When You Grow Up What Will You Be?

I was right; today was hard. And it's not looking like I'll be perfectly well rested tomorrow, either. Alas.

But I'm going to choose to focus on the positive tonight, instead. This is going to be one of those posts where I catalog the wonderful things my children are up to (in this case, Ellie) probably interesting nobody but myself (preserving for future reference) and possibly others who know my children well and follow their lives from afar, like their grandparents.

Ellie's been obsessed with a book they read a couple of weeks ago during beach week in summer school, called There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Shell. I could not find this book anywhere, so I ordered it from Amazon.com and surprised her with it today. It was like Christmas in July! She carried that book around all afternoon and wanted it read over and over and over. It was the only bedtime story she wanted her daddy to read, tonight, too. So cute.

I love her developing preferences. I also love that she started independent swimming lessons this week and is doing great! She's going into the water without me and without complaint (all those trips to the pool in June really paid off) and is participating appropriately with her class. Yay!

And after a few weeks of accident after accident after accident until I thought I might go crazy, she surprised me today by taking care of a major potty need all by herself. With no mess! This has never really happened before. Although she usually manages her own potty schedule, she still needs help undressing, getting onto the toilet, wiping, washing hands, redressing, etc. And she didn't quite complete all those tasks on her own, today, but by the time I realized that she was in the bathroom, the critical bits were finished. Wheeeee!

We had the best discussion yesterday, by the way. She started singing a Dora the Explorer song about what you want to be when you grow up (for some crazy reason, I bought her the 44 tune soundtrack for her second birthday. "I'm the Map, I'm the Map, I'm the Map, I'm the Map, I'm the Map!") so naturally, I asked her about it.

"Ellie, what do you want to do when you grow up?"

I want to work!

And drive!

Drive to work!

In Daddy's car! By myself!

How cute is this? How perfectly preschool! This child has special needs? Where?