On The Other Hand...

I thought about it, after my last entry, and it's only fair if I point out that there are many things I bought for CamCam that I didn't need to. In fact, the money I could have saved on these items, would probably have evened out what was on my other list. So, again I'm giving anyone that needs it a heads-up. Here are some things you may think you need for your toddler, but in fact you do not:

The most obvious one, from the majority of pictures on here, should be clothes. I know it may not look like it but CamCam does own clothing. I do dress him. He just strips down to his diaper everyday. I'm not sure what it is about this age, but 2 year olds like to be naked. It has absolutely nothing to do with being hot either. It's pretty cold here toward late afternoon now, and he went onto our deck the other day and said "cold ma" so I told him we'd go and get a shirt and pants on and he said no and threw a fit. He wanted me to somehow miraculously create warmth around him. I guess I should maybe feel honored that he thought that was within my capability. The worst part about all of this is that lately he's decided that running around in a diaper is way too confining, and has started taking that off as well. I know some would say that taking off their diaper is a sign that they are ready for potty training. And to those people I would reply that unless running around my house and randomly peeing on my floor and peeing on my pile of clean laundry and laughing about it is potty training, I think I'll continue to fight about keeping a diaper on, thank you very much.

Do not bother buying a toy box or any sort of container to keep toys in. A two year old's sole mission in life is to empty such things. It's like the best game in the world to them to empty what you've just picked up. If they do feel the need to have their toys picked up, they will find their own, more appropriate spot:

Honestly, I was quite impressed that he was able to shove every single item from his room into this tiny little spot. It must have taken quite a bit of effort.

Do not buy a two year old their own toothbrush. They'll never use it anyways. They'll use everyone else's toothbrush, but never their own. I think it is because they're always watching what family members do, and then following along. So I figure that CamCam has seen us all using our toothbrushes and so in his mind figures those are good, safe toothbrushes to use. However when I try and give him his toothbrush, he's probably thinking: "No way am I using that, no one in this house will use this one, what makes you think I want it????"

Do not buy dishes for your toddler. They never use dishes. Every meal I give CamCam ends up on the table. First thing he does is dump his food onto the table. I'm really really trying to teach him manners and how we eat off of a plate or out of a bowl, but he waits until I'm no longer looking at him and dumps his food onto the table.

Actually that's the best case scenario. The worst is when he's eating elsewhere and so dumps his food onto the couch or onto the floor to eat. The other night I made popcorn. I put way too many seeds into the pan and ended up with an enormous bowl of popcorn. It was massive. I had made it after the kids were in bed, and so had tons left over and put it on the kitchen counter. The next day, I was taking a shower and my 2 older kids went and got themselves a very small bowl of popcorn out of it and brought it downstairs to eat while watching a movie. "Mr. Trouble" wanted some too and so went upstairs and brought down the entire massive bowl to share with CamCam. I truly do not understand why one of my older two didn't think for a moment that this was a bad idea. Didn't they see "Mr. Trouble" walking down with a bowl larger then him? Didn't they see him and CamCam sitting RIGHT NEXT TO THEM with it?? Didn't they see CamCam dump the entire bowl and then sit in the middle of the popcorn pile to eat???? Why didn't one of them think "hey, this doesn't seem like a good idea, maybe I should take this giant bowl away and bring them a smaller one?"

Lastly, I probably didn't need to buy CamCam his bed. He doesn't sleep in it anyways. Apparently a plastic box is better. The crib was a few hundred, the plastic box cost me $2.99. I wasted a lot of money.