Some random cuteness

I've decided that it's finally time for the girls (especially Kate) to face their fears and start vacuuming the house again.  They've been terrified of the vacuum cleaner for about a year.  While it's nice to have an excuse for our dirty floors, I am getting a little tired of having to pay a babysitter so I can vacuum the house.  True to form, Kate freaked out when she saw the vacuum cleaner yesterday and started crying and yelling "no! no! no!".  The cuteness started when Maya walked over to Kate, gave her a hug, a pat on the back and then sat down next to her and played with her while I vacuumed.  This calmed Kate down and she stopped crying and seemed reasonably happy during the whole vacuuming process.  She even went over to the vacuum cleaner afterwards and touched it - something she's been too scared to do before.  It was so cute and heartwarming - I think the girls are finally discovering that beautiful human characteristic - empathy.  Here's to hoping they discover that their mama deserves a little empathy once in a while, too - maybe that will stop Kate from screaming "MAMAMAMAMAMA" for as long as it takes me to cook dinner.  

Oh - another cool and excited thing happened today.  After lunch Kate was driving me crazy trying to climb up onto the kitchen table via Maya's chair - while Maya was still in it trying to enjoy her strawberries.  I yelled at Kate to stop it and she looked at me and then actually stopped!  Wow - normally she'd look at me, laugh and then keep doing whatever she was doing.  Don't get me wrong, I don't expect her to suddenly be a little, non climbing angel (that'd be boring anyways), but it is nice for her to listen to me once in a while.