She Sits!!!

Sylvia is growing up way too fast. She has been crawling every where, and has been trying to figure out how to get into a sitting position from lying down.But up until now, she couldn't do it, would just be almost sitting up, but needed an arm to keep herself steady. Fast forward to today. She was eagerly exploring every single fuzzy on the living room carpet, when suddenly, she did the almost sitting up thing again. Wait, this wasn't almost sitting up, this was TOTALLY sitting up! Without hands! So amazing!!! I told her how wonderful she was, and she replied by toppling over within five seconds or so. I guess she isn't a steady sitter yet LOL, but I was really surprised to notice her getting into a sitting position without any help.

She still gets stuck underneath the furniture, although I am sure she will figure out a way to deal with that soon. I know the first year always flies past, but somehow it still surprises me every single time.

And talking about growing up way too fast, my teenager, a fresh 13yo, now is reading all my parenting books and tells me what I am doing wrong.... Today he was working on 'Siblings Without Rivalry'. Just imagine the following situation. Cees and me both reading books on the couch, suddenly mayhem breaks out and two screaming and fighting little ones come running into the room, one of them waving an empty cardboard tube, from inside a wrapping paper roll. 'Can I have this please????' 'No, I want to have it' 'No, me, me, me!!!' 'I want it this time!!!'

It's late and I don't really want to deal with it, so I tell Erik he can have it for today, as long as he takes it upstairs, and closes the door of whichever room he decides to take it in, and then Kate can play with it tomorrow. They run off, with a bit of grumbling from Kate, but not much, and the room is quiet again. Cees looks up from his books and comments 'You did that all wrong, mama!' I ask him what I should have done and he responds 'You should have said that they should work on negotiating a solution that they both are happy with' 'OK, I'll do that next time'

LOL, it's a weird feeling if your kid starts critiquing your parenting in a different way than 'Everybody else gets to do xxxxx' or 'It's not fair'. Maybe I should re-read all those books that he is working through now. Last I saw, he had started on 'How to talk so kids will listen', and a few days ago he was reading 'Raising boys!'

Oh, and Kate just puked all over the bed room floor and her mattress, a bunch of toys and her clothes. Life is never boring around here!