Oh Those Girls

I love being a mom. I really do. It is so fun to watch my girls interact. One of the favorite routines is waking each other up from naps or for the day. They both just squeal when they see each other. Eliza loves dumping toys in Miriam's crib for her to play with, and Miriam nearly jumps out of my arms to climb in bed with Ellie. I don't know what it is about my little three year old, but she wakes up with the worst tangles in her hair. She is normally pretty good about getting it combed out though. 

One of the fun activities we did this summer is go to the nearby splash pad. Ellie's favorite was to get a baggie full of water and dump it out on anything convenient, including her sister's head. They really are good friends though.

Miriam is now officially a walker. It is so cute. Her legs look about two inches long when she is walking. She also loves the stairs even though she does not have any idea how to get down them. She just kind of dives for the bottom and hopes that works out...it doesn't. She likes feeding herself, but she likes throwing food off her highchair much more.

As indicated in the last post, Miriam has had a bad run with sleep recently. She had some molars coming in and got sick. This led to an ear infection, which led to a discovery the hard way of an allergy to penicillin. We are in a much happier place these past few days. She has only been getting up at night once or at most twice a night. (knock on wood)

Miriam loves stories, making noises with her tongue, stories, and licking things (notice a pattern?). She brings us books and just whines until we read it to her. Her tricks include pointing at lights, playing peek-a-boo, clapping, waving, shaking her head, and ripping books. She loves baths and shoes. Miriam really is such a sweetheart. She understands so much even though she doesn't really talk yet.

Ellie is so fun. She is definitely at the age of telling stories. Almost all of her stories are about her 'kids.' Her baby dolls have very eventful lives, even ask Ellie. Tonight at dinner she told us all about how her kids had to go to the hospital and have blood drawn and have so many surgeries. One thing that is kind of funny is that her baby and my baby are in a sort of competition, which isn't fair because her baby isn't real and mine has the nickname 'stinker' for a reason. For example, when Miriam was starting to walk but still couldn't push herself to standing in the middle of the floor, Ellie told us that her baby could push to standing in the middle of the floor and at the walls.

The stories she tells really are hilarious though, mostly because of the facial expressions that she uses while telling them. She has really expressive eyebrows. I wish I could describe it better. She usually ends the story with "So...pretty good..." with a little purse to her lips. It is so funny.

She is also old enough to know time and quantity words, but not really understand them. She told me to today that I was going to count and she was going to hide for three hours. Also, she told me once that she has at least a thousand stuffed animals. Not quite.

She still loves stories, but she has a new love too. Cinderella. We took her to see a community production of the play (the Armstrongs were in it), and she fell in love. Since then whenever she has been a little grumpy I just mention Cinderella dancing (her favorite part) and she cheers right up. So fun! She met Cinderella afterwards and can't get enough of princesses and fairies since. She thinks she is a princess, which is cute, but less so when she talks about her mean step-sisters.

The other day she said, “Mom, I brought this doll with me, in case I need a toy that is princess-y.” We have a daughter that plans for every contingency. J She also said to us last night, “Why don’t you cut your bed in two so that you guys can have your own beds.” So funny. We also had a conversation about Uncle Matt where is seemed pretty obvious that Ellie thought Matt was the best thing ever. One of the best things was when John said, “Ellie, did you know that Matt is my little brother?” “No, he isn’t, he’s big.” “Well, I am older than him.” “When was he little, I don’t remember?” She is so funny.

            She really is into princesses. So. Much. Everything colored blue is Cinderella’s. Everything pink is Sleeping Beauty’s. Everything yellow is Belle’s. She is so funny. 

We have started doing a preschool with a friend. It is really fun. I like having a more organized time to teach her. She is starting to make more progress towards sounding out words, assuming they are really short and only use short vowel sounds. Teaching your child to read is pretty intimidating. We also love doing playtime with friends.