Raise her?

We're not done with Sparky by any means, but man alive that kid impresses me sometimes!

I've got a kid who knows how to be respectful (most of the time), is lovingly engaged with her sister, and understands most boundaries that we've explained to her. Oh yeah, did I mention she's 3?

We've recently redistributed the play things in our home. As in, over 1/2 of them went away. It's generally not been a problem but we've had a couple stuffed critters sneak their way back somehow. Anyway, today we had a minor issue with those so they went back away and both kids had their birthday babies as the only soft toys. They each know which is theirs. Sparky was being a bit greedy with them off and on all day and after dinner it was just enough-is-enough.

She was told that she couldn't play them with them anymore today and to play with other things. It was only about 10 minutes before she was to start getting ready for bed anyway, so not a huge deal, but there's consequences to problematic behaviors.

Fast forward 2 minutes. Hubs and I were finishing dinner at the dining table while the kids played in the other half of the room. Spunky must have offered Sparky one of the birthday babies that she'd been told she couldn't play with. We hear: "No thank you. The babies are gone for me now today. You can play with those but I can't."

I just about told her it was fine and to go ahead! I was so proud of her for having the maturity to understand that even though she could have gotten away with playing with something she wasn't supposed to, she instead accepted her consequences. She was even polite in telling her sister about it.

I called Sparky right over and told her thank you and gave her a hug and let her know I was proud of her. She beamed and was proud of herself too! She's an awesome kid. Just love her, love her, love her!