Eliza at 32 Months

photo by Tiffany Elgan

Since I am officially a month behind with Eliza's updates, I'll keep this one short-ish (mostly just picture captions) and write more details next month (hopefully in a few days).  We did have a scary experience that I want to record.

Eliza and I were making Chocolate No-bake Cookies for Daddy before he went on his most recent trip to South Dakota .  Eliza likes to put in the ingredients, so after bringing the butter, milk, sugar, and cocoa to a boil and adding the peanut butter, I brought the saucepan over to the table so Eliza could put in the oats.  After dumping in one cup of oats, Eliza slipped off the chair she was standing on and fell hard to the ground.  On her way down, she hit the handle of the pan, which flipped the pan over and dumped  the near-boiling chocolate liquid all over her.  I snatched her up off the ground and rushed her over to the sink where I tried to splash (pretty ineffectively, at first) cool water onto her skin and rise off the chocolate.  We were at the sink when she let out her first scream (and it was blood-curdling).  The chocolate was pretty thoroughly covering her arms, so it was hard to get her under the stream of water.  I wet a dishtowel and started wiping her down, then, to my horror, saw that her face was also covered in chocolate.  It had happened so fast I hadn't even looked at her face yet.  I felt awful.  Here I was trying to prevent burns scarring on her arms while her precious little face was still burning.  When I got her all washed off, she was covered in dark red blotches and her skin was very hot.  She was screaming and scared.  She kept saying that she was tired and wanted to go to bed.  I laid her on my bed and alternated cool, wet cloths on her face, neck and arms.  Together we prayed that Eliza would be comforted and that the accident would leave no lasting scars.  After a couple hours, the blotches were pretty much gone.  Later that night I found that some of the chocolate had gone down her shirt and left some small blisters on her arm, near her armpit, which has since fully healed.

Eliza talked about the accident for several weeks after it happened.  She told Mike, "I fell down and the chocolate burned me, but Mommy saved me."  Since then, Eliza has been super cautious about hot things.  Every time she helps me in the kitchen (which took a little while for her to want to do again), even if it's just stirring cookie dough, she will ask several times if the bowl (or anything else) is hot.  She is also very protective of Caleb and will not let him go anywhere near the stove when I am cooking.  We feel so blessed that things turned out as well as they did.  We are all more careful now.

 

When pie apples were on sale we bought a lot and froze apple pie filling.  While I washed the apples, Eliza cranked them through the corer/peeler/slicer.  She was a big help (really, not just in the my-kid-is-"helping"-me-but-really-slowing-me-down way) and she loved helping.

Eliza is always finding things in the pantry to play with.  This day she was playing with cups and having a blast.

The kids had fun in the leaves (of which we always have plenty).

It took me a minute to figure out what she is doing here.  She kept pulling things out of the drawer, putting them next to the light emitted from the mouse, and saying "That's fifty dollars."  Eliza loves to use the price check scanner in Target and it has influenced her imaginative play.

Our annual Block Party was going on in the street in front of our house a few weeks ago.  It wasn't a very large gathering, but we got to tour a fire truck which was lots of fun for the kids.

At the party, there was a 9-year-old boy playing catch with his dad.  Eliza stood there watching (and waiting for an invitation to play) for a good 15 or 20 minutes before I thought to go in and get our own equipment.  Eliza loves playing catch and is pretty good for a two-year-old.

Eliza is excited to be a mommy when she grows up and gets married.  She talks about it pretty often.  Lately she has been zipping a baby up in her jammies so it can be in her tummy.  Sometimes she sleeps like that. It's pretty cute.  And no Mom, I'm not pregnant.

Eliza is a creative, energetic, busy little lady!  We enjoy her so much!  She always surprises us and makes us smile with the things she says and does.