Terrible Twos?

Kaitlyn lost it this morning. She loves her "lipstick" which is hello kitty clear lip gloss that I bought for her on clearance at Target. She really really loves it. She is obsessed with unscrewing the cap by herself and putting it on by herself, and it takes her a while to do this... as it should a two-year-old. Sometimes my patience for this runs thin....
We were running late this morning and needed to get out the door for school. She was still in my bathroom holding the tube of lip gloss and insisting that she put some on by herself. I told her that since we were running late, either A. Mommy would help her do it quickly, or B. She wasn't going to get any lip gloss. Ooooh that made her mad. It was the kind of tantrum that requires a bit of restraint to get her to stay in her seat in the car to get her buckled, and restraint from the belt to even think about putting her socks and shoes on. It was a tough one. I held my own though, and eventually she did calm down once we were driving to school.
I posted a blog about a week or so ago about how Kaitlyn likes Tic Tok by Kesha. Well... I turned the XM station away from my favorite station to see what else was on and whamo, there was Kesha. IMMEDIATELY, Kaitlyn says, "I like this song!"
I giggled and left it on the station (I'm a bit ashamed to admit I like the song too, even though the subject matter is SLIGHTLY inappropriate for a toddler's ears-ha). Every time the refrain would come on Kaitlyn would say, "Hey, it's that again!" She sure likes to jam in her car seat to Kesha. Ha.
She threw another tantrum while getting out of the car to go into school today too. Usually it's a piece of cake to get her out of the car and handed off to a school staff member to walk her to her classroom. Today, though, she acted like it was the first day of school again. I guess she just wasn't having it today.

When I picked up the kids at noon, I picked Kaitlyn up first and then swung around to the other side to get James. Mrs. Magough (is that right? Sounds like McGoo) put James into his car seat.
He looked at her and said sweetly, "I love you Mrs. Magough." It was precious. My sweet little boy!

Star Wars and sheet

For some reason, Kaitlyn doesn't like sleeping with the sheet on top of her. Her quilt is fine, but always insists that the sheet be down closer to the foot of the bed. "I don't want that one," as she points at the sheet, "I want that one," she points at the quilt.
Nathan went up to check on her after they were sleeping last night and he tried to cover her up with the sheet and the quilt. She woke up enough to realize what he was doing and still told him NO to the sheet. Silly girl!

I went to Nashville a few weeks ago for the Professional Photographers of America convention so Nathan thought it would be fun to watch the Star Wars trilogy with James. While I was gone, they watched A New Hope. Last weekend they watched Empire Strikes Back. I found great humor in watching the two of them cuddled up on the couch with James firing off the questions one after another... "Who is that? What is he doing? Why is he doing that? Who is that? What is he doing? Why is he doing that?" Over and over and over again. So funny.
They wrapped up the trilogy this morning while I was out for a bit at mass then the Y. It's just so funny that we, Nathan and I, know that for sure, James doesn't understand ANYTHING about the three movies. He's just watching them for the sake of watching the TV. I even asked him after the movie was over, "James, did you like the movie?"
"No, I didn't." Ha ha ha.

A bit later, the kids were doing what they do best... arguing over who had more popsicle sticks to play with. I ended up taking them away from both of them, and that sent them both off of their rockers. Kicking, screaming, throwing and knocking over laundry baskets, etc... the whole bit. James ended up on the naughty step for throwing the popsicle sticks, and while he was on the step he was bawling his eyes out and shouting. I felt pretty bad for the kid until he came out with, "I'm going to cut my mommies head off!"
"WHAT DID YOU SAY?" I snapped back around the corner at him.
He got a huge scolding... and guess what... NO MORE STAR WARS! Geez. Of course he doesn't mean it, but it is a bit scary to think that only watching one thing like Star Wars (rated PG by the way- man their standards were a lot more liberal back then) could make him come up with ideas like that.

Tic Tok Car Talk

Well it seems like James is stealing the thunder on the blog lately, so I thought I'd throw in some really cute things about Miss Kaitlyn.
She is so funny, so cute and she knows it. :) Today in the van she was busting a move (while strapped into her car seat) to Tic Tok by Kesha. Check out this hilarity:



Here is another video of her doing the COMPLETE opposite a few days ago... turn up your volume! :)



She also is into doing EVERYTHING herself, even if it's a complicated task like zipping up her sweater. Patience, patience is a much needed thing around here lately. :)
She is NOT at all interested in potty training, and is actually scared to even go sit on the potty. She gets so worked up that it's not even worth putting her through that insanity. We figure that she'll let us know when she's ready... even her teacher agrees that she's just not interested.

I'm not sure if I've posted this before, but whatever, it's my blog. :) Kaitlyn is named after three people... her grandma Kathy (Kate), her grandma Marilyn (Lyn) and her aunt Beth. We spell it Kaitlyn so it's more of a common spelling rather than Katelyn. Anyway, I digress....
When we were up in Iowa for Christmas and we were around Aunt Beth, Kaitlyn kept telling everyone that her name was Kaitlyn Aunt Bef Wilcke. We all thought it was pretty hilarious, and still do.
Tonight, we were going out for dinner and to shop a bit for a new blender and a new TV (fun stuff). We thought Best Buy would be the place to go to get the TV, so we told the kids that after we ate dinner we would go there. Kaitlyn was asking us in the car, "Are we going to Aunt Befs Buy?" Oh she is so funny!

On a side note... if you car breaks down at 7:30 pm because the battery goes kaput, it's not too shabby to be stuck at Best Buy when they have Wall-E playing on the 55 inch flat screen inside the store. At least that passes the time while you wait for AAA. :)

... when I am 5...

James must think that tuning 5 is when he becomes a big boy instead of a little kid. He has commented on a few things that start with, "Mom, when I am 5, I'm going to...."
The one that sticks out in my mind the most is, "Mom, when I am 5, I'm going to watch Ratatouille!" He usually watches Cars, but has decided that Ratatouille should be the movie of choice when one is five years old.

He came up to me yesterday and asked me, "Mom, when I am 5, can I live in Iowa?"
I giggled, thinking of that constant battle between Nathan and me, and asked, "Why do you want to live in Iowa?"
"I like it there," he replied.
"But what would you do about all the friends you have at school?"
"Well I can come back and visit all the time!" he said without doubt.
Then I asked, "Well what would you do about Grandma Kathy?"
And without hesitation, James said, "I want to stay here."

:) Off to work.

King James

Our nanny, Mimi, took the kids to the "Green Park" today. That's what we call the new park near our house on Howell Branch. We named it that that because of the giant green slides that are super fast and bumpy.
Apparently they weren't the only ones with the idea of going to the park, she said that there was only one parking spot left. She also tole me that once they walked into the fenced area, James went up to the top of the gigantic green slides. He then put his hands up in the air like a King would do when greeting his people and loudly stated, "My name is James Wilcke, and I am here to meet new friends!"
:)

Play on player!

For James, it is no longer “nap time” or “quiet time.” He decided today that we should call it “book time.” He can sit in his room and look at some books for a while instead of laying in bed.

So Nathan goes up to check on him after about 45 minutes, as it has been quiet up there. James is sitting in bed and setting his books up like houses so the big bad wolf can blow them over.

“So you didn’t feel like reading the books or taking a nap?” asked Nathan.

“Well, I’m not a reader, and I’m not a sleeper,” quipped James. “I, uh, I’m just a player.”

Learning to talk is fun.

Kaitlyn makes me giggle. She has not yet figured out the pronoun bit of our language, in fact, she has it backwards. She refers to a woman as "him" or a pink lovey as "him"... and boys as "her". I don't get it, but it's funny.
She also has been having a bit of fun with us with her whining becoming even more pronounced and nasal. At some points in the day I can't even understand anything she's saying. Somehow me telling her, "I don't understand you when you whine" has made it worse. HA!
We were just in Iowa over Christmas break, and we got to spend a lot of time with her namesake, Aunt Beth. Kaitlyn is learning what her full name is, and she was doing very well for a while.
"What is your full name?" I'd ask.
"Kaitlyn Bef Wiwke." She'd say.
But now that we've been around Aunt Beth, she says, "I'm Kaitlyn Aunt Bef Wiwke!" LOL.
Along with learning her own full name, she now knows James' full name. When she's sad, sometimes she'll tell me, "I want James Nicholas Wiwke!"
I love you, Kaitlyn Bef.