Tick Tick

I've come to realise that one of the most rewarding parts of being a parent is watching your child's brain tick. Isobel is constantly surprising me with how much she knows. She's a sponge & it scares me how much she already knows & puts together in her own mind. It also freaks me out a little at the responsibility we have as parents to make sure she has the opportunities to experience & learn as much as she can.

We've been working on a bedtime routine for a little while now. I'm constantly reading about toddlers & their need for repetition. I've also been conscious of Isobel's need to wind down before bed. You can't just pop them into bed after chasing them around the house for the last half an hour. We need wind down as adults, why do we think kids are any different?
So with that in mind, we have a simple bath, boob, book, lullaby routine that seems to be going well. I've been making sure we talk to Isobel about how we're going to wind down for bed so that she knows what's going on & can prepare herself. We still have a few tears after we turn off the light & leave her but it gets less & less. She knows she's tired & is mostly happy to be in bed.
Tonight, it seemed that all of that hard work has paid off. We sing one lullaby, the same lullaby every night. "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" (chosen because it's the only one I know). We do the motions & lately she has been singing along in her own language as well as saying "dar" which I only assume is "star." While reading her a book she grabbed my hand & Gareth's hand & brought them together to clap. While singing "twinkle" she did the same with our hands, however, she brought our index fingers together to make the diamond shape we always do with our hands.
While this may seem trivial to some, to us it was like she had just flown to the moon. How in her little mind did she make the connection to bring together our hands to make the motions?

It's kinda scary really.