Astounded

I knew that toddlers learn a lot quickly. I'd taken child psychology classes, I'd been quizzed on their development. I even did a report on the toddler years. I worked in a daycare for a year and a half. I knew they learned a lot.

But actually experiencing it, day in, day out, as a mother has be completely astounded. Cadence surprises me daily with all the things I didn't know she knows.

Today, we were playing in their room and I noticed Megan needed a diaper change. Off-handedly, I asked Cadence to go get me the wipes, fully expecting to get up myself in the next minute to go get them. To my surprise, Cadence ran out of the room, into the living room, and returned with the pack of wipes.

Later, I got her to start naming her body parts. Normally we stick with the tried and true: eyes, nose, mouth, ear. But randomly she held up her foot by her toes and announced "toes!". She also pointed to her hair. And when I asked "toes" again she grabbed her toes, when I asked "foot" she moved her hand lower towards her ankle and held that up for me. Then, she pointed to her nose, said "ear" and busted up laughing. There's that sense of humor the developmental timeline was warning me about.

I love that out of nowhere she began folding her arms for prayer and saying "Amen". Her deciding the closing prayer of Sacrament was too long still amuses me.

We're finally learning boundaries when it comes to coloring. It helps that we keep crayons out of her reach and make sure she has paper on hand when we do give her the crayons. She still tries to get away with coloring on the coffee table. But just my looking at her has her quickly go back to the paper.