All day long, the kids kept doing and saying the cutest/funniest things. At the end of the day, I realized that, first of all, I couldn't remember even a sliver of the things I saw and heard, and secondly, all three of them had done something more grown up that they have never done before.
Nicole: For lunch yesterday, made her own bowl of soup noodles, from start to finish, with no help. Then last night, Nicole came into my room around midnight and said she needed medicine for her runny nose. I told her the bottle was downstairs, and to go get it. A minute later, she emerged from my bathroom with a bottle of "Cough and Cold medicine," asking if that wouldn't work just as well. She administered it to herself and went back to bed.
Grant: Grant has worked up enough big boy skills to play a game of
Monopoly Deal (his new favorite) without whining, screaming, fussing or complaining when he loses. (As opposed to last week when he played ... his favorite cards -- Boardwalk and Park Place -- were "stolen" from him and he immediately left the table yelling, "I WANT TO WIN! ME! ME! ME!")
Scotty: Scotty has a new fascination with eggs. He has suddenly drawn a connection between eggs and birds, and he talks about it all the time. Yesterday I got the eggs out of the fridge to bake a cake and set them on the counter. It wasn't a minute later before Scotty was on the counter with an egg in his hand, talking about birds. I decided he was old enough to learn how to crack the eggs. Since the recipe called for three eggs, Scotty had three tries. At the end of our session, Scotty was quite pleased with himself, even though his preferred technique is to hold the egg in his left hand and squeeze it until the shell cracks in a hundred pieces and falls into the bowl. Once all the eggs were in, I told Scotty it was time to mix them up. I left him on the counter next to the sink while I stepped across the kitchen to get the hand mixer. When I returned to him, not more than three seconds later, he had both hands in the bowl, mixing the eggs with his fingers. I don't know where he ever came up with that idea, but it gives new meaning to the term "mixing by hand."
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Despite all the big stuff, however, late in the afternoon yesterday, the kids discovered that the weather was pleasant enough to play outside. (I'd say! It's been 80 degrees the past few days -- feels like Heaven.) They ran to their "tree house," which is not a tree house at all, but just leftover branches from the huge tree Clint cut down. At one point, I caught a very poor picture of all three of them laughing and riding into the tree house on a broom together. Then I thought, "Look! They're still little kids!"
