Eliza at 31 Months

Here's a little review of Eliza at 31 months by way a few (or more) pictures we took throughout the month.

Eliza is loving letters lately.  She can spell her name, though sometimes she forgets the "i" or replaces it with "y."  She owns the letter "e."  Any time she sees an "e" anywhere, she exclaims "It's E for Eliza!"  She knows at least the first letter of everyone's name in our family and always attributes that letter to the person first, then lists other things that start with the letter. 

Eliza likes to "doctor" Caleb all the time.  Thankfully he is the most patient patient ever.  She would use all sorts of different household items as her pretend stethoscopes, so when I saw one for a quarter at a garage sale I snatched it up and she loves it!

Speaking of being a patient, in the beginning of September, Eliza had to go through a few procedures at the hospital that weren't a whole lot of fun, but certainly not that terrible either.  She had a urinary tract infection, which isn't really common for kids her age, so the doctor wanted to be sure that her kidneys were working properly.  First, she had an ultrasound on her kidneys. They asked that she drink four glasses of water an hour before the appointment and hold it until after the first ultrasound.  Not a very nice thing to ask someone with only 6 months of potty power to do, but she did great! 

After the ultrasound, we went over to radiology and had to do some x-rays.  They filled her bladder with a special dye via a catheter.  She is the first one in our family to have a catheter, which didn't look like fun at all (and Eliza will assure you it wasn't), but it wasn't as bad as I had feared.  After filling her with the dye, they told her she could wet on a towel on the table (they wanted to make sure there was no reflux back up to the kidneys), but she wouldn't just lie there and wet.  The doctor said they would just keep filling her up until it would eventually just come out.  She was squirming a lot and was very uncomfortable, but didn't just want to go on the table.  I asked if she could have a cup or something so she didn't feel like she was wetting herself.  They brought her a bedpan and she went like a champ.  I was proud of her for being so good at holding it!

Lately Eliza has been making piles like it's her job.  The piles aren't a by-product of other imaginative play, they are the play.  She brings me in and says "Look!  I made a pile for you!  It's a Happy Birthday pile."  I really want to curb this piling tendency before it gets (even more) out of hand.

 

Proud of another pile.

Eliza has been more and more interested in singing lately.  Here she is singing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.

It is not uncommon for me to find the kids in the pantry with the door shut playing pretend or making a pile.  This time Eliza somehow managed to get the ice cream cones down.  At least she shared with Caleb.

Eliza loves sticks.  She always has.  I attribute it, at least in part, to knowing that Daddy likes sticks and collects them.  Every Sunday after church, before getting in the car, Eliza gets to find a stick to take home.

Eliza loves to ride her "bicycle."  She loves that she has "a bicycle just like Daddy's."  She rides it around in the garage pretty frequently these days.  We also bring it with us when we go visit Daddy at school where she rides around the patio area.

A few months ago we got our first family pet!  We got 4 fish (zebra danios) along with the tank and all the works for free on Craigslist.  Eliza likes them (in case you couldn't tell from the picture) and takes good care of them.  She even talks to them and asks them if they're hungry.

We are doing a co-op preschool with some of the other law school families.  Eliza loves it and is learning lots of new things.  Here she is celebrating that "c is for cupcake."

Eliza helped me pick apples at a friend's house and surprised me with how many apples she could eat (or take several bites out of).