Liking My Kids

In a recent post (in which she was more than gracious to me, though I've never met her), Amber reflected on liking her kids. Maybe it's just the Fall weather that breathes some coziness into our hearts and homes, but I've been having the same thoughts lately.

I find myself sitting back and staring at them, thinking, "When did you guys get to be so much fun?!" The way she phrased it was, "I've enjoyed giving them my attention." How true that often I don't. Often, they distract me from the things I want to give my attention to.... like, um this white box with buttoms that's sitting on my lap right now. Or my Christmas crafts that have already started taking shape. Or a trip to Meijer to get whole milk for the 18th time this week.

Here's what I like about my kids today:

• I like their independence (which has led to my freedom to do Christmas crafts in October and start an adoption fundraiser that I didn't have time for a month ago). They play well together. Sy is the perfect big brother, chasing his sister around the house, bringing out her best giggles. She is the perfect baby sister to a boy - tumbling and tackling and laughing when she finds herself thrown on the floor in good fun.
• They play Rock Band. Sy knows how to work the old CD player downstairs, and he loves to turn the music up. They climb onto whatever coffee table they can turn into a stage and sing, taking turns with the plastic microphone, the bootleg Mickey Mouse guitar from India, and old board books that I guess are their song sheets. Then Taly hops off the table to spin and twirl and dance, and I just want to eat her up.
  
• They love helping me around the house, and they're getting to the point where they are actually helpful. Instead of dumping 3 cups of detergent into the fabric softener dispenser, Sy carts laundry baskets of darks or colors or whites to and from the laundry room. Taly moves everything into the dryer, and I only have to pull out a handful of already clean laundry that she lifted from the other room. They empty the dishwasher with me every morning, and I know Taly is going to break the door because she stands on it to reach the top shelf, and I know I'll regret this someday, but she is too stinking cute for me to do much about it. (Although since Ben found out about this latest trick, I sure am trying).
• Talya is the smartest little girl who can't talk I've ever seen. I've always heard "girls are verbal" and I expected her to be an early talker, but she is following in her achachen's footsteps and squeezing by with sign lanugage and grunts. She is talented though. She can make "baba" sound like whatever words she is trying to say. She can follow detailed instructions. We had soup the other night and she crumbled her crackers up into her bowl with her hands and then ate the whole thing with the spoon. She hides her sippy cups and her apple cores in her play kitchen, and I usually remember to get them out before things start to smell funny. I love her.

Thanks for letting me brag about my kids. What do you like about yours today?

Bonus Malayalam vocab word of the day:
achachen=older brother. In our house often shortened to Cha-cha.