Markers and Raspberries

Madeleine continues to enjoy coloring with her new markers:



While I continue to marvel over her fine motor abilities. She is SOOOO not my child in this regard. I love how much attention to little details she gives to her artwork, like the various patterns and symmetries in the Hello Kitty page she colored yesterday:




Meanwhile, Julia seems to take more after her mother, with a devoted and invested interest in coloring, coupled with a lack of patience for slowly and carefully working on the little details of her drawing:




Thankfully, however, she seems to exert much more focused energy on her coloring than she did on making her bed.

Now, Madeleine may be exhibiting some artistic ability beyond her years, but I assure you, she has very far to go before she's really figured out the world. Today we were able to move her one step closer towards understanding the world, in that she was able to learn an important fact: Raspberries are nothing to be terrified of. She ate the berries for her first time today, mixed together in a bowl with blackberries (which she loves.) Upon bringing her the fruit bowl, I popped a raspberry into her mouth so she could try it. Not actually seeing the fruit as it went into her mouth, she was able to form an unbiased opinion:

MADELEINE: Mmm! Yummy! Mommy, can I have more raspberries?
ME: Sure! (handing her a raspberry out of her bowl) These ones are the raspberries.
MADELEINE: (looking at the raspberry in distaste and taking tiny nibbles out of it, then abandoning it in favor of a blackberry.) I want the BLACK!
ME: Okay, good, eat your blackberries. But have some raspberries too.
MADELEINE: But... Mommy... the raspberries just have a HOLE.
ME: It's okay. They're supposed to have a hole. That's how they look.
MADELEINE: Mommy, I just want the BLACK.
ME: (picking up a raspberry and extending it towards Madeleine's mouth)
MADELEINE: (grabbing it and tossing it back into the bowl) No, Mommy, the raspberries just have a HOLE.
ME: That's okay. That's how raspberries look. They have a hole. Here, let me show you the hole (picking up a raspberry and holding it out towards her)
MADELEINE: (trembling with terror, warding off the evil raspberry) No! Mommy! I don't want the hole!
ME: Here, watch, I'll stick my finger in the hole. Wanna see? (Sticking my pinkie finger inside) Boop! See! Do you want to try?
MADELEINE: (very nervously extending her finger and sticking it in the hole) Boop! I did it!
ME: See, the hole is not scary. Now try eating it.
MADELEINE: (taking one minuscule, nervous bite)
ME: Just pop the whole raspberry in your mouth.
MADELEINE: But it just still has a hole.
ME: Here, watch, I'll show you. (picking up a raspberry and popping it in my mouth.) See? Now you try.
MADELEINE: (popping a whole raspberry into her mouth.) Mmmmm!!! Yummy HOLE!

I'm glad I can be there at such important moments, to teach her the kinds of life-long lessons like the fact that the hole in a raspberry is nothing to be scared of.