She was quiet, and nothing was wrong

I think my daughter is entering a new phase of maturity. Today she got real quiet while in her bedroom, and usually that means she's up to something, but when I went to check on her, she was playing happily with her little horse and a couple of stuffed animals. A little while later, she was still quiet, so I went to check on her a second time and she was still "just playing." Then yet a third time, she was uncharacteristically quiet, and this time I fully expected "something" to be wrong, but no, she was just lying in her chair with her little horse in one hand, gazing out the window. Hmmm. This is the first time she has ever gone that long playing alone in her bedroom quietly for so long, without something being wrong. I guess it means she's growing up. Doesn't she know she's not allowed to do that? Sigh. :-)

Of course tonight, she reminded me just how much of a three-year-old she still is. She was at the kitchen table with a red marker and a piece of paper, both of which she had acquired all on her own, and was hitting the marker on the page to make dots and little splats. Occasionally she would actually draw... er..uh.. scribble a line or two. I went to the bathroom, and when I came back, Hannah was gone and in her place sat a little Navajo Indian girl. She had used the red marker to "color" all over her face, chest, arms, and hands. I wasn't too happy with her at first, but then I couldn't help but laugh at how big of a mess she had made herself. Oh the creativeness of a three-year-old.