December 16, 2012

Maturity levels rising

A couple of incidents recently were very remarkable to me.

Quinn was nearby when Brock had fallen over her  and hurt himself. She quickly tried to explain to me that is wasn't her fault. I pointed to Brock, indicating that I wanted her to acknowledge that he was hurt before she told me about. She did, but then went to her room to cry.  I went in to talk to her, telling her that I saw the whole thing and that it was purely an accident, that Brock ran into her, and in no way was it her fault. I said it was important that she still recognized that Brock was hurt, if she was inches away or across the room. She nodded in agreement, but not in a dismissive way, but in a way that, I believe, represented a fundamental understanding.

The second incident was around one of her hanukkah gifts. She wanted a phone from Santa this year. And we convinced her that Santa doesn't give phones, but Mommy and Daddy could. Before we gave her the phone we had the following conversation. (Note, this conversation was precisely timed for efficacy, after breakfast and during morning peak energy). We basically said that you will be getting a phone and instead of giving you alot of rules... there are certain things we value. Family, friends and play time. We will be making up the rules as we start running into areas that conflict with our values. We left it at that.

Then a couple of hours later, Quinn and I had some alone time were we were working on wrapping presents. I asked her if she understood what we were talking about regarding the phones. She responded very clearly and correctly with examples when using the phone would be appropriate and not. She was very understanding that we wouldn't be taking the birthday party or to school, yet we could take it to a restaurant but only play with it after she and Brock had finished eating.

It is hard to describe in words, but I'm really impressed and really proud of her.

December 02, 2012

Homonyms

While we were counting her allowance, we discovered that we had 339 cents. Then I said you also have a 3 dollars and 39 cents. Does that make sense?

Then I was trying to explain the difference between cents and sense, when Quinn tells me that those are homonyms

Jaw dropped.