Smarty Pants

One of my most favorite things about being a mom is watching my kids learn and seeing them develop. I am constantly amazed at how much they absorb and how well they imitate.

Sami is a little mommy. She loves taking care of her "baby." She is constantly trying to feed Janie or help me out in some other way. I get such a kick when Sami is trying to pick up Janie and move her somewhere. They are only about 5 pounds apart, but Sami really tries to move her.

Sami loves shapes. She can do a 12 piece shape sorter and tell you almost all the shapes. She loves the star, heart, and oval the best. She knows the difference between an oval and a circle and a square and a rectangle, to which I give most of the credit to Baby Einstein DVDs. She will point out the shapes in books. The other day I was getting Janie in the car and Sami noticed that there was a circle on the window roller-upper thingy. She is learning her colors, but right now everything is yellow, and she says it perfectly. Counting is coming along pretty good too. She says "one, two, five." We'll get there.



My favorite thing Sami does is tell me that she loves me. It comes out like "I wuv oo." That makes my heart melt. What doesn't make my heart melt so much is when she tells me no. This just started happening when we were in Nebraska. And for a while she was in time out a lot for telling me no when I had asked her to do something. I just dread disciplining her. I want to pretend like I didn't hear it, but then I hear in mind "randomly reinforced behaviors are the strongest." And then I try and make myself discipline her. I usually have to make her do what I asked her to do in the first place, like pick up her crayons, then she has to go to time out, with protests all along the way. She has such a strong will. I'm sure she'll need that determination to get through the trials she'll face, especially since the world is getting crazier, so her independence is a good thing. But it is a bit challenging when we both want different things. I guess you could say that the "twos" have officially started in our house.

And Janie is almost crawling! She is soooo close! She rocks back and forth and will go forward just a little...and then fall on her stomach. She is really good at scooting and rolling. I can just see in her little face how badly she wants to run around with Sami. She is at my favorite infant stage: she sleeps through the night and I can always find her where I left her. But not for long.