Growing up

In the last week, Livia has grown up.

1. We are night-time potty training:

Day 1: No accidents. Woot!

Day 2: FAIL (2 accidents)

Day 3: She woke up after starting to go in her bed. Came and got us, finished going in the toilet. We still had to change her clothes and all, but I was proud of her nonetheless.

Day 4: No accidents! (I made her go in the middle of the night once when I was up feeding Jane. I might do that again)

Day 5: To be determined...

2. Liv now does chores.

I know, right?!

I made her a chore chart, of which she is exceedingly proud. It just has simple stuff, like making her bed, setting the table, and helping me dust, but she dutifully accomplished everything on her chart and earned herself a nickel at the end of the week. She usually doesn't like cleaning up, but whenever I told her it was part of her chores she would do it immediately. I'm finding myself very tempted to make a lot of things "chores"--especially since she can't read what's on her chart!

Is that unethical? Or just parenting?

3. Ever since starting pre-school Livia has been SO excited about learning. I've established a 3x a week "letters time" with Livia, where we do pre-reading activities just for 15-20 minutes. This week we worked on learning the lower-case letters. I know it'll be awhile before she's reading, but I love that all of a sudden she's asking me what things say, and "what sound does the A make?"

4. Today, without any stool or chair, she climbed onto the kitchen counter, opened the cupboard, got herself a snack, and climbed back down. All without hurting herself! I don't think I'm going to let her do that again (why tempt fate?) but I was secretly impressed.

5. She essentially bathes herself. I have to help her rinse her hair, but otherwise I just stand there and supervise.

Speaking of growing up, little Janie has made some progress of her own:

Rice cereal! Our foray into solid food has been, well, rather non-descript. She's neither disgusted nor terribly excited about it. She just eats it.
Her vitamins on the other hand, are another story! Can anyone get their baby to actually swallow poly-vi-sol? That stuff is nasty. I don't blame her for spitting it out. I'm going to have to try to get a picture of her face the next time I give it to her, though. Priceless!