A Momentous Evening!

When Sylvain and I were first married, living in a tiny, two bedroom apartment, we used to eat dinner slowly and talk about the future.  We'd sit at our tiny, two-person table long after we finished eating because we always had more wine to drink and more talking to do.  Sometimes we'd talk for hours, then we'd suddenly look around at all the dishes on the table, and one of us would joke, "Where the heck are those kids??  They have to clear this table!"  Then usually the other one would add, "No, seriously, though.  We really need some kids to do the dishes."

Well guess what, people?  Tonight was the night!  After the spray can incident, I started realizing that Sylvia is much taller than I give her credit for, especially on her tip toes.  If she reaches up really high, and stands waaaay up on her tippy toes, the girl can totally reach the darn sink!  Last week I started giving her things to put in the sink - sippy cups, mostly.  But after dinner tonight, she wanted to clear the table!  I'm not joking.  We handed her a fork...then her little plastic plate...then a serving spoon.  Before we knew it, she had put ALL the dishes in the sink, all the condiments in the refrigerator or on the counter (the salt and pepper almost hit the floor, but she worked very carefully to get it up there!), and all the towels and hot plates back in the bottom drawer.  Before you call me a slave driver, let me tell you that she loved it!  She giggled her way around the kitchen like she owned the place.  And Sylvain and I sat there, in amazement, remembering that night 5 years ago when we wished for this to happen.  It was a glorious feeling!  I'm sure her enthusiasm for nightly chores will last all of one week, at best.

In other news...

Here's the new activity we'll be working on for 5-10 minutes every night until it finallly sinks in:

Sylvia's been biting again, and this time it's the same little boy at day care!  Ugh!  It's so hard to teach a tiny tot to stop biting.  It occured to me this week that at dinner we tell her to take "big bites" and "lots of bites" but when she comes home from day care with bad news we say "NO BITE!"  So Mama Nerd made some cards for her - what do we bite and what do we NOT bite?  She wanted to add a picture of Daddy and the baby, so the post its were like Round Two.  Now they're all on the refrigerator and we can practice, practice, practice!  She's not getting it at all, but maybe with lots of repetition and conversation, it'll finally sink in.  I'm sure when A.J. gets his hands on a toy she wants, she'll immediately think of cards on the fridge.  Sheesh.  A Mom can dream.