You have been helping me with food preparation and cooking more and more in recent months, and it's something you absolutely adore. (I do, too, although admittedly a glass of wine really helps me worry less about messes and spills.) I most often let you help with adding ingredients, stirring mixes, and decorating baked goods. You've asked on a few occasions to be able to use the knife, and I always tell you that I will let you use it to cut when you are a bigger girl.
Over the weekend, we went to the 4th birthday party of my friend Kelly's son, Ryan. You dearly love that family and were thrilled to be able to visit them. Everyone exclaimed repeatedly about how big you'd gotten since you last visited--and it's true. Your father freaks out on a regular basis now: "She's a different girl all together," he marveled just last night. "She's taller. She talks so much more. She's funny and smart."
This is not news to me, but I love watching the process.
On Sunday morning, you and I sat at the dining room table. I prepared a pot roast for the crock pot while you peeled and sniffed cloves of garlic and stole bits of onion from my cutting board to snack on. Then we turned our attention to prepping chunks of fresh fruit for the freezer ahead of the mock "ice cream" we were going to make in the food processor later in the evening. When I handed you your kid-sized butter knife and told you that you could help me slice the bananas, you were over the moon.
"Sophia getting so much bigger!" You reminded me. Yes, baby. So much bigger. It is both amazing and heartbreaking all at once.
I helped you practice holding the banana still with your left hand while slicing with your right. You were so earnest in your efforts, and you beamed with pride when I praised the job you had done after we cut up four ripe bananas. The rest of the evening your periodically reminded me: "Sophia did good job cutting bananas with knife."
