Beth update

My children are hilarious. I love seeing bits and pieces of us in them- in their attitudes, their looks, their sayings, even their gestures and postures. Ok it's mostly Beth right now, but Luke is starting to become a little kid and show his personality a little more every day.

Beth cracks me up. She loves to mimic right now, mostly words and actions. She frequently will "sit like grandpa," "dance like daddy," or try to copy my facial expressions. She is a follower when it comes to her interactions with her friend Grace. They feed off of each other but Beth will totally follow the mood or actions that Grace initiates. This can mostly be a good thing, but not always, as 2 1/2 year olds and nearly-3 year olds can be moody sometimes! Beth will copy everything I say, which really holds me to a higher standard of speaking. Not that I have a potty mouth, but it means I can't even say something like, "Finley, you're driving me nuts!" because Beth will say it to Luke- "You're driving me nuts!" Etcetera. I'm sure it will get worse! The other day I wiped some goop out of Luke's eye, and not even a few minutes later I caught Beth trying to wipe his eye too, only she wasn't wiping very gently! It's the little things like that, not necessarily bad, but just not things I really want her to repeat either!

And now the musings: I've realized lately that I feel like I'm holding her to too-high standards again, I think I went through this a few months ago right after Luke was born. It's easy to ask her to help me put stuff away, go talk to Luke for a second, go grab this, etc., and brush her off when her requests aren't conveinent for me. She is so mature, I think, for her age, but I've had people tell me they thought she's precocious even since she was 8 months old! Yesterday I was just thinking about her, this little girl who is not quite 2 1/2 years old yet, and how she's still just a baby.

Everyone always says time flies, but not for me. I think it's kind of nice that she acts a little old for her age, because it gives me another chance to actually treat her like her age! So, I'm taking a proverbial step back with her, not in a bad way but I'll treat her like she wants me to. I'll hold her when she asks (which actually means she's less whiny about it the rest of the day, who'd have thought?), I'll look her in the eye when she's talking to me, I'll try my hardest to figure out what exactly she's saying to me, and I won't expect her to share perfectly with her brother. I have high expectations for her but I don't think they're unrealistic- Ryan calls this "managing our expectations." After my ponderings and personal resolutions last night, I had a good day with her today. She just needs to be treated like the little girl that she is!