I love my proactive Carmen!!!
Carmen has two car seats (one for my car, one for Mark's) so when a friend mentioned they had a friend coming to town who needed to borrow a car seat for their 1-year-old, I volunteered to lend Carmen's out for a week. She was *really* upset this morning when I handed the car seat off to my friend, but ... you know ... she eventually got over it.
I took her other car seat out of Mark's car and sat it in the back of my car. When Mace was first born, we had a car seat on each side of the car (empty middle seat) then at one point, Carmen decided she wanted to sit in the middle next to Mace (the middle seat is the safest, anyway) so I latched her car seat into the middle and we still use the 5-point harness. The other car seat is more of a booster seat (30 lbs+) with no 5-point harness or latch, so I just buckle her in with the regular seat belt when she uses the "other" car seat. It's difficult to buckle it into the middle because the base is so big, so I usually sit it in the side back seat (not the middle) because it's easier for me to do the buckle.
Aaaaanywho, we were getting ready to run to Costco today and I'd put her other car seat into my car. I told Carmen to go out to the car and wait for me while I got Mace ready to get out the door. When I came back and buckled him in, I noticed that Carmen had moved her car seat into the middle and she asked me for help buckling her in.
I said, "Carmen, you are so proactive! Do you know what that means?" She looked at me blankly. "'Pro' means 'for'."
"What does 'active' mean?"
"'Active' is when you do stuff. So 'proactive' means you do stuff for yourself when you can, and don't wait for other people to do them for you. And that is a good thing, and I love you." And I gave her a kiss on the forehead.
I love my kids. <3 <3 <3 <3
(I also love how after we have our word-root conversations, I overhear her teaching word roots to her stuffed animals ... with nonsense words, nonsense roots, and nonsense definitions. I'm pretty sure "joo-pah" doesn't mean anything in Latin.)
Also, we're pretty sure Mace said, "More bananas" this morning. We're big on language in this family. :P