Eliza is two and a half now. If you ask and get lucky, she'll tell you so. Otherwise she'll give a contemplative "I don't know," as if you asked her the most curious question or she'll say "I don't renember," which is another common answer to a normal question.
I think we accidentally turned Eliza into a serious little competitor. It started innocently enough with a let's-see-who-can-get-their-jammies-on-first contest. Because Caleb didn't care, we let Eliza win all the time. Until one time when she was messing around, so Caleb won fair and square. She lost it! It's not just jammie races though. She wants to be first at everything. Even things that are not competitive in the slightest.
Mom: "Ooo I just saw a squirrel!"
Eliza: "No! I saw a squirrel FIRST!"
Eliza loves to read books. I love finding her curled up on the couch with a stack of books reading to herself. Sometimes she studies the pictures silently, other times she rehearses the stories out loud. It is interesting to hear what parts have stuck in her memory from all the times we have read the books to her.
Eliza has so much fun with Caleb. She loves to make him laugh. She can be pretty rough with him (in a loving way). Sometimes I'm afraid she is going to yank his arm off when I'm not looking. Lately, their fun together means it's very late before the two of them fall asleep. We have tried putting Caleb down a half hour before Eliza, but Eliza often intentionally wakes him up when she goes to bed so they can play. They each stand up in bed and reach out and touch hands and jump and laugh.
Eliza is good at taking turns with Caleb. She makes sure that he gets a turn at nearly every fun thing she gets to do or play with. Often his turns aren't as long as hers, but at least she's giving him a turn. She wants to share with him everything that she is too big for. When we were going through her drawer the other day, she said of her pink Zoe underwear "These are too small. They're for Caleb." Today she wanted him to wear her old Sunday shoes.
Eliza has enjoyed the one-on-one time with us in the evening. She usually chooses a game to play with us. I found Candyland and Chutes and Ladders at yard sales for a dollar or less. She loves playing her games.
Eliza has been imitating Caleb a lot lately. She will mimic the syllables he uses, crawl like he does, put things in her mouth like him, and dump her food out just like him. I wonder if she thinks she'll gt more attention if she's a baby or if she just does it for fun.
Caleb isn't the only one who gets imitated. The other day Eliza referred to Mike as "lover." I have no idea where she got that (wink, wink). She picks up on everything. I think I'm going to help her memorize scriptures to put her great memory to good use.
Eliza has always enjoyed being a distant observer of dogs and other animals but after a month of dog-sitting, Eliza is ready to have her own dog. Unfortunately her mom isn't. I'll have a whole post about how my kids went from being 'fraidy cats to dog lovers in a month.
Eliza's hair is getting so long and crazy. I don't want to cut it because she has lovely little ringlets (not shown above) and I'm afraid if I cut it that will be the end of her curls. Just in the past few weeks she has really put up a fight when I try to do her hair ("It hurts me! I don't want piggies!"), so I have let her go scraggly more often than I ever said I would.
Eliza is "so strong." She's hanging from the bar, in case you can't tell.
2 comments:
You know, I thought the same thing about cutting Grace's hair, but it was so uneven one day and straight form lack of humidity that I chopped it off and with the first chop, the curl came right back! Crazy!
We love Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders too! They are great games for little kids. You should try Go Fish and Old Maid sometime too. It won't be long before she can do those too.
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