Parenting award

Cute, right? Here's how this picture went down.......

Olivia: "Look Mommy! I'm making bubbles in my milk!"
Mommy: "Olivia.....it's not nice to play with your drink. Let's not do that anymore, please."
Olivia: "Okay Mommy."
Mommy: "Oh. Wait. Do it one more time so I can take a picture..."
[click, click]
Mommy: "Okay. Now we don't do that anymore, right?"

Parent of the year....right here!! Haha.

It just hit me this morning how independent Olivia and Sofia are truly becoming. I certainly don't wish the time away....but I must admit.....I kinda like it. They both were awake this morning before I left for work and they let me know they were hungry and wanted waffles. I was going to break my own rule (see Parent of the year section above) and let them eat breakfast upstairs since D had not gotten out of bed yet and I still needed to get ready for work -- but when I asked Olivia if she wanted to eat upstairs, she goes "No, Mommy. I have to sit at the table." Right you are, my dear. So we head downstairs and I make "waffles in triangles with stuff on it". That's toddler speak for waffles cut into bite-sized pieces with syrup. I set the girls up at their table and I head back upstairs.

When Sofia came back up, she's talking about her hands being sticky. D tells her to ask me to help her wash her hands and she goes "No, Daddy - I already washed them." I said "You already washed them?" and she goes "Yes, Mommy. I wash my hands with soap and then I use a towel to make them dry." Sure enough - her little hands were cold, smelling like soap and not a trace of syrup to be found. That's when it hit me that they're really doing things to help themselves. Again.....don't get me wrong -- a part of me wishes they would stay this age forever (well....minus the temper tantrums!) but the mommy-of-three-who-never-seems-to-have-enough-time-in-a-day part of me totally welcomes this kind of self-help.

Imagine my glee when I went downstairs and Olivia was coming out of the bathroom....having just washed and dried her own hands.....AND she was turning off the light and shutting the door (since our little Bella-monster loves to play with the tp........and in the toilet). Maybe I'm doing something right, huh?!