My Faith and Joy… and Boys!

Yes, those are Jim’s underpants that Susie has slung across her body like a sash.  Talk about airing our family’s dirty laundry! 

The girls are at an age where they copy everything I do.  I enjoy watching them learn, and I try to be intentional about performing tasks in front of them that I want them to imitate, such as cleaning up toys and other messes.  It’s a wonderful feeling to watch the girls grow in their mastery of activities of daily living. 

But sometimes I wonder whether they are watching too closely.  For example, today Rebecca was very excited about the task of folding laundry.  She would select an item from the pile of clean clothes, carefully lay it down on the floor and meticulously manipulate the fabric until it was just so.  Then she would look up with a delighted grin and trundle off to choose her next article to fold.  Here is a picture of her completed pile:

Believe it or not folks, she spent quite a bit of time making sure those clothes looked just like that.  Here she is in action:

Her technique looks suspiciously like my own method of folding fitted bed sheets.  It’s kind of a cram-crumple-stuff-pat sequence.  I think I’m going to have to step up my laundry-folding precision a touch.  Because someone’s always watching. 

Today, I found myself eating cookies alone in the bathroom to avoid having to split them with the girls. 

I’m not exactly modeling proper sharing etiquette, am I?   

And at the rate that I’m consuming those cookies, I’m certainly not going to be doing any modeling at all! 

I don’t know what it is, but there’s something so endearing to me about watching the girls read.  Perhaps it’s because it’s a glimpse into the future (hopefully).  Perhaps it’s because I have such fond memories of my own early reading habits. 

Or perhaps it’s because the girls are being still and occupying themselves.  Yeah, that’s probably it. 

At any rate, I’m finding that more and more of my pictures are of them reading.  I hope you all don’t mind! 

My mom just sent us a cute set of Sesame Street books.  These books entertained the girls for the majority of the time today between lunch and their afternoon nap/in-crib playtime, which happens to be my lowest-energy time of the day.  So I was very grateful.  And so were the girls!