Cecilia only really figured out how to pull herself up reliably in the past week, but she sure is tenacious!  If I run to the kitchen for something, she tries to follow and I'm greeted by this:

 Thank goodness she can't actually climb the stairs yet!

Or she'll just hang out on the stairs like this:

She (like John Paul at the same age) also likes using the music cube as a base.  Unfortunately, it rolls away rather easily, so she mostly just ends up draped over it like this:

And she's pretty sure that any pile of toys is a good thing to climb on:

It's time to lower the crib mattress - she keeps pulling up on the bars and if we wait any longer I'm sure she'll climb out... 

John Paul is a BIG fan of this stage - Cecilia likes to pull up on his mattress and watch him play.  He starts jumping on the bed (doing his "WHAT" dance) and she just laughs uncontrollably because now he's shaking her a little bit.  I freaked out a bit the first time, but he's *so* careful, and he's never come close to jumping on her. 

I'm growing to love our carpeting - it looks a little grungy because it gets stained so easily, but it really helps keep me sane given the frequency of tumbles we're experiencing right now!

Poop on the floor

No sooner am I thinking about how well John Paul has been doing with no accidents during his naked time than this happens...  He TELLS us he needs to pee but refuses to sit on the potty or get a diaper on.  I figured he wasn't serious, because we haven't had an issue in so long.

Shame on me.  But seriously, who poops standing up?

My goal was to have potty training accomplished by the end of the summer.  I have not tried hard at all to accomplish this.  It's not happening and that's okay.  But let's hope this is the last time he poops on the floor...

An interesting combination...

It seems we have combined potty training and homeschooling.  John Paul likes to sit on the potty while I spell words for him or write out math problems for him to solve. 

The question is, which will happen first: Reading or staying dry?  He's already recognizing quite a few words from sight, but he has yet to produce anything on the potty...

He's currently sitting in his chair eating lunch and reciting, "X says 'X' and X says kssss...  Y says 'Y' and Y says yuh...  Z says 'Z' and Z says zuh..."  I think he's a little confused because his vowels all say things like, "A says 'A' and A says ah..." so he thinks that consonants work the same way!

Bribery

The most ridiculous bribery ever:  John Paul ate his entire breakfast because I was willing to spell a new word for every bite he took.  "Spehws BOY!"  "Okay, I'll spell the word 'boy' when you eat your banana." (shoves banana in mouth) "B-O-Y spells..."  "BOY!!!"  And so on and so forth until all the breakfast was eaten.

I'm thinking this wouldn't work with most 2-year-olds.

John Paul-isms, etc.

1.  John Paul has taken spelling to a new level.  He is constantly begging us to spell different words for him, and he decided to take matters into his own hands at dinner.  "J U speeeehws!"  "...  Juh?"  "JUH!"  Normally he sees letters somewhere and asks us what they spell ("J D E speeehws?"  "Nothing...  It's just on a license plate...") but this one he just made up out of thin air.  Reminds me of Patrick and "Prl prl prl!"

2.  I went upstairs to put Cecilia down for bed when I heard him very loudly counting in his room...  "EIGHTY NINE!  NINETY!"  Apparently he decided that since he couldn't fall asleep (perhaps because he wouldn't close his eyes and was talking very loudly?) he was simply going to count as high as possible.

3.  We've been working hard on using whole sentences to make requests, which has been a rather successful endeavor.  Today at the dinner table he reached for a knife, only to have it taken out of his grasp.  Not to be deterred, he very quietly asked (while the rest of us were talking), "May I pweez.  Have a knife!"  No one answered immediately (because we weren't listening) and he responded to himself, "Yes you may!" and happily grabbed for the knife again.  Luckily he was distracted by a fork before he could cause any damage with a butter knife...

4.  Sister and I were talking about various toddlers and degrees of self-sufficiency.  She thought it was particularly funny when I said, "Yeah, I'm not inclined to be proud of John Paul's many accomplishments.  I mean, sure, he can count to 100, but he can't pull up his own pants."

And that was our hilarity from today.