There comes a time in a parent's life when you sit back and enjoy the fruits of your parenting and you'll be surprised to know that it happens before you hit 50 or retirement.
Maegan has been throwing up lil surprises for me (Daddy is still away in the US) over the last week.

Just when I thought my instructions to her fell on deaf ears, such as the countless times I had to say 'no' and explain why she could not pull the plant; put dangerous objects into her mouth; open and close cupboards; run into the kitchen whenever she wants; throw her shoes about, and not keep her toys, this particular week she showed me how much I've underestimated her level of toddler understanding.

Our day starts like this: Maegan gets up from bed and calls out to us (either my helper or me). She has her bottle of milk to drink, after which she gets to run about in the living room playing with her boxes of toys. Half an hour into play-time, we give her a shower which is her ?swimming?, and dress her up for Grandparents house.

In between these activities, I try and get ready for office, eat breakfast, skim the paper headlines and lo and behold, while it sounds like a frenzied circus routine, we all get our act together in perfect timing to leave the house.

The last week was particularly easy because Maegan started to be spontaneous in her own little ways.

For one, she recognises that once the toilet door is open, and the bathtub is filled with water, she waits near the toilet to have her shower. There have been occasional moments when we had to disrupt her play-time and pull her into the shower, but her resistance was quickly given over when we started throwing her favourite bath toys into the tub.

Play-time has also been fast, because Maegan has started to help us keep her toys. She drags the cover of a box over to her helper, picks up a toy or two from the floor, and dumps it into the box. Occasionally she's gotten so enthusiastic about it that she will pull a glue stick or a pen from our cupboards and pretend to keep it in another cupboard. She is so voluntary about it that she even gives herself a clap, which we usually do to encourage her, and she looks to us for an approving nod.

We often encourage her to hand us things she picks up from the floor, for fear that she will put it into her mouth. Lately, she's taken it a step further after observing how Grandma mops the floor at home. She took the mop from her Grandma that day, and in the same gesture that she's seen it happen, placed her small frame against the length of the mop and started pushing it forward. She even holds the handle from the tip, like how any adult would.

But the one thing that makes me proud is she's starting to choose the shoes she wants to wear before she heads out. She has a special pair that doesn't stay on her feet because it's a slipper her small feet cannot grip onto. Her other favourite pair is a purple Birkenstock-like shoe which she chooses on certain days, or her pink Mary-Jane Crocs for other days.

Now all I have to do is to teach her how to coordinate her dresses and outfits with her shoes!

I'm waiting for more stuff to happen in this coming week but I'm also starting to learn how to be more precise with the words I say to her, and the instructions that I give her.