This is what 2.5 looks like

Today sweet Elle is two and a half!

She is the craziest, silliest, most hilarious kid in the world.  She is fearless, unafraid to try anything new, like jumping in the deep end, without her floaties on.  While her mom helps the big sister put goggles on.  Hypothetically speaking. This is the one responsible for my wrinkles and my new gray hairs. 

I love watching her learn: being captivated by ants marching, belly flat to the ground, not afraid to poke (CRUSH) one with her finger; getting down on the ground to see what happens when every square inch of her body is covered with sand; tinkering with toys, or really anything, to see how it works, how it's assembled, how it can be taken apart; grabbing Grace's favorite squishy toy and chucking it across the room, just to see what happens.   She's lucky she's fast.

It's got to be hard to be the little sister.  It's also hard to be the big sister, trust me, but for the first time in my life, I understand why little sisters are so annoying -- they want their big sibling's attention!  They want to be taken seriously by their big, inspiring, able-to-do-everything-easily big sibling. How difficult it must be for little sisters to have their own thing, when the first one sets the tone, simply by being older and able to more easily communicate. Elle and Grace are finding their way, quite nicely, overall.  They are opposites in so, so many ways, but they compliment each other very well.  Grace's responsibility, respect, and concern for safety, Elle's boldness and daring -- it's a good matchup.  They're going to continue having a ton of fun growing up together.

If you interact with Elle, this is the first face she'll make at you:

Then she'll bury her face in my neck or lap and silently crack up, while the recipient of this look wonders what they did to deserve such a look.  It's Elle's world, you're just living in it.  Speaking of Elle's world, she would prefer to be in charge of all the toys and all the things at all the times.  She is unafraid to throw an elbow to a complete stranger and say "NO MINE" if someone gets too close to her stuff.  I am mortified and terrified, but with patience and compassion, I think she's maaaaybe starting to understand patience and compassion.  And sharing.  Maybe.  Kinda. 

She's gonna have some nice, curly hair when it eventually fills in.  Elle is a tall lady, and quite robust, physically speaking, so the lack of hair coupled with her ability to tell stories with a beginning, middle and end all in complete sentences gives people pause when they try to determine how old she is.  It's comical.

Speaks in complete sentences, looks like big baby

"You put cheese in the eggs?  That's rude, I don't like cheese."

Eleanor is our family comedian, and there is nothing she won't do to make us laugh. She understands comedic timing innately.  She has a good grasp on physical comedy already, barreling herself at one of us, one of her wackadoodle expressions on her face, just because she was a little bored and wanted to spice things up.  She loves laughing, too...the other day she gave me a big hug as we were reading stories before her nap, and I told her she smelled like a hot dog (because she did).  She could not stop laughing for a solid three minutes. When she finally calmed down, she said, "Smell me again mama."  So I did, and, since she still smelled like a hot dog, I told her as much, and we both cracked up and then it took us forever to calm down and take a nap. (Which she still takes, quite nicely, might I add.  Thank God.)

She WILL NOT sing you the ABC's on demand, but she will sing them to her babies while she makes them dinner.  She can count to 40, because we play a lot of hide and seek.  She loves to be a mom, and points her index finger in the air while saying "no, no, no!" 😐 on her way to drop her baby off with grandma (me 😒). She loves barbies, Elsa, playing all the Disney princesses, ALL the time.  "You Flynn Rider, I'm Rapunzel.  No no no, you're Mother Gothel, I'm Rapunzel.  No, no no, you Kristoff, I'm Anna."  ←All of that within the first minute of opening her eyes.

We took the girls to Incredibles 2 a few weeks ago, our first family trip to the movie theatre.  Elle LOVED IT, cracking up at all the funny parts, pretending to be baby Jack Jack for the rest of the night making Eric, Grace and I laugh even harder.  She just has a way of enhancing funny experiences, making a great experience even better.

This age is so fun because her imagination is limitless, she's not yet bound by what she knows to be true, according to the world's standards: kitties can talk, her chair can be a ladder for her finger people to climb, and singing "Baby Shark" is appropriate everywhere, like in the middle of mom's pilates class?  This girl has an independent spirit that will be her biggest strength and also a source of a lot of frustration for her mom (and dad and sister.)  What's great, is that underneath all her crazy is a heart of solid gold, sweet as a late summer day.  Elle, you make us laugh, you make us cry, you make us nuts, but we wouldn't know what to do without you.  Thank you for keeping things hilarious, and for loving us so very well.  Now stop growing so fast!