Growing, growing...

It's such an amazing thing to watch my kids grow. Every time I witness major change it makes my jaw drop to the floor and I feel like the luckiest person in the world. It is definitely one of those "my cup runneth over" moments.

Today I got home from work before Amelia got back with the kiddos. I was in the kitchen when I heard the door open, and Maya's feet come pitter-pattering inside. She talked about a sweater she wanted from school (Maya's thing of late is stealing other kids jackets! sigh) and then she immediately wanted a snack. I know she gets a snack after nap at school so I am not really sure she is hungry, but when she keeps repeating, "snack, snacktime", I figure I should offer her something. I don't want it to be junk though. If she's hungry, she should eat something nutritious.

I offered her a banana or a rice cracker. She began to whine almost immediately. She wanted "crackers" -- just some wheat-thin type of cracker. Maya gets in routines with her snack. If I start giving her a snack that I call "special snack" that is what she'll request for a few weeks. Well I gave her these wheat-thin type crackers last week and now that's all she wants. I didn't want her having those.

So she LOST it. I think this was the first full-on temper tantrum I've seen her have. She fell to the floor, flailing around like a maniac, crying. I didn't react -- in fact I thought it was kind of funny -- she was being SO dramatic over some stupid crackers. I gave her a few minutes to have her show, and then I picked her up and took her outside for some fresh air. We talked about the moon (that wasn't "up" yet), the helicopters in the sky, the water in the lawn, etc. She relaxed.

We came back in and she took her banana. I put some raisins in the banana to give it a face and she thought it was the most hysterical thing ever.

Fast forward to dinner. She was sitting and eating and all of a sudden said "Santa Claus." Hmmm? I figured they were talking about Santa Claus at school. I have no problem with this but all of a sudden felt all protective about being Jewish - were they talking about Hannukah? I asked her if they were talking about Santa at school - and she didn't respond. Then she said "Poor Santa Claus." I asked why Santa Claus was poor. She responded with "Santa Claus cry. Maya cry." And that was the end of that conversation.

Maya went to take a bath with Amelia and I hung with little Ethan. He is just so precious. He seems so small to me. I know he isn't, but maybe after carrying Maya he is just this little being. I could just eat him up he is so sweet.

A little bit later I put Ethan to bed and then Maya and I were hanging out. All of a sudden she pulled down her pants and pulled off her diaper. I asked her if the diaper was wet. She responded with a quasi-"yes", so I told her we would go and put a new one on. I pulled her pajama pants back up and she was marveling at how it felt to have pants on without a big diaper in the way!

On our way into her room we passed by her bathroom. She went in. I was trying to yank her out before she peed in her pants, but she straight out went and sat on her potty! This was amazing, as she's never really too interested in sitting on it when we suggest it. She only sat on it for a moment and then she got up and went over to the big potty. Wow! I helped her up, and within a moment -- trickle trickle trickle! She peed in the potty!

I got so excited and that made her so excited. We got up and I gave her some toilet paper to wipe herself, then we threw it in the toilet, flushed it, and said, "bye bye pee pee." She loved it so much that she said she had more pee pee, so I helped her on the potty again and we got a few more trickles. Repeat about 3 more times. I am so damn proud and excited. She totally did this on her own, and did GREAT! Go Maya!

So she is growing so much, talking so much, and is so much of her own person. I love love love it! I am so blessed to be a mama to these two.