Eva seems older lately when...

- She gives girl hugs, where her arms reach all the way around my neck and she pulls me in :) LOVE IT.
- I realized that she outgrew her first set of underwear - she has already grown another size and a half!
- She has little hair on her arms and legs now!
- She has for real little girl tan lines
- She breaks into serious dance numbers whenever she hears songs on the radio, in the car, at home, etc. - but her moves don't seem very baby-like; they seem, in fact, quite coordinated and fit the music well!
- She continues to ask to be a ballet or dance class (see above bullet point)
- She has new bruises, scratches, scabs and bumps almost every day
- She likes trying to write her name (with a pen especially), but insists on drawing 4 horizontal lines on her capital "E" instead of three 

All Grown Up, Pretend -style

Our imaginative little girl is often telling stories, making up songs, or helping her dolls talk to each other. And lately Eva's enjoyed playing very specific role-playing games with me. While she still likes to be a baby bird/monkey/llama/any animal, she also likes to pretend that she's the mommy. The game usually entails her calling me "sweetie" a lot, reminding me to eat vegetables, and teaching me to not be afraid of shadows (which you could say is a funny commentary on my parenting, but I digress...)  This morning she wanted to play being the mommy, and she directed that we have a "camp out" (blanket picnic) in her room near the "cave" (dark bedroom), and she helped teach me my "letters" (pointed out objects in the room and told me how to say those words.) The upside is that the baby (me) usually gets lots of hugs, clear instructions on what to do, and lots of encouragement when I do a simple task right. Where does she learn this stuff?Hee hee...

One of my favorite playing grown-up stories happened this past weekend when we spent a couple days at a cabin with my parents on their anniversary. We had two fold-able chairs out on the deck set up next to each other, and Eva came over to me and pointing at the chairs, said, "Let's sit down and say our news." I asked, "Do you mean share our news? Like talk to each other?" "YEAH!" she exclaimed, and jumped into a chair. I was curious to see what this game was, so I turned to her and said, "So, what is your news?"  And she said, "Well, we are both ladies, and we have a lot of news. I have many children, and they are doing fine. Did you see them?" She then went on to make up names for her - get this - 18 children, and tell me how she loved them and how busy they were doing fun things together.  Then my three year old turns to me, with a totally serious face, and asks, "So what is your news? How are your children?"  Apparently she's seen me sitting with my friends outside, swapping our news about our children and catching up (I am mainly thinking of you, Kate D!)  Not a bad idea for what to do when you see two chairs outside and you need to catch up with someone about your 18 children!