Whining, poop & Dr. Seuss

Is it bedtime yet? Oh...it's only 10am. How many more hours until nap time? 

Samantha is almost two and it is becoming more and more apparent that my child is turning into either a circus performer or Cat in the Hats sidekick. From the minute she wakes up to the minute she goes to bed her body does not. sit. still. 

She starts reading, then she plays kitchen, opens all my books, removes the DVD's off the shelf, dumps out the legos, eats a cracker, whines about not getting cookies for breakfast, climbs on the kitchen table (again), rips her clothes out of her drawers, trips over her own feet, poops her pants, and then goes back for another cracker. All. in. 3. minutes. 

Two years ago if you would have told me that toddlers were more exhausting than all night breastfeeding I would have laughed at you, but no. This is not funny. I can barely keep my eyes awake through her bedtime story. "No, Samantha don't chew the baby gate!" "Samantha, go fetch the ball." "No, don't play with the toilet water!" Am I taking care of a toddler or a puppy? 

And then poor Peyton gets home from work and suddenly I think of a million things I have to go "get at the store."

The other day she took her first selfie and sent it to Grandma. Seriously, you can't make this stuff up! 

I sometimes think she gets her fathers inquisitive brain on how things work. It'll be just a few months until she starts taking things apart and putting them back together! 

 I am getting pretty excited though because I think she has a really good chance of being an olympic gymnast.

This is about the only kind of pictures I get of her these days because once again, she will not. sit. still.

So now that I have given you substantial evidence to how rambunctious this child is, let me tell you about the ninja she has turned into. One day I woke up to her patting my arm. Somehow she had learned how to climb out of her crib and open her door. This was a learning milestone I was not too excited about. I was worried about her getting out of her crib at night and walking around the house so we find this mesh tent thing she could sleep in. 

She loved it and we thought we were brilliant. Ha! Tricked her. no more monkey, sucka!  

Fast forward one week and the kid has learned how to unzip the tent, disassemble it and is back to climbing out. Samantha tricked us. No more tent, sucka! At this point I threw up my arms and took the side of her crib off. Now she is just in a fake toddler bed. We removed all potential wild things she couldn't play with and put a baby gate on her door so she can't leave her room until I get her in the morning. Thats the thing about kids, just when you have them figured out, you realize. You don't. Not even close.