Small Wonders

Isn't it funny that we adults get some of the greatest joys watching small children do and explore things for the first time? Most things, we have already done before but it thrills us to see little ones doing it for the first time. The other night Josie was drawing for me and she said I'll draw you a circle. Now Josie is three and has often told me she would draw me something and it would just be scribble, but to her it was an airplane, helicopter, or a hotdog on Uncle Ben's birthday card. I looked down and sure enough she had drawn a circle. I made a huge deal about it and as soon as Joe got home later than night that was the first thing she did, was draw a circle for him. Unfortunately, Joe and I can take no credit on this, it has to have been Erica (the girl who keeps her and Jolie) that has taught her how to draw circles. We did start working with her to draw triangles though.

My next amazement happened Saturday. My cousin, Sara, had her baby, Clara Beth, Friday evening. As soon as Joe got home from work Saturday Josie and I went to the hospital to see Sara, Clint, and Clara Beth. Josie loved every second. She could have cared less who was in the room except for Clara Beth. We let her "hold" Clara Beth as I sat beside Josie supporting Clara Beth's head. Whoever was holding Clara Beth, Josie just watched. She stood beside her the entire time they changed her clothes for pictures. It was so sweet to watch. It also got me wondering again if we should have another one, but that is another blog. A little while later we left and went home. Josie and Jolie started playing and Josie brought me one of her dolls and said this is Sara. I said okay. This is big because this is the first time she has named something. In the past she has asked you to name her dolls/animals, but this was the very first time that she came up with a name on her own. I, of course, called Sara and told her that Josie had named her baby after her.

Then came Saturday night. Other Mama had gotten tickets to Disney on Ice and invited us and Caden and Sheila. It was a last minute thing that someone offered to her and we all were so excited about the opportunity. Joe and I had debated a month or so ago whether to buy tickets b/c Josie is a very active little girl. She does not watch TV and we were scared we would be wasting our money. Other Mama said she got the tickets for cheap and that if we needed to leave, no problem. So Saturday night, Sheila, Caden, Josie, Other Mama and I went to see Disney on Ice. Both Caden and Josie did great! They both stared in amazement and it was just so much fun to watch Josie. She would get so excited or yell or clap. At one point she was holding the popcorn that Sheila had bought for Caden and the box was so big that she could not wrap her arms around the box to clap so she held them over her head to clap. I remember doing all kinds of stuff like that when we were kids and how much fun we had as a family and it made my heart overflow to be able to do that with my daughter. I can't wait until the circus comes and hopefully Jolie will be able to come.

So often I write about Josie and not about Jolie. So I wanted to share about her as well. Yesterday we had a church luncheon that me and the girls stayed for after church. The girls got restless as soon as they finished eating so I took them out to the playground to play. Granted, Jolie usually falls alseep on the way home from church but she was all ready for play yesterday. She swang for a good while and just laughed as she watched everyone else running around. Then she got braver and decided she wanted to slide. The playground was built by the men of our church who did a great job. They have two slides a smaller slide and then a taller slide. The ramp going up to the first slide is quite steep and Jolie, bless her heart would try to walk up it, but just couldn't witout sliding back down. So I would help her up and run back down so that I could be at the bottom when she came down the slide. She would sit there for a minute just smiling and laughing at me and then would come sliding down. She loved every second of it and seeing that huge smile on her face totally made my day yesterday.