Eva's World

Meet Eva.

Age 2.8.

Toe-headed, sippy cup obsessed, highly opinionated, lovely, stubborn Eva.

Whether you argue for age two or age three, she is definitely in the thick of the Terribles. 

(For the genetic cocktails Scotty and I have created, it seems to be worse for age three, so I keep reminding myself that what I'm going through now is nothing compared to what's coming over the next year).

(Also, when my kids are out of this phase, and go I back and read my blog posts where I boob about how hard it is, I always think, "It couldn't have been that bad. Why was I such a whiner?" but then when I'm living it again, I realize... it really is that bad. So this is a note to my future self: age two and three are really, really hard. You're not just being a baby! You've been through it four times now. The pain is real). 

(AND... I know that there is someone out there who has teenagers who is thinking I'm an idiot).

The good thing about the Terribles is that they are also incredibly cute at this age. One minute they are literally clawing the skin off your face and screaming in your ear (in public, no less - I just love when we're in Costco, and my child's scream is so high-pitched that the people around us flinch and cover their ears), and the next minute they are giving you eskimo kisses.

What is with these tiny people?

(As I'm writing this, it's 6:30 a.m. and Eva is right up in my grill whispering "milk" in her serial killer voice).

The other day I took my first steps toward returning to my former routine of getting up at 5:00 in the morning. I'm out of practice so I was exhausted by mid-morning. I got Eva some milk (to prevent the whispering) and turned on Daniel Tiger and took a quick nap on the couch. I think I was woken up by Eva about every three minutes for the 18 minutes I attempted to sleep. At one point, she was climbing all over me, and when I got up, I was soaking wet, and so was she. I'm pretty sure she peed on me. She also managed to unlock my phone and take about 200 pictures. Most of them were of her own finger, but she also took these little gems:

About 1/4 of the photos featured her feet:

At some point, she must've accidentally gotten into the filters.

And apparently I was the subject for a time.

I've never really seen what I look like when I sleep. I'm a little creeped out by my eyes. I appear to be peeking. No wonder no one respects my sleep. I don't look believable!

(Not that my kids care one bit whether I'm really asleep or not).

This age is beautiful and hard. This is the phase where, with each of my children, I have ended up on anti-depressants. My coping skills with a three-year-old are very lacking, and this phase fatigues me (physically and mentally). It's really easy for me to slip into a pit of overwhelm. I'm not quite to that point, but I feel myself heading there.

C'mon Eva. Let's get through this.

(And while we're talking about it, please, pretty please, don't touch the 700 piece puzzle that I left sitting on the kitchen table last night because I falsely believed that I could finish it before you woke up this morning, but here it is... 6:45, and you are jumping on the couch - the couch that you have managed to dislodge most of the springs from, reiterating that I can never have anything nice).

(Sigh... I already know how this story ends. At least I'll have something to blog about tomorrow).