I Can See Wee Changes

I was a little nervous about adoption day. Should we really do this? Can I do this? I considered how much more sane things had gotten around the house over the course of the last couple months. Mabel no longer throws a fit if we go to a store and don't get a cart. She used to scream and cry and carry on (I just dragged her along with me anyhow) then she progressed to stopping at the door and refusing to follow me when I said, "no cart." I just kept on walking. (I did hide behind shelves and watch to make sure no one took her but that was more for the benefit of the store employees than my own peace of mind.) Now she tells me, "Mama gets mad if I have a sad face, mama says I have to have a happy face. This is the happy face." She smiles big. "This is the mad face." She wrinkles her brow and frowns. She has a lot of victory at putting on a happy face nowadays.

I remember when I dreaded them getting out of bed in the morning 'cuz there were so many of them and they just fussed at each other constantly. Now when they come and tattle about what naughty thing another kid did to them I look them in their eyes and sweetly ask the offended child if he can forgive the other (naughty) child for being mean. The child at first would pout and not be able to then progressed to saying, "yyyeeessss" in a long, low, knowing voice and now is able to quickly say "yes" and jump back into playing with the other kid.

I did the ultimate in testing my sanity the other day after school. I wanted to serve homemade cookies for our adoption day party so I baked cookies. I let them all help. It was a ball. They had such a great time. They got to work on patience, sharing, and various kitchen skills such as pouring, dumping, stirring, scooping, and machine operating skills. Oh yeah, and washing. A couple of them washed the utensils for about an hour straight. The bottle of dishsoap I bought last week is empty. That's about the worst part of it though. I'm still sane and have mentally made plans to have another cookie day over Christmas break. I'm working up some other crafts to try too. Call me crazy but I think I'm gonna keep 'em all.