Things Are Getting Pretty Grown Up Over Here

So this happened this week.


That look of concentration on her face.  Is she not just the most adorable?

How is it that I have a child who knows how to tie her own shoe? I remember learning to tie my shoes.  I remember the feeling of freedom that came with it. (Of course, I learned to tie my shoe under great duress--I had lied to my best friend and told her I already knew how to ties shoes while we were putting our shoes back on after jumping on the tramp.  Through some miracle I actually did tie my shoe and then proceeded to run all over the yard and into the house screaming that I could tie shoes now. Claire's first time tying her shoes feels like a more honest victory than mine did.)

After watching that video, you're probably thinking, "Wow, that was a lot of noise and mess."  And maybe you're giving me some credit and thinking, "it was probably just a crazy moment."  Nope.  It's always like that.  One of the struggles that we're having is finding a time to have time for Claire to sit down and practice reading her books from school.  Any time we try to do it there are 2 crazy people running around, jumping on laps and trying to steal the books. If we wait until bedtime everyone is tired and grouchy and things don't go well.  So we haven't found a solution yet, but we're working on it.