Mandy Grenier has put together a great resource blog for parents in our corner of the country.

I thought this was a very well-thought-out and laid-out site, and encourage you to check it out.

My daughter is winding down her second year (two years, eight months, to be exact) and, knock on wood, it’s really looking like we might avoid “the terrible twos” altogether.

I think the way we’ve managed to sidestep this common problem is that I try not to let her get frustrated or stressed out, as often as I have some control over that. Avoiding letting her get overtired also helps.  Of course, I don’t always prevent these situations and in truth, sometimes contribute to them.

Yesterday, as I struggled to get her to relax into an afternoon nap, she was wriggly and cranky.  Giving up on the rocking portion of our program after she threw her Snoopy across the room, I tensely put her in her crib.  She started yelling at me.  I decided to remove myself from the situation, lest I escalate it with my own yelling.

After she settled down into what became a two-hour nap, when I went in to retrieve her, she stood up with a big smile on her face.  “I had a nice nap,” she informed me.  Then, pausing, she actually said soberly, “I’m sorry I yelled at you, Mommy.”

I couldn’t believe it.

I am so grateful that my young daughter can and is willing to express, unprompted, remorse and apology for bad behavior.  I try to make sure that I offer her the same respect.  She is so heart-meltingly sincere.

She definitely has ‘please,’ ‘thank you,’ and ‘you’re welcome’ in the rotation.  I’m pleased when she displays these good manners in front of others.

I’m sure when she starts daycare/school and is exposed to more rambunctious types, she’ll start to slide into sass (she is, after all, the Sassmaster’s daughter).  But until then, I will cross my fingers until we hit her third birthday, and hope there’s no such thing as “the terrible threes.”

I just spent the better part of a week in a rented cottage at Hampton Beach with my family.  For those of you that know my family, you will undoubtedly be surprised to learn that I am not, in fact, writing this column from prison.

I will attempt to relay the experience in my best impression of my idol, Dave Barry.  This means managing to be funny without having my family disown me.  Let’s see how it goes.

I count this vacation as a success for the following reasons:

n I did not commit matricide.

n I did not commit infanticide.

n I did not commit suicide.

n None of us ivory-skinned cave-dwellers got sunburned.

n I had my annual lobster roll at McGuirk’s.

n I managed to avoid wearing a bathing suit in public.

My parents spent the first night at the cottage alone.  This enabled me to do something that I never was able to do in my high school career: have a party at their house.  I gleefully hosted game night for 15 of my nearest and dearest, and we partied like it was 1989, baby.  Until 4:40 a.m., to be exact.

The next day, after cleaning up the party detritus and wondering when my head would stop pounding, my aunt, toddler and I drove up to Hampton Beach.  I stayed over that night (Sunday), and after spending a lovely morning on the beach Monday, I drove back to Nashua to work Monday and Tuesday nights.  It was weird not having my daughter with me; I habitually watched my noise level and went to turn on the baby monitor.  I felt slightly wistful.  But then I remembered that I could actually sleep in two mornings in a row, and became duly elated.

Wednesday, I rejoined the family for four days.  Well, I rejoined my mother, aunt and daughter.  My father had fled the cottage after one night, to enjoy his own personal vacation of not having any of the Palmer women in his zip code for a week.  I think he left skid marks.

We hit the beach every morning, delighting in my daughter’s toddler enthusiasm for the ‘giant sandbox.’  She would have run in and out of the surf until sunset – and indeed, on the night my friend Glen came up, she was doing it by moonlight.  After slathering her with SPF 50 and securing a hat to her head (via my mother’s MacGyver-esque skills with a cinch she found at the cottage), her three adult minions would lug all the beach accoutrements down to the shore and take turns accompanying her into the waves.  It definitely takes a village to raise a child when one of us is in our forties and the other two are in their sixties.

We did not have good luck with our dining experiences.  The three nights we ventured to restaurants were fraught with insane traffic (an hour to cross the bridge, anyone?), emergency rerouting (apparently, some café was torched on the boardwalk, causing more trafficus horriblus), mediocre food and exorbitant bills (this last only affected my mother, who always picks up the check).  The one bright spot was my lobster roll at McGuirk’s, which I would gladly trade a kidney for if I wasn’t already down one.

My daughter did amazingly well with the change in her daily schedule.  She slept in the big bed with me, managing to fall out only once (and barely waking up for the event, at that).  She slept through the Wednesday night beach fireworks, her family’s snoring and the wandering packs of unsupervised juveniles who found their way to our cul de sac.  She even used the potty – the first follow-up to the initial event on June 30.

I did enjoy my time at the shore, gazing out at the Atlantic (occasionally longing for my previous Pacific view) and holding my daughter’s little hand as she pulled me into the waves.  Maybe someday we’ll be able to afford a cottage just for the two of us.  By then, of course, she’ll be writing her own blogs about how she ‘suffered through’ a vacation with her family, and hoping that I don’t disown her…

Every day with my toddler brings new, interesting and often hilarious dialogues.  I’ve noticed lately that she has begun making pronouncements of her opinions and feelings about various subjects that have me either suppressing giggles or stunned into reflection.

Yesterday, as she was enjoying her (now daily) naked time in her wading pool, she looked up at the darkening sky and stated wistfully, “I sure do like being naked in the rain.”  Um… huh?  When has that ever happened?  Well, we rectified that by enjoying the subsequent downpour together.  Don’t worry; she was safely out of the wading pool, and no lightning was evident.  And also don’t worry; only one of us was naked.

Last night, after we’d changed into warm, dry clothes and were cuddled in the rocking chair in the gloaming, she looked up at me and asked about the welfare of an injured bird she and her grandmother had found on Nana’s front deck.  I told her we could inquire of Nana tomorrow.  “If the bird still has a boo-boo, I want to take it to (her aunt) Ninny’s vet hospital.”  I was vaguely encouraging.  Then she added, “I want to be an animal doctor like Ninny, so I can make all the animals feel better.” 

She’s 2 ½.  I mean, I would expect that from like a 4-year-old, but… career announcements before potty training?  I was surprised.

Some of my favorite conversations of hers don’t even involve me.  I sometimes just sit there at the video baby monitor, watching and listening to her discourse to her stuffed animals as she winds down to sleep in her crib.  I’ll admit that my reactions run both ends of the spectrum when I hear her quoting me or using my expressions.  It’s sweet to hear her reassuring Snoopy with “don’t worry, you’re OK” and “I love you soooo much!”  But I feel duly busted when I hear “not now, I’m busy” or “Mama said no.”

I also like when she asks a question and suggests an answer.  She often wants to know where every member of her family is at any given time.  Sometimes, when she inquires about, say, her grandfather, she’ll answer herself.  “Where’s Papa?  Oh, probably playing softball.”  Some question-and-answer pairs make me ache, but are still sweet.  “What’s uncle Barry doing in Heaven?  Oh, probably rolling balls to make thunder. [looking skyward]  Hey, uncle Barry!  That’s loud!”

She’s surprisingly patient (given her gene pool) when her audience doesn’t understand a word or phrase.  One day she asked me over and over for an item I couldn’t decipher, so I suggested, hopefully, that she could get it herself.  “It’s too high,” she said matter-of-factly (not testy or whining).  “Come on, I’ll show you.”  I followed her to the box of straws on the kitchen counter.  Another time, my mother couldn’t figure out a word she was repeating, and my daughter clarified for her, “you know… like in the ocean?”  “Ohhhh,” my mother realized.  “A whale!”

I so wish I could remember and document every cute or amazing thing she says, realizes or determines.  But I’ll have to be satisfied with the in-the-moment enjoyment and things I manage to scribble down in my journal.  At least I know there will be a whole new crop of toddler-isms tomorrow, and the next day.

My daughter passed two toddler milestones this week: she used the potty and got her first haircut. You’ll be glad to know that I only saved a memento from one of these events.

Unfortunately, I was not present when the first milestone was achieved.  I was sitting at my desk in the newsroom Monday when the call came.  My excited mother put my daughter on the line, prompting her from the background.  “I used the potty, Mama,” she told me happily.  “I’m a big girl.”  I was encouraged by this first step towards a diaper-free existence, but disappointed that I was not the one to bear witness.

Wednesday, we finally took her to get her first haircut.  The staff at My Kidz Kutz in Milford was very patient and kind.  As my toddler sat mesmerized by a Curious George video on the wall-mounted television, stylist Rachel did her best to trim up the wispy blonde confection atop my daughter’s head. Nana got video, I got photos.  We both got tiny CSI-evidence-bags of fluff to take with us.  Mine will be going into a locket my father bought me recently.

Needless to say, she looks adorable.  Adorabler.  Heightened adorability.

We haven’t seen a repeat in the potty performance as yet.  But that initial offering is significant in that she announced her need and asked to use it.  I’m glad that she’s more aware of the pending function now and hope she asks to be “a big girl” again soon.  I’ve gently suggested, but to no avail.

Just two more stops on the road to adulthood – a road she’s cruising down too fast, sometimes, for her mommy.