Clean freak

Hailey has been really funny about wanting things neat and orderly lately. Yesterday right when I walked through the daycare door, she was standing there holding something out in her hand at me saying babblebabblebabble"sticker!" She'd gotten a sticker for helping clean up, and she was oh so proud. And I was proud of her! One of the little 2 year old boys decided to knock all the books off the bookshelf and apparently Hailey gasped and ran over and started picking them all up. Such a good little girl. Also at my grandma's on Sunday, if I dropped a piece of corn on the floor while I was feeding her(they don't have a booster of any kind so she had to sit in a normal chair and let me feed her) she would lean over and look at it and say "uh oh! uh oh! uh oh!" til I let her down to pick it up. She'd hand it to me, then get back up in the chair and eat some more. And this past Friday night we went to a local pizza place for dinner with my mom...they always give Hailey a bowl of shredded cheddar cheese, and half of it always ends up missing her mouth and going on the floor. All was fine and dandy til at the end of the meal she looked down at the floor and flipped out..."uh oh! uh oh! uh oh!!" My mom had to take her away from the table and distract her while I cleaned it up so she wouldn't get down there on the dirty floor and try to pick it up herself. When did she become such a neat freak? She obviously did not get this from me. Or did she? Has she watched me picking up her toys or picking up after her when we go places? I've never made a big deal out of it, never made her help. I know the sitter has them sing the "Clean Up Song" and help, so has she just finally caught on from that? Who knows, but it's interesting. She also helped me pick up the other day after D knocked a bunch of papers off the top of our pile of boxes in our bedroom(have I ever mentioned we need more storage desperately???)...I bent down to pick them up, and she crawled under the computer desk and began helping...never mind the fact that she was picking up books and stuff that I had stacked down there, that didn't fall when he knocked stuff over. She was helping and that was the important thing. And I have to say, I don't remember a more proud moment than when I walked through that door yesterday and saw my baby holding up her prized sticker and being told that she'd gotten it for helping. Made me smile from ear to ear. God I can't imagine what I'm going to be like when she does even bigger things, like sleeps in a big girl bed or heck graduates high school. I'm going to be a mess of tears! Yep being a parent is pretty awesome.