So right after Mother’s Day weekend, Caroline hit the 26 month mark. This past month for her brought us Easter weekend + a sweet visit with our Betancourt family, a trip to Bunny Land at Butler’s Orchard, and a flight up to Boston to visit with Nana, Grandpa Harry, cousins, and Aunt Melissa. We are enjoying much warmer temps and spend a LOT of time outside. This little lady is now officially potty trained! She is also a  scooter-ologist, a soccer player, and is loving her little preschool. Most of all, she takes her job as big sister very seriously!

We flew up to Lowell, MA to see Mike’s parents over Mother’s Day weekend. When we got off the plane, I shocked everyone by declaring that Caroline needed a toddler sized Red Sox hat. We made this purchase right then and there at Logan, haha.

Caroline is a girl who loves to master a party trick and quickly learned how to say “Let’s Go, Red Sox!” This made her the most popular little lady in all of New England. Especially with her grandparents.

When we arrived, Caroline just snuggled right up to Nana, who she hadn’t seen in over a year. Mike and I were both relieved to see that these two were peas in a pod. It didn’t hurt that Nana knew the way to a girl’s heart–magnetic paper dolls and cookies!

Here’s a snapshot of Caroline at 26 months:

• She repeats everything you say–and exactly how you would say it. I pulled out a pair of blue shorts with red lobsters on them and Caroline waved and said “hi guys!” And sounded exactly like me.
• Potty training has gone super smoothly! We did a 3 day boot camp and she basically got it after Day 2.
• She is creative and loves to play. She had the idea to sit on a blanket in her room in the dark and turn her lantern on so we could gaze at the “uppas” on the ceiling. She then said, “Finny, get them!” and laughed as she watched him try to catch them in his mouth.
• She is speaking in longer sentences. Yesterday she came to me and said, “Mommy, I don’t want to wear the blue baby bow in my hair.”
• She loves when we do “two babies.” This is when I am holding Vivi and she pushes her way into my lap and says, “Mommy! Two babies! Stand up!” And then I hold them both and we talk about how she is my big baby and Vivi is my little baby. 🙂
• She is obsessed with “buggies” and likes ants to crawl on her. She also saw me kill a spider in the basement and will tell anyone who will listen–“buggie…basement…Mommy kill it.” So, yeah. That’s great.

Every time we go to the park, she is busy looking for buggies so this is our view:

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She loooves her baby sister and can even say “Vivi” which is a vast improvement over “baby sister” which is what we said before:

For Mother’s Day at school she made me a gorgeous flower pot and planted a marigold. The marigold didn’t last but the sweet sentiment sure did!

For Potty Training Weekend, I set up a pretend Grocery Store that she loved. I used packaging tape on small cardboard boxes and she got to shop!

She also likes to pretend to “do work:”

She started soccer this month! It’s been exactly as you would expect from tiny people still in diapers. A lot of carrying her her and Mommy kicking the soccer ball…with a few comments of “now you try it!” sprinkled in for good measure. Note here she is wearing her “Kay Kay shirt” as she calls it:

She is loving her time at her little school with her buddies!

But most of all, this has been the month of the scooter. She wants to bring it everywhere…and even though I wind up carrying it home most of the time, she always starts out enthusiastically. She got the fundamentals down in basically a day…push off, cock your leg at a 90 degree angle like a flamingo, and glide to a stop!

Happy 26 months, Sugar Bear!