Seventeen

My two “sweet little messes” are 17 months old today. I really can’t think of another way to sum them up…. “Sweet,” of course they are, but both are absolute “messes” in their own unique way. Below are their top 17 new skills:

17. Rearranging the pantry. Yesterday morning, they were caught taking cans of soup off the pantry shelves and hiding them in random places in the house.

16. Turning the TV off and on. On when they want to watch one of their videos; off in the middle of Mom and Dad’s show.

15. Pointing to body parts. Eyes, ears, nose, head, hair, mouth, teeth, feet, toes, hands, fingers, and the one they love more than anything: belly button! (A word of caution here: Do not let Jake point to your belly button unless you think having a ruptured spleen sounds like fun.)

14. Opening doors, then slamming them…. Over and over and over and over!

13. Cleaning up their toys…. sometimes with such force and aggression that the toys end up ricocheting out of the toy box.

12. Helping with the vacuum cleaner… which really only amounts to holding the cord and finding ways to get in my way, to which I respond by vacuuming around each child.

11. Operating light switches. On-off-on-off-on-off-on-off-on. Repeat with second kid. If I am carrying either child, I plan my path through the house according to the least number of light switches I must pass by in order the reach my destination. If they see it, they have to touch it!

10. Making animal noises like: “Woof, woof;” “Moooooooo;” “Meow, meow;” and their absolute favorite: “Rooooooooaaaaaaaaar!!!!!!”

9. Becoming “poop-conscious.” Instead of relying on the sense of smell in our house, now our two toddlers walk up to us and start tugging on their diapers (sometimes Jake will even say “Poo-poo”). Before they learned how to pick which parent would be responsible for changing the dirty diaper, we had a rule: you change one stinky diaper, you are exempt from the next one. Now, Cody and I hide to avert being the “selected parent” when it a certain aroma is evident. Of course, this only applies on the weekend. On weekdays, I get the privilege of changing every single poopy diaper, which can range from 2-6 on any given day!

8. Throwing trash away… in the trash can. This has been a wonderful new discovery! Now instead of bringing me every piece of dust and every speck of fuzz off the floor, Lilly will march right to the trash can and throw it away! But the other day, just as I was clapping my hands, encouraging her for appropriately using the trash can, Jake takes my hair clips out of my drawer and makes the decision that they belong in the same place as Lilly’s unwanted pieces of dirt and fuzz. (Note to self: Work with both kids on determining which items fall into the trash category.)

7. Waving bye-bye to Daddy. Not sure if this is a new skill. I guess it’s more like a sign of maturity that neither kid flops their body on the floor and screams without ceasing when Daddy leaves for work in the morning. (OK, so Jake was the only one who ever did that.)

6. Building towers with blocks. Let me rephrase that: Lilly builds towers with blocks; Jake knocks the towers down.

5. Using crayons. Now I did not specify how they use crayons. Sometimes, they use crayons to create beautiful scribbly pieces of artwork. Most of the time, I’m going to be honest, they use the crayons as a midday snack!

4. Unplugging. Jake has been into plugs for the past couple of months, and has recently decided to teach Lilly everything he knows about the subject. Now, thanks to his good instruction, the CD player goes silent, right in the middle of the ABC song. No, it’s not a malfunction or a low battery issue; it’s Lilly with the plug in her hand, yanking it out of wall…which leads me to my next new skill.

3. Using the term “Uh-oh” in context. When I forget to put the gate up at the bottom of the stairs, both kids will sing a chorus of uh-ohs until I realize my carelessness and correct the problem. When Lilly throws food from her highchair, Jake looks down and says “Uh-oh.” When my favorite book end gets broken (by Jake) for the third time, Lilly comes to tell me, “Uh-oh!” The first one up in the morning lets me know when the other sibling is awake, by saying “Uh-oh,” in such an urgent manner that I often feel like I need to sprint up the stairs to rescue them from their crib. (The same thing happens at naptime.) My favorite use of the term “Uh-oh” has got be when one (take your pick because they are both guilty in this area) pulls all the toilet paper off the roll. When I discover the child responsible, standing in the middle of the white fluffy mess, they immediately admit their own guilt by shouting, “Uh-oh! Uh-oh! Uh-oh!”

2. Starting the dishwasher. Again, thanks to Jake, now Lilly also knows how to change the cycle, choose “Added Heat,” “Extra Rinse,” and even set the delay feature so the dishwasher goes off four hours later.

1. Kissing each other goodnight. This is the sweetest thing I have ever seen… in my life. I’ve had days where I wanted to literally rip my hair out in clumps and lie on the floor and have a kicking, screaming tantrum right along with them. Then at bedtime, I witness one of my children walking up to the other and in all their innocence, they exchange very slobbery goodnight kisses. It’s these precious moments that get me out of bed the next morning, ready to do it all over again!