Growing Up

Yes, I still have no pics to post yet..... I blame it on my husband for downloading the pictures on my camera onto his computer instead of mine. All the cute Easter Pictures haven't made it yet.... I promise they will come soon!

Madeline seems to have hit a phase of growing up at the speed of light. Maybe it's because I know we'll be bringing home a little tiny helpless baby soon that she just seems to have grown up overnight, but sometimes I swear she's an adult trapped in a child's body.

Madeline is very into pretend play now. She still loves to pretend she is different animals and will tell me that she's a "dinosaur" or a "bumblebee" and occasionally a "toaster." (?) She LOVES being outside and would play out there all day if I had the energy to chase her. She loves riding in her Flinstone car and playing with sidewalk chalk. She also LOVES playing in the dirt. With all of our water issues over the past month - our neighbors have had piles and piles of dirt to play in. She loves climbing in it and throwing clods of dirt. I am SO glad that she isn't all squeamish about getting dirty. It's usually after dinner that she's running around outside wanting the dirt so I usually have no problem letting her play to her heart's content since there's a bath coming. In my mind, that's part of the joy of growing up in the country. We now have a 6 foot by....10 foot hole in the middle of our yard as step ONE in the process to fix our water problems. She is obsessed with throwing things (usually clumps of dirt) into the hole which scared me to death as I don't want a Baby Jessica on my hands. (And if you don't know who that is you are far too young). She will come up to me and say "Mama? We need to check on the hole!" I assure her that it's still there and that we'll look at it together after Daddy gets home - as I feel better with TWO sets of hands there to hover over her. She is, however, very good about listening to me when I tell her she's too close or that 20 pound rock is too heavy for her to pick up. We have been working very very hard on listening to Mommy and Daddy and making the right choice the FIRST time.

We've had a few battles of will in the last few weeks. They seem like such small issues and I am soooooo tempted to just give in and do myself whatever it is I am asking her to do - but then I watch Supernanny with these children who are 7 and 8 and scream and yell at their parents when they try to make them do things. I know 2.5 is young - but I don't think it's too young for her to start the learning process of who is the parent. *Segue.....have any of you other parents ever noticed that people are always sooooooo happy to tell how advanced and smart their children are - but yet - when it comes to disciplining them or "expecting" them to do something - they are all the sudden "too young to understand." I want to say "Really? You just told me that your 2 year old can work the Quadratic Equation - I think they can understand not throwing things at other peoples heads." Anywho...* Madeline dumped out a cup of quarters a week ago and then flat out refused to pick them up. I told her she had to go to time out if she wasn't going to pick up the mess she made. So she went to time out, I got her out, and she then refused to pick them up again. I had dinner on the stove, a dog whining to go out, and laundry that needed to be switched - the LAST thing I wanted to do was make my child do what I could just do in 10 seconds.

But I knew it's what needed to be done. So I sat down with her and explained that Mommy would help her clean up the quarters, but that when you make a mess, it's your job to clean it up! She sat there and looked at me for a minute or two and I told her that we were just going to sit there until she decided she was ready to clean up. I kept reminding her I was happy to help her, but she had to pick up as well. She sat another minute and then started scooting verrrrrrry slowly toward the edge of the dining room. (Like I wouldn't notice lol!) I told her to come back by Mommy, and she had to sit there with me and could not play etc... until she picked up her quarters. We sat there another minute - and then she picked them all up with some help from mom. We were able to do it without screaming and tantrums and bribing - just by telling her the cold hard facts. She understood 100% percent what I expected from her and decided to do it after testing me to make sure I reeeeeeeeealy meant what I said. I didn't get upset or worked up either which was a nice change for me. I just decided that THIS was the most important thing that needed to happen right now and that there was no reason for me to get all worked up over it.

We've been working really hard on learning to obey the first time Mom or Dad asks. It's one of those concepts that I don't expect her to master at her age, but want to plant the seed for. Again - I see those kids whose parents have to ask them 39 times in 39 different ways to get something done and then "trick" or "bribe" them into doing it - and honestly - it just seems like a HECK of a lot more work to me than teaching them slowly that if you make the right choice the FIRST time, everyone is happier. I don't want a mindless robot who obeys me out of fear, but I don't want a brat of a child who knows their parent doesn't mean what they say and manipulates them because of it. I have found that asking Madeline to do something once, she will normally do it - if she doesn't, I usually remind her "How many times does Mommy ask you to do something?" and she will say "one!" and then she'll do it. I saw this in action the other day when we were taking a family walk down the street a few nights ago. She was running down the middle of the street (not as dangerous as it sounds if you knew where we lived) and was about 5 steps ahead of Steve and I. I saw a car turn onto the end of the street and so I wanted her to go onto the grass. I knew who was in the car (another perk of having 4 houses on your street) and knew he knew Madeline would be with us. He was going one mile an hour so I told Madeline to get over to the side of the street in the grass. There was some urgency in my voice - and she did it right away. She knows full well what I expect, and I just hope I can be consistent enough to teach her this to fruition - especially with another baby thrown into the mix!

She is doing very well on her feet now. It's hard to think that this time last year she had just started walking and we were sooooo nervous about it! Now she runs and kicks balls and even jumps under the right circumstances. You have to laugh at yourself as a parent for worrying so much that they were going to crawl into Kindergarten.

She is still doing fantastic in her big girl bed. She knows she isn't supposed to get out and has done excellently with that. Every so often I'll overhear her saying that she's a big girl and doesn't need a crib anymore. : ) It's beyond precious.

Potty Training is also still going wonderfully... She is now confidant enough to take herself to the potty and can do everything except the mechanics of getting her pants etc back UP. Nothing as cute as your child shuffling toward you with their pants around their ankles! I can't remember the last time she had an accident. Though she likes to go potty about 5 times in the first hour she's in bed, she seems to have totally graduated to "big girl" status at this point. Big girl bed - big girl underwear...... I don't know how it happened! She seems so big now - but my mom keeps telling me to just wait until we bring the baby home, then she'll be a giant! Seems impossible...