Growing Up...

N grew six inches last night.

I swear.

OK, so I shouldn't swear, since maybe it wasn't exactly six inches. But really, she grew overnight.

A lot.

She also lost a second tooth this week. And she cleaned her room. All by herself. Without being told. It may have something to do with the fact that she heard that girls who don't clean their rooms won't get their ears pierced until they're twelve.

And, oh by the way, her room's already trashed again.

But at least she cleaned it.

The lost teeth make me a little sad. But hey, she's cleaning her room. Maybe I can deal with this growing up thing after all.

At least, that's what I thought, until she refused to dance with me in the kitchen last night.

She has always danced with me in the kitchen. First, we danced to the little refrigerator toy that played The Farmer in the Dell when you pushed the buttons. Then to my silly made up songs. Then to her silly made up songs. Then to the radio.

Then....no dancing.

She just refused. Apparently, because she's too cool for me.

I just want to say, this is really, incredibly, unbelievably unfair.

Couldn't we just get to the point where she cleans her room, but gets to keep her baby teeth, and still dances with me?

She's not the only one betraying me, by the way. B no longer looks back at me longingly in the morning when I drop him off in his pre-school classroom. He just marches right in there, all excited to see his friends, which are now apparently more important than mommies.

On the other hand, he is finally putting his own shoes on. Thank you God, for that one, because I was starting to think that I was going to be putting on his men's size twelve shoes for him when he was a senior in high school, and I was getting a little concerned.

B's also decided that he's turning over a new leaf. He informed me the other day that he wasn't going to hit N or O anymore. Instead, he was going to ask for a punching bag for Christmas.

So considerate, that boy.

Don't even get me started on O. He won't even let me help him into the car anymore. He wants to do it all by himself. Repeatedly, in fact.

Which, by the way, is enough to make a mommy lose her mind.

On the other hand, at least he still thinks I'm cool enough to dance with.

I was thinking about how they don't need me quite as much as we were getting ready for bed last night. Two of them can brush their teeth without me, at least to some extent. They can put on their own pajamas when the mood strikes them. Sometime, it's N who reads the bedtime story.

And because of this, we had a few extra minutes, where we sat down and watched TV. And as we did, B and O actually sat quietly for a few minutes, and N moved over from her end of the couch, and put her head on my lap.

On my lap.

Because even though she's too cool to dance with me, and she's losing her teeth, and she cleans her own room because she can't wait to get her ears pierced, I'm still her mommy.

And that's what our laps are for.