A Teenager in the Making.

You bit her? Oh man, that's not right! Hmm? Who? Yeah, I know! Well, she's nice and all, but she still wears those pull-ups and she had that accident last week. Oh, so are you going to that kid's birthday party Saturday? Yeah, me neither. They invited the entire class - how sad is that? I thought that... oh, can you hold on? I have another call.

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There comes a time when you cease to be satisfied with the 3-D movie that is your life, and you want a more interactive role. No longer are you satisfied as an observer of events, but you want to have creative input with the script. This is where David is today (and Julia is not far behind!)

Since David was born, he's always had a CD put on to help him fall asleep. For the longest time, it was Ukrainian lullabies that filled his room as he drifted off to sleep, but in the past several months, he's been given different options to listen to. He's recently figured out how to change the CDs in the player, and has been actively choosing the music he wants to sleep to. It's actually kind of cute to watch him make his selection and then go to his crib.

In the car, when I'm flipping through the radio stations, David will say "no" to each selection until he hears the song he wants to hear.

Perhaps not so cute is his stubbornness to dress in the shirt and pants of his choice. Nataliya has gotten into the habit of leaving clothes out the night before; in the morning, David now looks through the choices that were made, and if he doesn't like them will look in the closet for another option, or even open the hamper and dig for something he wants to wear. At times he'll have a tantrum if it's not the clothes he wants to wear. We've even had to leave the house a couple of times with him wearing just his underwear and a shirt.

Then there's the subject of his meals. If he doesn't get what he wants, then he won't eat. (That's a tough issue to fight with him - while we don't want to get into the habit of preparing a special lunch or dinner just for him, we obviously don't want him to go to sleep hungry!)

Yep ... David may be more than a decade away from being a teenager, but moments like this are pinhole views into what's in store.

But it doesn't end with David. Julia has been recently showing some signs of the same desire to control her own life in subtle ways. For example, her desire to wear her purple knapsack; don't even think of trying to take it off before she's ready.

For now, their behavior is manageable and at times 'cute,' but we're not fooling ourselves. This will only get worse before it gets better.

Uhmm ... It does get better ... right?

Right?