Sadly, this is one of her most common phrases these days.

The bigger this kid gets, the more she’s living up to her name’s meaning (colorful) and early personality indicators (loud). Compared to her brother at the same age, she’s louder, more stubborn, and more dominant of a beast. She has huge belly laugh, which occurs one moment, and a piercing cry, which can happen right before and/or after. If she feels frustrated with her big brother, she won’t hesitate to pull, grab, pinch, smack, or bite him depending on her perceived level of punishment required. She saves biting for the big stuff, but has learned that simply walking towards him while chomping her teeth is an effective enough threat to get the satisfaction she seeks by striking fear in his heart (and an audible screech by him while he runs away yelling “she’s trying to bite me!”).

She’s also graduated from simply requiring me to let her pick out and do everything on her own, to now asking me to try to get things first, only to beat me to it and do things on her own anyway. I guess there’s no longer enough sport in simply doing everything herself, she now must also enjoy the sweet taste of victory in making me actively fail to try. Of course, the second she determines she can’t actually do something, like getting down from the high stool, she’ll suddenly just yell “GET ME DOWN!!” upon first request, as if I’ve been sitting there for hours refusing to help. Can’t she just dial it back a notch?

She’s become quite the storyteller, and in a very specific way: whenever she hears something of interest, she will immediately follow it up by retelling the same story in the first person. I told her the story of when I fell off a ladder, and she then said “when I was a grown up, I fell off a ladder…” and whatever she can remember about the story. If Nashi tells the story of when he was stung by bees, she’ll then say “when I was a big brother, I got stung by bees…” I don’t know where she got this, as I’ve never actually witnessed any kid operate this way. What does it mean??

Alert! Huge milestone for the family: Papaya and Nashi now share a room, and get this, it’s separate from the parents! Starting about a month ago, the wife and I made a decision to retake our independence. With help from an Ok to Wake alarm and a progressive bribery plan, they now sleep in their own room. As very late cosleepers, this is a major step for us. One of us still has to lie down with them until they’re asleep, but we still get the rest of the night to ourselves. The last remaining step will be to get them to handle being put to bed and having us leave the room before they fall asleep.

As the title of this post may suggest, Papaya is a total mama’s girl. Nashi too, for that matter. What happens in the morning when the green light of the alarm says it’s ok to leave the bedroom? A bum-rush to snuggle Mama, usually in the form of fighting over the perfect spot on either side of her. “We love mama, right? Yeah, I love mama. I hate papa” is not uncommon when they discuss their parents. Wtf, kids. I hope you’re ready for how this affects the writing of my will.

Speaking of fighting over Mama. Last week during one of the snuggle sessions, Papaya is lying against one of Mama’s boobs and says about it “Nashi gets one of these and I get one of these.” Um, nope, not anymore. Those are for Papa now.

Tacking this on here: she has a stutter that she developed a little less than a year ago. I guess it happens sometimes with early talkers, and in her case increases when it’s loud, busy, or in competition with Nashi to talk. Mama has been giving her speech therapy and has decided to move her into full time forest school starting in the fall, in part to give her shorter and more peaceful days that hopefully allow her to calm down a bit in her daily life.

In short: we love her and we fear her. Turning three is just around the corner. Her terrible twos has been something to behold, and we are in trouble with threenager status coming up. Wish us well.