Jan. 13 was a banner day for Miss Willow Rose Dunn.
That was the day she tinkled for the first time in her potty.
And she didn't do it just once. She tinkled four times in that potty, all to the glee and adoration of Mommy and Daddy (she even inspired me to tinkle a time or two in my potty).
Willow is growing so fast, becoming a big girl at an alarming rate.
Not even two weeks ago, she gave up her pacifier for good, and she never looked back. She was so determined to move on from Paci that she doesn't even allow her baby dolls to have them.
Also she's moved from her high chair to a booster at the dinner table (sometimes she just sits in one of the adult chairs at the dinner table). This hasn't been all hunky-dory, though; Willow likes to throw plates of food to the floor when she's finished. We're working on that.
Willow also has improved vastly on her tooth-brushing. We brush our teeth as a family in the morning and at night. She's gotten much better at it, and more patient.
This is all good and dandy, but I want to get to the really important stuff.
Last week I started playing catch with Willow using a beach ball. The girl can catch! And she can throw reasonably well for a 20-month-old toddler.
After several days of playing catch with her in the living room, I decided to take the lessons up a notch (and these are important lessons, let me tell you). On the sunny day Friday, when it was in the 70s and sunny, Willow and I took the beach ball to the backyard. We played catch for a while, then I introduced her to one of the utter joys of childhood, throwing a ball on the roof of your house and letting it roll back down to you.
Willow loved this (almost as much as I did)! Unlike me, she couldn't see the ball once it flew up over the gutter and bounded around on the shingles, but this made the game all the more fun for her because she didn't know when or where the ball would come back.
Every toss onto the roof became a surprise for her, as if she was waiting for Jack to spring from his box. She waited for the ball to pop over the edge of the roof and down to the ground. Sometimes the ball even popped her in the head, and that sent her into a giggle frenzy.
Indeed Willow is growing up. She is out of babyhood and deep into toddlerhood.
But if I shift my perspective just a bit, I don't have to see her growth as the onslaught of her slipping away. Instead I can slow things down, and appreciate the days we're enjoying now (and will enjoy this year) as what they really are, the blossoming of her childhood.
That was the day she tinkled for the first time in her potty.
And she didn't do it just once. She tinkled four times in that potty, all to the glee and adoration of Mommy and Daddy (she even inspired me to tinkle a time or two in my potty).
Willow is growing so fast, becoming a big girl at an alarming rate.
Not even two weeks ago, she gave up her pacifier for good, and she never looked back. She was so determined to move on from Paci that she doesn't even allow her baby dolls to have them.
Also she's moved from her high chair to a booster at the dinner table (sometimes she just sits in one of the adult chairs at the dinner table). This hasn't been all hunky-dory, though; Willow likes to throw plates of food to the floor when she's finished. We're working on that.
Willow also has improved vastly on her tooth-brushing. We brush our teeth as a family in the morning and at night. She's gotten much better at it, and more patient.
This is all good and dandy, but I want to get to the really important stuff.
Last week I started playing catch with Willow using a beach ball. The girl can catch! And she can throw reasonably well for a 20-month-old toddler.
After several days of playing catch with her in the living room, I decided to take the lessons up a notch (and these are important lessons, let me tell you). On the sunny day Friday, when it was in the 70s and sunny, Willow and I took the beach ball to the backyard. We played catch for a while, then I introduced her to one of the utter joys of childhood, throwing a ball on the roof of your house and letting it roll back down to you.
Willow loved this (almost as much as I did)! Unlike me, she couldn't see the ball once it flew up over the gutter and bounded around on the shingles, but this made the game all the more fun for her because she didn't know when or where the ball would come back.
Every toss onto the roof became a surprise for her, as if she was waiting for Jack to spring from his box. She waited for the ball to pop over the edge of the roof and down to the ground. Sometimes the ball even popped her in the head, and that sent her into a giggle frenzy.
Indeed Willow is growing up. She is out of babyhood and deep into toddlerhood.
But if I shift my perspective just a bit, I don't have to see her growth as the onslaught of her slipping away. Instead I can slow things down, and appreciate the days we're enjoying now (and will enjoy this year) as what they really are, the blossoming of her childhood.
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