Sometimes I'm more and sometimes less aware as a parent. There are times when I'm just in survival mode and don't take the time to SEE what the girls are doing, just reacting and getting by. Other times I'm able to "stop and smell the roses," as they say.
I have friends who's kids are all about the latest music, they are little girls and know the who's who of "in crowd". They know the words to the pop songs on the radio, and I think that's super cute. But I LOVE that when I get in the car with Payton and I have on a pop or a country station she demands that I put on her songs. That is a CD of songs such as "Wheels On The Bus" and "If Your Happy And You Know It". She sits back there and tries to sing her little heart out, and so does Parker. I love, love, love that she's still enjoying being a little girl!
On another note, I'm a wee bit concerned that she has some genetic obsessiveness in her. In the last couple of weeks I've found her becoming a fanatic about making her bed and cleaning up both her and Parker's rooms. The other morning before she even came in to wake Jason and I, she'd already made (in her mind) her bed by spreading her two blankets out smoothly over the entire bed. This morning as I was stepping out of the shower I heard her arguing with Jason about how to make OUR bed. Wow, that bed making gene did NOT come from me, but I'll take it!
Night before last I sat down with her to address Valentines to her classmates. I knew it was going to be a frustrating process for me, addressing 17 Valentines with her, but I was determined to have her write her name on each one. It was a challenge for me, but totally worth it. The fun began when I was trying to spread the cards out, tearing apart the perforations and getting everything organized so that she could pick which card would be for each classmate, while she worked hard at stacking them all up and spouting out classmates names that should go on each. Then it was time to actually write. At first I was calling out the letters to her, and they were randomly falling on the cards, P in the middle, A in the corner, some crazy version of Y maybe under the P, the T's had two lines down, O's were often left out, and N's, looked a lot more like W's or M's, I'm still not sure which. But as we moved on we both got better at it. I decided to draw lines like she's have on a piece of paper at school, that helped up get them going in some sort of order. She eventually told me to stop telling her what the next letter was, because "I know Mom!" By the time we finished I may have had a few less hairs in my head, but I was also very proud of her, I would say that maybe 1/2 of the cards her name was legible!
Alright, for now I better get back to surviving life as there's a weeks worth of laundry that isn't going to wash itself and a rental application that needs me to look it over! It's great to be me!
