Can we freeze it?

Right now. These weeks have been awesome. Both girls have been enjoyable for the majority of days.  Evie's tantrums still exist but she is at an age where reason suddenly makes sense to her, and threat of consequence is typically enough to alter an undesirable behavior.  Cora hasn't yet reached that age of defiance (though we get hints every now and again), and for the most part she's just a little ham eliciting smiles wherever she goes.

Will and I know this is a sweet spot. Sure, there are still those days when nothing seems to go right or those moments when you think you'll lose your mind. But they're few and far between right now and we're trying to soak it up.

Evie is finishing up her first year of preschool in two days.  She's attempting to read and loves writing letters, and then asking me what the random sequence of letters she has written spells.  She enjoys counting. She watched a butterfly land on a plant the other day and told me to move softly so as not to scare away the "monarch", which she claims is her favorite butterfly.  Although she still won't eat everything on her plate, she now understands our house rule is not to say "yuck" but instead try a bite and then say "I don't care for that".  And she actually does it. The other day she asked me for a second piece of asparagus because she really liked it.  I was in total shock.  I'm sure it won't happen again for another year, but I enjoyed every bit of that moment!  Although she has yet to repeat it, a few days ago she just suddenly did the full monkey bars at the park. Three times in a row.  Just from sheer willpower.  She also can get herself started from zero on a swing and is up flying through the air in no time.  It's so cool to watch all these things develop. 

Cora and Evie play more and more together every day.  About two weeks ago we moved Evie into Cora's bedroom to make room for Nana & Grandpa & Rosemary to visit.  We decided to just keep them in the same room and even THAT has been going great.  Evie is clear on the rules about not waking Cora up, and knows that if Cora is crying that she can help out by singing her a song.  We often hear it through the monitor or the wall.  I think the rooming together is allowing Evie to identify more with her big sister role. And Cora is sleeping almost an hour later since we've put them in together.  It's like she now knows she's not missing out on anything.

Some mornings Cora still wakes earlier than Evie and I sneak in to grab her. She puts her finger to her lips and says "shhhh. Evie sleepin".  She has a LOT of words already.  Cora probably has 100-200.  It's amazing.  And when she doesn't have words, she's constantly babbling. And singing. And dancing.  She's a riot.  You can tell she wants to be a big girl so badly.  The other day some of the neighborhood kids were over jumping on the trampoline and we held Cora back so she wouldn't get hurt.  She was not pleased.  When the invited her on and jumped lightly, she was smiling ear to ear and saying "jumping jumping jumping!!"  I take her to gymnastics once a week and she loves that. Her gross motor skills still have a long way to go, but we see her making huge strides all the time.  She walked the balance beam by herself half way before falling off.  We even attempted potty training for a few days as she was extremely interested.  But, Will and I realized we weren't ready for it yet so put it on hold for a bit.  Hoping I don't regret that in a few months, but I just sort of want to get through all our trips this summer and get her settled into once place before we go that route.

All in all, it's just a great time. And of course it's all helped by the nice weather and the ability to run around outside.  Sunny days equals happy mom equals happy kiddos.  Here's hoping the full summer is like this!