Self reliance

When Kate turned 2 we moved her from her crib to the bed. Mostly because I was about to have Sarah and we wanted Kate to be well past thinking of the crib as her bed by the time Sarah needed to sleep in it. Because the girls' bedroom is upstairs and ours is downstairs we worried Kate would wander to the steps and tumble down them, subsequently breaking her neck and probably dying in an effort to crawl into bed with us because she had a nightmare. So we put the baby gate up in her doorway for months after she'd moved into the bed.

It became apparent to us, however, that Kate had no intention of going anywhere near the stairs. In fact, she won't even leave her room unless one of us goes up there and gets her. On weekend mornings, when we're not waking her from a deep sleep to take her to daycare, she will sit in her bed and play, calling out to us periodically, until someone shows up. She started getting up to use the potty on these mornings, which is pretty exciting, but she still won't just come downstairs.

This morning Jeremiah called me at the office before he headed off to daycare and work and informed me that Kate, getting antsy waiting for daddy to finish dressing Sarah, announced that she'd be downstairs. She went downstairs, and yelled up to him that she was getting herself a yogurt. When he got down to the kitchen with Sarah, not only was Kate sitting at the counter, neatly eating her yogurt, she'd gotten one out for Sarah too!

I have long had a plan to put the kids' healthy snacks at their level in the fridge to encourage them to grab something good. I hadn't bothered yet because those stinkin' knee-biters seemed to always expect me to get their food for them. But now...oh I'm so excited I want to run right out to the Farmer's Market and stock up on good kid eats! My baby's growin' up [tear]!