Christin Taylor: Words on the Side

Just now, Noelle announced to me that she wanted to try and make her own peanut butter, honey sandwich. Before I could answer, she had her stool in hand and was bouncing off to the kitchen.

As I followed her, I mulled over the logistics of this new bit of independence: putting the plates, peanut butter, bread, and honey all in one place where Noelle can reach them, then teaching her that if she is going to make her own sandwhich she needs to clean up her own mess after making it.

Suddenly, I felt overwhelmed by wonder. How do these new phases plop down into our days, marching us forward into the future, almost without warning?

I rounded the corner and spotted my girl quietly eye balling the pantry. She was up on her stool and reached gingerly for the peanut butter then the bread. I stood behind her, quietly handing her the plate, the knife, the honey, and watching as she deliberately and with concentration blobbed the peanut butter down in a lump on the bread and then heaped the honey on top.

Then she folded the bread over and “voila!” it was done. She had made a tidy little sandwich.

“I’m so impressed Noelle,” I told her as she put the sandwich on the plate and turned to get off the stool. “You just made your own sandwich.”

She nodded and hopped off the stool. “I saw Julian making his own sandwich yesterday and I was so impressed I decided I wanted to make my own!”

Yeah, and that’s about how I reacted after hearing that sentence come out of my little girl’s round face. She is big enough to use the word “impressed” correctly in a sentence. I guess she’s big enough to make her own sandwich, too!