Forgetting the Stages

Sometimes I forget how young Matthew is. The other day, he was standing against his Exersaucer. He held his hand up to me, so I took it and started walking. Uh, oops. Matthew doesn't walk. I always tell him to do stuff that he is completely incapable of doing, like getting me things, saying things, doing certain tricks (all his tricks consist of slapping himself in the thigh).

We went to Galveston this past weekend for the youth leaders' retreat. There's this ice cream shop on the Strand called La King's. Peter LOVES this place. Anyway, when we were there two summers ago (when Ellie was a year and a half), he put Ellie on this mechanical horse thing. We recently rediscovered the video and died laughing watching it. Here it is, for those who haven't seen it:


As you can see, Ellie isn't particularly enjoying herself. Well, Peter decided it was time for Matthew, our 9-month old, to ride the horse. I think, as I so often do, Peter forgot how young he was. Here's the video of that:


Jenn said everyone in the restaurant was either staring in shock or glaring disapprovingly at us. Understandably so.

Back to my point. On the flip side, we often forget how young Ellie is. She's grown up a LOT since Matthew was born. Last night I was putting Matthew to sleep. His room gets really stuffy, so we run the humidifier while he sleeps. Ellie was downstairs by herself and apparently had to go to the bathroom immediately. She ended up having an accident. I vaguely heard some yelling, but I assumed Peter had come home and ignored it. She was actually telling me she had to pee, then telling me she'd had an accident. After the fact, though, instead of coming up and disrupting Matthew, she took off her dirty clothes,put them in the hamper, and put on her Pull Ups and pajamas.

She also puts her dishes in the sink and her trash in the trash can after she eats. Awesome. Last week I was taking a shower and Peter came into the bathroom. I told him he couldn't leave Matthew unsupervised in the living room, but he responded, "It's OK. Ellie's there." And we were both OK with that.

Makes me sad that my little girl is so grown up. She's ALL about being big these days, though. We even got her to eat kimchee, zucchini, kong namul, and the white stuff on tangerines by calling it "grown-up food" (those who are familiar with Ellie's eating habits know she doesn't eat green stuff, red stuff, or white stuff on any citrus fruits). Oh, the manipulation.

Sigh. How are my kids so big so fast?!!?