"Little Miss Independent"

*Lucy is holding our friends, April and Brad's, new baby, Drew. He's adorable, and Lucy just LOVED getting to hold him during the kiddie shot we took after Easter dinner.


I have to gush a little here about how very proud I am of my daughter, Lucy. This is really more for documentation purposes, but the grandparents will no doubt, get a kick out of this.

Lucy has had two major breakthroughs today! The first major event - one that I've never witnessed before - was during nap time. About twenty minutes after I had put her down, I heard her door open, little footsteps to her bathroom, and then grunting. :-) Aware of what she was doing, but unwilling to interrupt, I waited quietly out of view. She spent a good ten minutes in there, doing some great pooping ;-)

Wanting to capitalize upon a great chance to let her know how proud of her I was, I went in there and we made a big deal of going poo poo in the potty even when it was nap time. And her response was so funny...

"Mommy, I was trying to go to sleep, but then I felt poo poo coming out of my butt!"

I assured her she did the right thing, and then she went back to her room without any trouble!



I've just put Lucy to bed (Jason usually does this but he's out getting ice cream - low-fat of course-for us to celebrate my 3.2 lb loss this week while we watch LOST), and tonight's reading text was a little scrapbook that my sister-in-law, Rebecca, made for us with pictures of our Godson, Lucy's cousin, Joshua. After we finished reading it, Lucy said she wanted to keep looking at it.

So, I tried something I haven't done wtih her before, although I'm pretty sure Jason has. I told her that she could stay up and look at the story with her lamp on, and in five minutes she needed to turn off her light and go to sleep.

The look on her face was priceless. It's like she new I was entering new territory with her, and she was just delighted with the responsibility. It was so great - she TOTALLY knew this was a big deal. Now, I know she's not aware of what five minutes feels like, but I'm pretty sure she gets that it's just a little bit of time, and my theory with little kids is why dummy something down? If you're going to alter expectations, raise your expectations rather than lower them. Kids are smart, they catch on quickly, right!

So, I hugged and kissed her goodnight, and went to the dining room - right outside her bedroom - to wrap a birthday present for little Lucy Bell tomorrow. And before I was done wrapping the gift, I heard her pull her lamp pull, and it was dark in the crack beneath her door.

What a big girl! I'm so proud of her! And I can't wait to tell her that in the morning! Hopefully, she'll take more bits of responsibility on a regular basis as we find good opportunities to do so. I am truly loving her abilities as we near her third birthday here in two weeks. What a fun age! And I hear it only gets better...