Recent cute events

A few things have been said recently that are just too cute, I wanted to make note of them for my memory (ie. not an interesting post to most people other than grandparents).

Last weekend we went to Everybody Fits to see Santa with our Mom's club. Everybody Fits is a big complex that has several studios of around the outside for different dance/fitness things, and then the middle is a big open floor with a bunch of gymnastics equipment. We were up on the second floor which overlooks the gymnastics area, and there were a handful of girls down there working on their routines - lots of flips and vaults and such. Kaitlin was ENTHRALLED with the girls and would not let us leave - she kept saying "Just want to watch one more girl momma." I was enjoying it too so we stayed a while and I was telling her how those girls were called "gymnasts." At one point she started to take off her coat and try and walk down there, saying "my turn." Hah! So cute! But the kicker was Tuesday morning, when I got home from the gym. She was out watching Oso as usual, and asked "Mommy, you went running?" and I said "No, I went to the gym." She goes "Oh, MOMMY, you FLIPPED OVER?!??" She was so excited at the prospect of me doing some gymnastics. Sad to say that would never happen in a thousand years, but it's nice to know she thinks I could do it! I also think it's so neat how their little minds work. I never once called the place we were at a "gym," I just talked about the gymnasts, and she put that together herself.

Another cute thing she's been doing lately is telling me whenever we do something fun that we have to tell so and so about it. For example, we saw a carousel today at Bass Pro Shop and she immediately turns to me and says "We have to tell Daddy about it!" This applies to both mundane things (we ate a waffle for breakfast - "we have to tell Nannie about it!") and the extraordinary. She's also added Santa to the mix, which is probably the funniest thing to me. Tonight we opened the box on the Advent calendar and she had a candy in there, and immediately we were met with "WE HAVE TO TELL SANTA ABOUT IT!!!"

Lastly, she has become quite the little Momma to Claire. It's both funny and humbling to hear my words spoken back to Claire. Since the beginning she has been good at calming her when she's crying, and it's so sweet to hear her go up to her and speak softly "shh, it's ok Claire, I'm here, it's ok." Lately though she's taken it to a new level, with things that aren't quite as sweet. We've been working with her on keeping her hands out of her mouth now that all her teeth are fully in (with the exception of a bit left on some of her 2 year molars). Obviously Claire is at the opposite end of the spectrum and is starting to teeth hardcore so the hands are always in the mouth. Kaitlin has become a big proponent of breaking Claire of that habit though, going up to her and physically removing her hands from her mouth and telling her "Eww Claire, get your hands out of your mouth, they're dirty." She also tells her not to roll over ("Don't do that Claire, hold still!"), not to pull her hair ("OUCH. Claire that's not nice!") and a whole myraid of other things. I will say I'm not really looking forward to the time when Claire understands that she's being bossed and they start fighting.

It's really amazing how much she has grown and how she can communicate now. Even though we have fully entered the "terrible twos," the highs are so much higher than the lows are low, so that more than makes up for it.