"Mommy's" Chloe

Shortly after Brady and I married, I attempted to teach Chloe to tell Brady that she was "Mommy's Chloe." She was obviously a Daddy's girl at heart so I thought I would tease him by teaching her to repeat the phrase anytime he was around. Of course, my plan backfired as soon as she learn she could get a rise out of me by saying no, she was "Daddy's Chloe," or "Bubba's Chloe." The girl is so smart and such a tease she would just walk up to me in the middle of the day, with a big grin on her face and say, "I'm Daddy's Chloe!" and run off to try to tempt me to chase after her. The last week Chloe has fixated herself to her sister and she says out loud all the time, "I am KK's Chloe," which pleases her sister to no end. This afternoon while I was making a cake, I overheard a conversation between the girls. Kaelyn told Chloe, "Chloe when we have cake tonight, I want you to have the first piece because you are the best sister I have even seen in the whole world." Chloe response, "Yay! I love cake!"

Chloe has taken off in the last several weeks as she has changed more and more from a baby into a little girl. About 2 weeks before his deployment, Brady decided that he thought it would be a good time to move Chloe from her crib to a toddler bed. Being that she was sleeping WONDERFULLY at night, and based on the fact that Brady was about to leave for 5 months, I was not very excited about "messing with a good thing" nor was I excited about facing the fact that my baby was rapidly turning into a little girl. I was certainly not thrilled at the idea, but Brady felt like she was ready and didn't want to miss another milestone while he was gone, so we did it. I use the term "we" loosely. He disassembled the crib and changed it into a toddler bed while I sat on the floor and cried.

The next week, two days before Brady deployed, I decided to go ahead and start the potty-training process with Chloe. I knew we were going to be at home for the next few days and this was one more opportunity to include Brady in this milestone so we decided to give it a shot. Chloe is a natural. We are on potty-training day 11 and I am amazed at how great she is doing. My sweet friend, Abbie Schneider prayed over me about this transition with Chloe and it worked. It is amazing what that kiddo will do for an M&M. And, it is equally amazing how loudly her siblings will cheer for her when they get M&M's to celebrate with her as well!

One of the last things that Brady told Chloe before he left was that she not grow up too much while he was gone. Well Daddy...she didn't listen very well.