John Paul had perhaps his most ridiculous temper tantrum today.  Behold, the ultimate unreasonable toddler:

-  Yesterday we went to the mall and he was VERY happy to be "shopping" because it meant he got to go up and down escalators.  I told him we were going to Costco today.

-  This morning he was convinced we were going to the mall again, because he wanted to.

"We goin...  We goiiiiin...?"  "We're going to Costco" "UNH!  We goin...  to...."  "We're going to Costco."  "UNH!!!" "Okay, where are we going?"  "We goin...  to...  shoppin'!"  "Yes, we're going shopping at Costco."

-  We get in the car and drive to Costco.  We stop at someone's house on the way there to pick up a freecycle item.  John Paul is convinced that is Costco.  We pull into the Costco parking lot.

John Paul starts SOBBING.  "NO!!!  DO NOT WANT TO GO TO COSTCO!!!"

I assumed he just wanted to listen to his CD for longer - he freaks out when we get home from any car ride because he wants to keep listening to music.  So I drove around for a while longer, hoping he'd calm down.  He didn't.

I stopped the car.  Kid is still sobbing.  I get Cecilia out of the car and into the Ergo.  John Paul is still sobbing.   "DO NOT WANT TO GO TO COSTCO WANT TO GO SHOPPIN'!!!"

I tell him it's not his choice, we're going to Costco.  And there are samples!  Maybe they will have candy!  We can look at the pretty flowers!

Nothing is working.  I pick him up and carry him to the carts.  I put him down to get a cart and he makes a run for the parking lot.  How he thinks he'll be able to unlock the car, load us all into it, and drive to the mall is beyond me.

I run after him (Cecilia strapped to me) and pick him up.  He is kicking and screaming.  People are walking by to enter the store and I don't even *want* to know what they're thinking.

He falls to the ground, lying on his back (this is concrete - WHY does he think this is comfortable or appropriate?) kicking and screaming.  I am still trying to reason/bribe.  Samples!  Candy!  We can get french fries!  There is a water fountain!

Wait.  That's what did it?  Yes, he's fine going in because there's a water fountain.

Seriously?

So I load him into the cart and we go in.  The water fountain is on the other side of the check out, so I tell him we'll go get some after we buy our things.

We shop.  He cries about the following things:

1.  Picking out new footie pajamas.  He does not WANT to pick out new footie pajamas.  He does not want ME to pick out new footie pajamas.  Cecilia DOES NOT DESERVE new footie pajamas!

2.  WHERE IS THAT GOSH DARNED WATER FOUNTAIN???

3.  NO Cecilia can NOT get in the cart with me!

4.  WHY will Cecilia not HUG ME AND KISS ME THE WAY I WANT TO BE LOVED???

5.  WATER FOUNTAIN!!!!!!!!!!!

We buy our things.  I am thankful that I brought an apple with me - there were no samples out yet, so I kept the kids satisfied with apple slices.  We are on the way out of the store when suddenly he remembers - the water fountain!

We go to the water fountain.  I let him out of the cart.  He pushes the button once, giggles, and starts walking away.

10 feet from the water fountain, he starts whining again...  "Water fountain!!!"

SERIOUSLY, kid?  You were JUST at the water fountain.  YOU started walking away!  WE CAN GO BACK, I DO NOT CARE!

He doesn't want to go back, he just wants to whine about not being at the water fountain.  He is still walking away, tears in his eyes, whining about the water fountain.  I am getting sick of this.  I pick him up and put him in the cart.

I buy us a churro for $1 and we're good.  Why did I not think of this to begin with?

So, while the kid is a super-genius, he has also proven that he is very likely to rival his Uncle Timmy for most ridiculous and unreasonable temper tantrums.  Some of my favorites of Timmy's were the following:

1.  Timmy, it's time to go to school.  You are wearing no underwear and a pair of baby shorts with a hole in the crotch.  You need to change clothes (FREAK OUT!!!  CRY AND SCREAM!).

2.  Timmy, you need to pack something in your lunch besides a moldy orange (FREAK OUT!!!  CRY AND SCREAM!).

3.  Timmy, you need to change your clothes.  You can't wear Rosie's skintight bellbottoms to your first day of high school (FREAK OUT!!!  CRY AND SCREAM!).  *Okay, I exaggerated - he was in like, 5th grade

What do you think?  Typical two-year-old, or sign of things to come?

Snow... In October? In Virginia???

Yes, we had the first snow of the year today.  Apparently there was actual accumulation in many parts of the East Coast.

No real accumulation here - it was pretty slushy, but John Paul was pretty excited to see the huge snowflakes!  He didn't want to get in the car at all, he just wanted to wander around looking at all the snow.  I'm looking forward to actual snow, because he can play on his own on the patio for a while and Cecilia and I won't have to stand out in the cold when we don't want to...

What better snowy day activity than baking bread?  I seriously love our bread machine - I don't like the funny square loaves it bakes, so I mostly just use it to make the dough and then I bake it in the oven.  That way I get pretty loaves but I don't have to knead it myself.  This is a modified version of Amish White Bread - I halved the recipe and used a cup of whole wheat flour to replace one of the cups of bread flour.  I think this is about as close to whole wheat as I can go.  Still tastes exactly like Great Harvest, but at a fraction of the price!

Wait, your kid can read?

About a month ago, we figured out that John Paul can read.

I say we figured it out, not that we taught him how to do this...

I suppose we helped, but this kid is SO driven to learn that he really does teach himself a lot more than we do.

It started back before he was even 1 - he learned a couple of letters (I think B, P, and T) before he was even really talking.  I realized that maybe we weren't catechizing him well enough when he saw a cross around a little girl's neck and loudly exclaimed, "T!!!" 

The rest of the letters and their accompanying sounds came by about 14 months.  We would be out and he would see one of his favorites and SHOUT it out! 

Then he got an awesome new toy for Christmas - a Leapfrog Word Builder with magnetic letters that you could use to spell three-letter words!  He was SO excited, but he didn't really figure out the spelling for quite a while.  Around 20 months I showed him how to spell a couple of words - I think "Big, God, Mom, and Dad" or something like that.  He was SO excited.  He would beg me to spell them and then he would dance around while the toy sang the word.  Eventually he figured out how to spell them himself, which was a big help while I was making dinner!  He started recognizing them when we were out, which was pretty adorable (imagine a tiny child in a shopping cart flipping out when he sees the word "Big" on a sign at Target).

I made him a little phonics flip book so that he could figure out how to sound words out, but he wasn't into it immediately (he did eventually come to love it!).  Meanwhile, he was taking longer and longer to go down for naps because he was spending so long reading in bed.  I showed him how you can learn to spell new words by looking at the letters in words you already know.  I started hearing, "F.  I.  V.  E.  Speeeeeeells...  Five!" and so on, during naptime. 

Then one day he starting sounding short words out on his own.  "Puh.  Ah.  Tuh.  Pat!"  I would hear him reading books to himself during naptime and assumed that he had just done a *really* good job memorizing them so quickly.  Then we found one of those "First Reader" books at a consignment store for 50 cents.  John Paul knew almost half the words, even without ever having read it!

It was official.  This kid could read, and he was only about 26 months old.  Much earlier than either Andrew or I, and we were both early readers ourselves.

Now he goes through phases of *really* wanting to learn new words and read all the time and not wanting anything to do with it.  He's not perfect, either - he knows maybe 100 words by sight, and can sound out any simple 3 or 4-letter words, but he makes frequent mistakes (he sees the word "Get" and immediately says, "Great!" because that's a word he already knows.  When I remind him to sound it out, he's fine, but he's still definitely new to this).  I'm not pushing it - he's so far ahead of where he needs to be it's ridiculous.  And definitely shows that he's a great candidate for homeschooling...

Love

Cecilia has paused mid-playing for a desperate nursing session.  John Paul comes over saying, "Nurse like a baby?  Pull down a ladies shirt?"

He has been asking to nurse lately, but I realized that all he really wants is to snuggle with us while Cecilia nurses.  I pull him to me and he snuggles up to my chest, making faces at Cecilia.  She gives a sleepy nursing smile and happily grabs at his face.

John Paul gently takes her hand, kissing each finger and snuggling her hand to his face.  Satisfied, he goes back to his playing.  She too is all done, ready to get back to business with her brother.

It's exchanges like this that seem to be the meaning of life.

Remember this?

My mom is getting on my case about not updating enough.  Life is busy!  I'm sorry!

We have a camera - Andrew's dad never uses his so he's letting us have it, hooray!  Looks like he never clears off his memory card, though - I found these old pictures on there...

Remember when Andrew graduated?  In 2010?  Here's John Paul, only 9.5 months old.

And all the Hill men.

This was right before he started walking, and right before we knew we were about to have #2!  Don't you love that adorable little baby face?  And to think, Cecilia is only a couple of weeks younger than him in this picture:

A new game

"Hey Mom, you know what would be fun?"

"I'm gonna put this Lego girl in my mouth..."

"Isn't this FUNNY???  Now YOU grab it with YOUR mouth!"

"Seriously, it's gonna be so funny!"

She likes to stick toys in her mouth and then take them out and stick them in OUR mouths.  This is REALLY REALLY funny.  SO funny especially if you shake it around in her face while it's in your mouth (like a dog shaking a toy). 

This was awesome in the stroller today - she had a wet wipe that she had been sucking on for a while and suddenly she decided that she wanted to share with John Paul.  We had a walk full of Cecilia trying to stick it in John Paul's mouth, John Paul ripping it out of her hand, her laughing uproariously, HIM laughing uproariously, and him throwing it back in her lap.  Repeat.  It was VERY amusing for all parties.

I leave for a minute...

I left John Paul downstairs for a minute to get Cecilia from her nap and nurse her. 

I hear paper ripping, then silence.

I go downstairs and see that he has opened a box of soup mix, taken out a pack of dried french onion soup mix, and is eating it on the futon.

Somehow he managed NOT to dump it all out - he was remarkably tidy, and looked VERY proud of himself as he turned to me and exclaimed, "Potatoes!"  Then he went to the sink, got the soap, and asked to wash his hands.

If only I could teach him how to work the vacuum...

Getting dressed

My mom has always encouraged me to let the kids dress themselves whenever they're up for it, loudly proclaiming in public that, "So-and-so dressed himself today" so that the mismatched outfits aren't attributed to my lack of fashion sense.

John Paul just proclaimed himself "Ready to go!" while wearing Toy Story underwear, a single black boot (mine) and a polka-dotted reusable shopping bag around his neck.  Not sure I can let him go outside in that... 

He'd probably ruin my boot in the rain.

Highlights from today

-  John Paul going down every single slide at Cox Farms at least twice (most of them by himself - all but the SUPER slide, which he would have gone down alone if I had let him!).  He would make it to the bottom and IMMEDIATELY run back up the huge hill to go down again.  And somehow he wasn't tired enough to nap...

-  John Paul walking up to all the goats in "Goat Village" saying, "Hewwo, goat.  Hewwo other goat.  Hewwo bwack goat."  Etc.

-  Cecilia being super-sleepy but letting me go down several more slides while she hung out drowsily in the carrier.  Then Cecilia falling asleep without a peep for an hour, giving us plenty of extra time before my feet got tired.

-  John Paul singing along to his Bible songs CD, "Swing low, sweet chawiot...  Something, something eeeelse!"  I've taken to either making up words when I don't know them or just singing "Something, something else..." and apparently he's taken that to heart and things that those are acceptable words to any song.  But that's one that I actually KNOW! 

-  Getting dinner at Costco, setting John Paul up in a high chair, and watching him push his food away and start crossing himself to say grace while we were getting everything else ready.

-  John Paul BEGGING us to put Cecilia back in the cart so that he could hug her and kiss her while we shopped.

- Cecilia high-fiving me over and over again on command.  Not sure what's cuter, her high five or her giddy reaction every time she does it. 

- The fact that Cecilia knows to start tapping her knees or shaking her shaker during certain songs we sing together.  Pretty sure John Paul was not that musically advanced when he was her age.  She's trying really hard to clap right now, but all she can do is clasp her hands together and flail them around.

A long, exhausting, fun day!

Full-Body Bibs

We got a couple of those full-body bibs at Ikea the other day - the ones with long sleeves that go down to the baby's knees.  I thought that would be great for keeping Cecilia's body clean during mealtime. 

She was not a fan.  It kept getting in the way and it made her look like a giant red marshmallow.  Or one of those people in an inflatable sumo wrestling suit.  So we're just sponging her off after every meal.  At this point in his development, John Paul was getting a bath after every meal...  How things change with the second child!  She's also a neater eater - no food in the ears or up the nose yet!

John Paul, of course, needed to have his own picture taken while Cecilia was in the hot seat.

In other news (these are old pictures), it looks like the camera may be back in commission after a few days of drying off!  Looks like the pee hasn't permanently damaged it, thank goodness!

"Making up" Songs

John Paul has taken to replacing lyrics in many of his favorite songs.  Some of his current favorites are "Away in a John Paul" instead of "Away in a Manger" and "The Lord is my John Paul" instead of "The Lord is my Helper."

"The Nore is my John Paul, the Nore is my John Paul, the Nore is my John Paul and is sittin' on da floor...  In da manger..."

A Casualty

Here's how it went down:

1.  John Paul decided to pull the bag of onions off the counter.  Then he started peeling them.  I thought this was okay because that way I wouldn't have to deal with them later.

2.  Cecilia woke up from her nap and I brought her downstairs to nurse her.

3.  While nursing a giggling baby I hear, "Onion.  Eat.  Eat."  I see John Paul taking very small bites of the onions he's peeling.  Huh?

4.  Cecilia finishes nursing and John Paul brings me the onion he has been working on.  I take a picture.  John Paul asks for the camera.  This usually means he'll take lots of pictures of his finger or his mouth or the ceiling.

5.  John Paul brings me a very wet camera while I'm cooking (John Paul is naked from the waist-down).  I find a large pee puddle on the waterproof mat under his high chair.  Apparently he didn't realize that the potty was three feet away from its normal spot, peed on the floor, and either tried to take a picture of his pee coming out or dropped the camera in the pee spot. 

The camera is not working.  There will be no more pictures on this blog (aside from a few I have saved up)until we manage to procure a new camera, which may not be until Christmas.  Unless you have a digital camera you want to give us!

John Paul was VERY proud of his onion prowess.  This was pre-pee. 

How do you make a hand-me-down outfit from big brother into a girl's outfit?  Add a bow!

In other news, Cecilia has (finally) cut her first tooth - bottom right, just like John Paul.  Only two months later than he did!  Looks like not all babies are the same.

An odd interpretation of the Trinity...

"Ow Fadder who art in heaven Howard be thy name..."

Probably a pretty common misinterpretation - Howard the Father?  Howard the Son?  Howard the Holy Spirit?

Also, he wouldn't let me leave his room at bedtime until I gave him his St. Maximilian Kolbe prayer card.

Beet That!

I roasted a couple of beets for the kids for dinner.  John Paul was not a fan (I agree - they kind of taste like dirt...), but Cecilia LOVED them! 

She just kept eating, and she was willing to stay in her high chair for way longer than ever before.

John Paul demanded his own picture.  You can see his discarded beet pieces next to the plate.  He was more concerned about his "OWN pizza!" because I made a little 4" pizza *just* for him instead of just giving him pieces of ours.  So exciting!

She was rather pink by the end...  Beets on her face, her shoulders, her arms, hands, chest, thighs, knees...  Luckily it wiped off easily, but she's still stained pink around her fingernails!

Cox Farms Fall Festival - you know you wish you were there!

Andrew took the day off so that we could head to Cox Farms for the Fall Festival!  We were hoping to beat the crowds and get cheaper tickets, but apparently everybody else also thought it would be a great idea to go on the Friday before Columbus Day.  Oh well, at least tickets were still cheaper!

We visited some turkeys and roosters.  John Paul is trying to explain to Andrew that it's really okay for him to stick his fingers through the fence to poke the turkeys.

Toad was there!  From Mario!  John Paul was SO excited (the other day I asked him, "Who loves you best?"  Correct answer:  God.  John Paul's answer?  "TOAD IS THE BEST!"

The "corn crib" seemed pretty lame to me, but John Paul LOVED it.  Cecilia tried very hard to eat it.

A little riding mower (non-functional, duh) was SO exciting, and somehow resulted in this Popeye-esque face.  I think his mouth was full of apple, which explains the cheeks.  All-you-can-eat apples and cider were delicious, except you could only get cider in these teeny tiny little cups so we had to stand there refilling over and over while trying to avoid the bees...

A totally random woodchip pile with a slide - John Paul was excited, finally he was allowed to climb a giant pile of woodchips!

Our first BIG slide of the day, which he promptly ran back to and went down several more times.  So exciting! 

Had to do a big picture here - the face is priceless.  The goat he REALLY wanted to pet ("Goat village!  Touch a goat!  Hewwo goat!") was the goat that had managed to procure a corn cob and kept fighting off other goats to save it.  I finally managed to get him away, but it was hilarious watching him get close and then suddenly pull back as the goats headbutted each other.  Pretty sure this is the reason both kids smelled like goats by the time we got home...

I found a good place to take pictures, but John Paul wouldn't cooperate.  He kept picking up different squash and saying, "Thaaaat's?"  And I told him it was squash, and then he would try to bite it...  I'm glad he likes squash, but really, raw whole butternut squash is probably not super-tasty.  

Cecilia was happy to pose, though!

And that was our awesome day at Cox Farms - a VERY long hayride, tons of slides and apples, and beautiful weather!  I'm hoping we can go back before the end of the season, although it's really rather pricey...  Maybe they'll have another coupon?

Thank goodness for solid poop...

Yes, another poop post. 

John Paul is VERY good at using the potty on his own when I keep him naked from the waist down.  We have issues with #2, however.  He tends to hold it in until I put him in a diaper.  This afternoon he was watching Sesame Street in the basement while I ran upstairs to nurse Cecilia back to sleep.  She was almost out when I heard him coming up the stairs whimpering, "Pee in the potty?  Or poop in the potty?"

Naturally I was excited that he was finally ready to poop in the potty!  Until I looked down and saw that he was, in fact, in the process of pooping while climbing the stairs...

So I scoop up John Paul mid-poop while holding Cecilia, trying to race down the stairs to the potty without the poop making a full exit.  Unfortunately, I was not so lucky...  Poop on the stairs, on the floor, and one tiny little turd in the potty.  Thankfully it was super-solid and easy to clean up.  And it was our first accident in a LONG time.  Thank goodness I didn't get pooped on!

A tie!

We got this tie for John Paul to wear with his Christmas suit last year.  He was NOT okay with that.  But it looks like he's finally ready to wear it!

Ignore the wailing Cecilia in the background...  She was annoyed that she wasn't the center of the picture.

As soon as it was on:  "Tie OOOOFF?"  (Imagine the "off" in a VERY high-pitched voice).  He got over it immediately...

And this, my friends, is how you dress a toddler for Sunday Mass.  Even the priest told him how nice he looked - no jeans or sweatpants for us!

Yet another failed attempt...

One of these days I really will get a cute picture of the two of them together.  We're getting VERY close to actual simultaneous smiling (also, how do I get rid of that obnoxious timestamp?).

But for now I think we'll mostly get faux-smiles and serious concern...

So we'll just do individual poses.  This one is still not so attractive...

And John Paul has adopted Elmo as his temporary sibling.  Much easier to pose with.

Bedtime Reading

The past two nights, John Paul has selected the following books as his bedtime reading:

1.  A Catholic Dictionary - A to Z with multiple illustrated entries for each letter

2.  My Mass Book - 127 pages of the order of the Mass, Stations of the Cross, Mysteries of the Rosary, and various prayers.

If he were a little order, I would assume he was just finding the longest books possible to prolong bedtime.  But no, he just really likes these books...

What I wouldn't do for a moment of quiet...

Sometimes, when your toddler has been whiney for the past several days, he'll find something to do that finally keeps him quiet.

When that something involves sticking every sticker from the sheet on my arm, I sacrifice the arm hair and allow the few minutes of silence.  It's gotta end sometime...

A phone conversation

John Paul has figured out that if he presses the "Send" button on my phone enough times, it will usually call Dad (generally my most recent call).  I get such a kick out of these calls - they usually happen when Andrew's on his way home from work, and I only get to hear one side of them, which goes like this:

*presses Send button repeatedly, immediately holds phone up to ear*

JP:  "Hewwo?  HI!  HI DAD!" 

"Dad?"

Me:  "You have to wait for Dad to say something first, the phone is ringing."

JP:  "Hewwo?  Hewwo?  Hewwo?  DAD!  Hi Dad!"

JP:  (in a very high and squeaky voice) "Dad!"  (I'm pretty sure Andrew is responding, "John PAUL!", and they repeat the back-and-forth approximately 6 million times)

JP:  "DAD!  Dad!  Dad!  Daaaaad!  Hi Dad!"  *maniacal giggling*

*starts pressing buttons on the phone*

JP:  "Pwess numbah one.  Pwess numbah one.  Pwess numbah one.  Bye Dad."

*closes phone*

Terrible Twos

The Terrible Twos seem to have hit us in full force...  It seems that now that John Paul is good at verbally expressing himself, he expects to have his needs met IMMEDIATELY.

A few of today's ridiculous fusses:

I put two shirts on him - a t-shirt layered over a long-sleeved shirt.  He was at first excited about wearing TWO shirts and then almost immediately FREAKED out yelling, "NO two shirts, shirt OFF, two shirts OFF!"  So I took them both off (he also wants to be naked a lot of the time lately) and he freaked out because he wanted the BLUE shirt (the long-sleeved one) on but not the striped shirt.  Then when we got ready to go to the grocery store a few minutes ago he freaked out because he didn't want the blue shirt on, he wanted the striped shirt on and ONLY the striped shirt.  So he went out in 50-degree weather in a t-shirt.  His choice, apparently he takes after his dad because he wasn't cold at all.

We were getting checked out at the grocery store and he saw these cat cookies that they sometimes have as samples.  Very politely he asked, "May I please have a cat?"  Very politely I told him, "No, because those are not samples."  Instant meltdown, of course.  The cashier was a little bit freaked out and asked what was wrong.  She didn't seem to understand that he would get that upset about not being allowed to have a cat cookie...  Clearly she doesn't have kids!

We got home and he took a box of quesadillas (our treat from Trader Joe's) out of the bag to take it inside.  Then he decided that he couldn't wait until we got inside and started opening it on the front steps.  I told him he needed to take it inside.  Freak out.  I took it from him and put it on the counter.  He took it off the counter and took the bags out of the box.  I told him we could eat it for lunch, but he needed to wait for me to cook it.  He freaked out because he wanted to eat it NOW.  "May I please have some tortilla?"  I broke off a little bit of the frozen tortilla for him to eat.  He freaked out after he ate it, "BIG tortilla!!!  May I please have BIG tortilla?"  He got side tracked while I cooked it and then freaked out when I served it to him and made him stop standing on the chair.  He had moved on and wanted me to tell him whose feast day it is.  Then he freaked out because he wanted to see a picture of St. Cyprian.  And then St. Francis.

***As a side note, he always calms down completely to ask for something politely, then resumes freaking out afterwards***

But then he does things like let Cecilia climb all over him and yank on his hair and take his toys away, all very calmly (although he generally yanks the toys back, proclaiming, "GOOOOOOD SHA-ring!").  And sings songs about babies and goes over to kiss her and pat her head every time the word "baby" comes up.

He got this baby out of the toy box and took it over to Cecilia, very gently bopping her on the head with the baby's head over and over again.  She thought this was GOOD fun.

This was going to be a really awesome picture because he was sitting down playing and she was standing up while holding on to his hair with both hands.  Then he saw the camera and had to post, so she fell in the pile of toys and he looks like a zombie...

I'm really hoping that part of this craziness is just because he went for 4 days without a nap.  Not even a hint of a nap, just raucous playing in his room for upwards of 3 hours a day.  He finally took a short nap yesterday, but he's still not asleep after two hours today...  I miss my cheerful boy!

A flower hat!

I asked my sister to make Cecilia one of those adorable hats with a flower on it.  And it's really freaking cute.  But now Cecilia rips hats off her head the moment we put them on, and John Paul has decided HE wants to wear the hat. 

His head is a little bit larger than Cecilia's.  The hat is stretched out...  Think we can shrink it back?

Okay, not an accurate head comparison shot, but seriously, what is that face he is making?  Oh yeah, the "MAY I PWEASE HAVE A CAMWA???" face...

The Piano

Someone is desperately trying to reach those keys - she can just barely play a few notes on her own before she gets too frustrated.  The low notes are apparently her favorite, I think mostly because they're situated so conveniently.

But Little Miss Ham has to turn around as soon as she hears the telltale click of the camera!