MLK Day

Last Monday we went out for some shopping and stopped for a quick bite for dinner. During dinner we were talking with Muffin about who Martin Luther King was and why he had a holiday assigned to him. So naturally she asked us who Martin Luther King was. I loved DH's simple "toddler level" answer: He was a teacher who taught people that they have be nice and get along.

Growing up

Muffin is growing up so fast… Yesterday morning when she woke up, she said she wanted to go potty all by herself. She closed the bathroom door, took off her bottoms by herself, sat herself on the toilet, and only called me because she couldn't reach the bathroom tissue. After I gave her a few pieces, she asked me to leave her alone. She then proceeded to cleanup, get off by herself, flush, then wash & dry her hands. ALL BY HERSELF! My mommy heart is torn between pride and sadness at seeing her grow so quick.

And she's got spunk! Last night we went to a birthday party for her cousin (his first b-day!) and they had a little musical chairs game for the kids. Inevitably she got left out at one of the turns, so what did she do? When she realized she didn't have a seat, she nonchalantly grabbed the nearest empty chair and sat there instead. Everyone roared at that, and she got a prize for sheer chutzpah ;)

A nice quote

"Making the decision to have a child - it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking outside your body."--Elizabeth Stone

PhD in Imagination

These days I feel like I'm earing a PhD in Imagination... Muffin just loves loves loves stories. Which is great, except that she'll spend a good part of the day asking me for stories on things like: a toothbrush (what kind of story can you tell about it??) 3 kittens, a baby ducky, 3 fishies, Nemo and the baby skunk, Sleeping Beauty and the baby skunk, (do you see a pattern here?) etc. The longer the story the better she likes it. And she's got definite ideas on the story details. For example, when I said the 3 fishies lived in a pond, she told me that no, they live in the sea.
I tell you, its exhausting to be so creative on demand ALL the time!! Then again I love that she's got such a vivid imagination and is so creative. She's great at mixing elements of stories together which I think is wonderful. Its tough to keep up with her though!

I can see how people start writing children's books though - some of the stories I've created have potential as books... I told DH that we should consider writing children's books - use his pictures and my stories and we'll have a business in no time!

Challenging Times

Last night I asked Muffin to come with me to the bathroom for her bath. She said No bath today. And she didn't want it! We had quite a discussion, her daddy got involved and we finally got her in the tub. Then at night she again only wanted to sleep in her rocking chair, and made a big stink about it. Sigh… I've heard that year 3 is more challenging year 2 because they start really pushing the limits, we seem to have reached that point… hope she outgrows it soon!

Bedtime Troubles

Muffin had a rought time going to bed last night - our usual ritual is that I'll rock her to sleep, put her in her crib, then if/when she wakes up in the middle of the night she'll come to bed with us. If for some reason I'm exhausted or she's jut not falling asleep, I'll just bring her to bed with me so that we can get some sleep. Never been an issue so far.

Last night she was very sleep but not falling asleep, so I decided to bring her with me to bed. She did NOT want to go to my bed, and was crying her heart out that she wanted to sleep with me on the rocking chair. I tried to explain to her that I'm too big for her crib and that the rocking chair would give my back a boo-boo if I slept on it all night. She continued to cry, wailing, that she wanted to sleep on the rocking chair. In comes Daddy, who offers her the option of coming downstairs with him until she got sleepy. That led to even more wailing that she wanted Mami. I think it took her like 5-10 min of wailing until she finally calmed down enough to understand the options were a) go to bed with mami or b) go downstairs with daddy. She reluctantly agreed to option A.

About 5 minutes after we snuggled in bed, she asks, 'Mami, can we talk?' Of course I said yes… the poor dear wanted to talk about what had just happened, it just broke my heart! I promised her that one day soon we'll buy her a big girl bed and that we'll be able to snuggle on it together if she wants to. Then she asked to see her Daddy, just to ask him if he was happy now. So sweet!

Acting 101

For the last week or so, Muffin has been 'play acting' the Cinderella movie. She'll dress up in her 'Cinderella' clothes, then she'll ask me to play act all the other characters in the movie. I'll play the Fairy Godmother who comes to Cinderella when she's crying (after the stepsisters tore her dress), then I'll play the prince, then I'll play the duke, the stepmother, etc. Very cute the first couple of times we did this… about the 6-7 time she did this I began to wonder if we did the right thing in letting her watch the Cinderella movie, LOL! Especially when she has friends over for playgroup but still prefers to do the playacting thing as opposed to playing with her friend. Sigh…