Why? Because. Why? Because.

I know. I know. I need to focus on getting my pictures accessible again. We have quite a few saved up on the camera. So, in lieu of cute pics to share, I thought I'd update you all on a variety of things that Cam is up to these days as a 2 1/2 year old.

One of my favorite new activities is her reading to us. When we finish the bed time book, she'll look at me and say "now I read to you". She doesn't exactly follow the page order well, but on the pages she does turn to, she's retained what's on that page pretty well. She'll remember some of the phrases verbatim. A lot of kids' books start with "one day...". When Camryn is reading, every page starts with "one day." It's very cute.

She's become a lot more vocal on phones lately. Especially her fake cell phones. And she's really loud. We gave her some old phones of ours that don't work anymore and she has pretend conversations with her granparents all of the time. She found mine in my purse the other day and pulled it out pretending she was talking on it. Craig called it and she came running into me saying I had a phone call. I picked it up and said "Camryn, it's for you." She thought it was so neat to talk to daddy on the phone. She said "where are you daddy?" He said he was on the couch. And she said "Oh. OK. Bye-bye."

She's still covering things up and putting them to bed. Although the Windex bottle has been long gone, she doesn't always cover up her dollies. The remote control, car keys, pieces of paper and books are all fair game. :)

I recently purchased some chocolate/mint Hershey Kisses. I think that child has eaten more than half the bag. We'll tell her she can have two, but she figures out how to sneak them. The other day, she was watching one of her cartoons and I ran upstairs to change clothes. I heard her running across the kitchen floor and stop abruptly. I knew exactly what she was doing. I came downstairs to see a pile of the kiss wrappers on the floor next to her feet. She just gave me one of those Camryn smirks, as if to say "yep, I got more on my own. They're all gone now, and there's nothing you can do about it." She's addicted to those things. I was making dinner the other night and she asked for kisses and goes and stands next to the counter they sit on. I said "Camryn, I'm making dinner. You've already had two kisses. No more." And somehow she quickly changed to "No, I want hug and kiss." and started to pout. That little snot. I KNOW she wanted chocolate and here she is trying to make me feel bad for turning her hug and kiss down. She's done that twice since, by the way, so it wasn't a single instance of misunderstanding her.

Speaking of no, she's got to where she starts whining every time we tell her no. This is a newly formed bad habit. It's throwing me off at first. I find myself inclined to give in. She's never like that. But I'm training myself that no, means no. Otherwise, she'll never learn.

Here are a few quotes/phrases:
"I eat it all gone. It's in my tomach." Referring to a snack she had while riding in the car. I love that she adds the "gone" to the end of the phrase.

Everything happens "last week". She could have watched an episode of the Backyardigans thirty minutes ago and she'll tell me she watched it last week. Or Saturday afternoon, we were talking about her swimming lesson (from that morning), and she told me that she learned to scoop after the ball "last week". Not sure where this inaccurate sense of time is coming from, but we get a kick out of it.

She's gotten in the habit of saying "wait a second" with her index finger held up. Drives me crazy, because she overuses it, but I'm pretty sure she's picked that one up from me.

I titled this entry "Why? Because. Why? Because." because that seems to be most of our conversations lately. She has started asking why over and over and I find myself going through a series of reasons. For example:

"What you doing mommy?"
"Warming up pizza rolls for you in the microwave."
"Why?"
"Because you are supposed to serve them warm."
"Why?"
"Because they're frozen; and if you don't warm them up, they'll hurt your teeth."
"Why?"
"Because when they're frozen, they're too hard to bite into."
"Why?"
OK, really? You're not satisfied yet?

Another example:
"What you doing mommy?"
"I'm cleaning the litter box."
"Why?"
"It's filled with cat poop and pee."
"Why?"
"Because Jake & Josie need a place to go to the bathroom, and they thankfully choose the litter box."
"Why?"
"Because it's gross to go to the bathroom all over the house."
"Why?"
"Because it would smell."
"Why?"
OK, I'm done with this one too!

So I haven't learned my lesson yet but I've found when I stop answering her, the "whys" stop. I guess I answer thinking I'm educating her in some way. But I kind of wonder if she even listens or if she just waits for me to stop talking and promptly says why.

That's all for now. I promise to work on getting pictures loaded up here.

Have a great week!