Growing

You heard it hear folks...I believe Ana is about potty trained. I use the "about" because we're not 100% at night but we're getting closer. I guess I'm just so overjoyed because Aiva was about 4 1/2 when she was finally potty trained both day and night. Ana just turned three, so that's practically a year and a half with less diapers than Aiva. Hallelujah, praise God, thank you Jesus! When I think about it though I'm just speechless how with one daughter it took so long and Ana was pretty much bursting to be done with diapers. There is truly so much that 's different about both of my girls. I'm almost scared of what's to come in the teen years. I don't want to think too far ahead but I think I see clouds off in the distance!! If they have knock down drag out fights now, what's to come in the future. It is so exciting to see them growing and turning into their own person though. Sometimes I just sit back and watch as they play or read. It's amazing to me that at one time I was rocking these two in my arms and now I'm watching them read and play by themselves. I just got done reading a friends blog about growing and she really brings the cookies to the first shelf. You can read it yourself here. Her list of 10 things about growing really makes you wrap your head around what it means to grow - the good and the bad! I guess I can kind of relate to her blog because we've had a little issue with scissors and the girls wanting to cut their own hair - a lot! I need to remind myself that, like a bad hair cut, you do something once (or possibly twice) and you learn never to do that again - somewhat like a perm :) Even though we may have learned our lesson the hard way, God has a way of shining light on our situation and turning bad to good. I grew a little yesterday with a situation that happened with Aiva. It was somewhat of a cleaning weekend for our family and the girls were helping me with little projects and moving furniture from one room to another. They both love when we redecorate, Aiva more so than Ana. I have this rocking chair in Nate's and my room that tends to collect clothes and it was my intention to pitch it so we wouldn't have that problem anymore. When I was brainstorming how to layout our master bedroom and had mentioned getting rid of the chair, Aiva asked if she could have it. Puzzled, I asked her why. She asked if that was the chair that I used to rock her and Ana when they were babies (she of course knew this but wanted me to confirm, just to be sure). I answered, that yes, this was the rocking chair that I spent many hours nursing, rocking them to sleep and kissing away the boo boo's. She told me that we needed to keep the chair "because it has a lot of love in it" and she wanted to keep it so she can rock her babies and "give them a lot of love too." The smile that she gave me when she said that about melted my heart. At some times though, when I sat in that chair through the years, my thoughts weren't very loving. Sometimes I was thinking about getting the baby to go back to bed so I can catch some more sleep myself. Sometimes I thought about the chores that I needed to get to but instead had to console a tearful little girl. That's not what Aiva saw or felt though when she was either with me in that chair or saw me and Ana in that chair. All she saw was love. She does see and hear everything that I do or say. I've known this but yesterday it just confirmed it. After that little conversation about how that chair holds a lot of love, we moved it into her room so she can in turn give out a lot of love. Aiva has no idea but she was actually the teacher yesterday. Sometimes God likes to reverse the roles to get our attention. Yesterday was one of those days...it wasn't the first and I'm sure it won't be the last!