closet where they can shut the door on me and snoop around in there. Anywhere that they can be alone and I can't see them they love. Downstairs. The spare bedroom. Wherever.

Sometimes they keep each other so entertained I think I am ready for another, then there are moments in my day where I don't think I could handle one.more.thing on my plate. I go back and forth between wanting all of my babies close in age to be playmates like these two, and then just giving these two time together with a mommy who isn't super duper busy. Hmm. To baby #3 or not to baby #3, that is the question...

oh...sidebar...just thinking out loud. no opinions, please:) Either way, I rest easy knowing our family will become just what it is supposed to be, just when it is supposed to be.