A lot of this blog is me recording and documenting our day-to-day so that even when these years of living in the The Tunnel are long gone, I can still look back on exactly what they were like.

And rest assured, the two that remain Tunnel-bound for the next few years give me plenty of post-worthy content.

In part, they are the cutest little things I’ve ever seen:

In others, they cause me the “11” that now lives permanently between my eyebrows.

Perhaps it makes sense then that one of Wilson’s defining features these days is her own overly expressive forehead. Sister may only be two and change, but she has got the spirit and the face of a fiercely independent. Hasn’t she always?! I mean, from the day she was born, she’s driven the bus with even more control than any of the others and that is truly saying something!

Like many moms of school-age kids, my van is my bus and we’re in it every day to get kids here, there, and everywhere. Knock on wood, WA does a decent job, most of the time, getting in and going all the places with me. Good thing I start the process of getting out the door well before we need to leave, though, because Wilson’s favorite phrase as of late is a loud, emphatic, “ME DO IT!” In fact, the image here is of her mid-statement of those very words.

And she means it.

She wants to feed herself. She wants to dress herself. She wants to get up on things and down from things solo. She wants to put her shoes on unassisted, and by golly, just about any task you can think of, she’d rather do it herself, thanks.

One thing we’ve discovered that she cannot do very well is say her name. I don’t suppose this is all that uncommon, but you take the fifth baby in a family that has always called the youngest the baby until the next baby comes along and now this time there’s no more babies coming, you get stuck being The Baby. Forever! I mean, she does know her name; she responds to it always and can say a version of it. But if you call her something wrong (like another child’s name, which, let’s face it – happens a lot) and she will again give you a frown or head shake as she reprimands you, saying, “Me no Truman! Me Baby!!”

Noted, Lady Baby. Noted.

Also noted is her obsession with talking about people we know but refusing to talk TO them. This mostly applies to adult males, like our pastor or my friend’s husband who is doing the construction on our last basement room. She looooooves to say their names and point out where they might be (the church and the basement, respectively) but bless it, she will not talk to them or say their names to their faces. That said, I think if we would let her go all the places she wants (namely weekly church activities like WNL and Sunday School, both of which she’s still too little to attend), she would do so in heartbeat. Because of course she thinks she should be doing what the Bigs are doing, which is a trend I don’t see fading any time soon.

Jokes about gray hairs aside, I adore this age with The Baby. I’ve never before been able to be quite this present or physically able to play and be with my two-year-olds (because I’m always in the uber-pregnant of newborn stage by now and exhausted) and even though she’s mammoth and occasionally mouthy, I love bearing witness to her spunky personality and little pixie voice that is still obsessed with Margaret Tiger and insists on “Twinkle, Twinkle” before naps, and loves all her “WonnaWoman” gear.