Patience vs. Precious--Life With a Two Year Old

Patience
Ambria likes to pick out her own fork for meal time. This is about a five minute process. Then she decides on a spoon. She tries to eat pancakes with a spoon and figures out quickly that this doesn't work very well. ...Start the fork picking process all over again...

Precious
Ambria loves to look for deer by grandma and grandpa's house. We get real quiet in the car and whisper. Last night our headlights lit up a spotted baby fawn as we watched its big brown eyes stare at all four of us. For ten minutes after we drove away, Ambria continued to whisper as she kept saying "shhhh, look for deer." Her soft voice just melts your heart.

Patience
Bed time is another long process. Ambria insists that her blue blankie be laid out flat and her pink blankie be laid out flat. She needs her baby doll and Minnie Mouse to lay on the blue blankie, and then she lays her own head on the pink blankie. Oh wait, it isn't over yet, Ambria needs to be covered with a blanket and her baby doll and Minnie Mouse need to be covered too. THEN she needs kisses from Mariah and a bedtime story from Mariah and THEN she needs kisses from me and/or Jerry.

Precious
After the long bedtime process, Ambria ends with "Night, mom, I love you, mom. Night, mom, I love you." And then it turns into a whisper as I close the door and I can still hear her whispering, "Night, mom, I love you." It makes the bed time process worth it just to hear those words.

Ambria is finding her independence.

Everything just takes a little bit longer.

A little more patience.