It's amazing how big and grown up 20 months looks when compared to a newborn. Chloë suddenly seems very big in so many ways. It has been such a joy seeing her developing in her role as Big Sister. The first couple of days she was a little unsure of the whole situation, but even in this short amount of time she has adjusted really well. Every morning she asks where baby is, and gently strokes Elaina's hair, and gives her head or cheek dozens of gentle little kisses. She continues these affectionate gestures throughout the day. She has gotten used to the idea that babies just cry sometimes, although at first it greatly troubled her, often resulting in a few tears of her own.
She loves to watch us change Elaina's diaper, or get her dressed. "See?" she asks, and we pull a chair next to the changing table so she can watch. She was awfully upset about Elaina's umbilical cord, asking "aht's dat? aht's dat?" while shaking her head and crying. We tried to explain it, telling her it will be gone soon, and then Sister will have a belly button. Chloë didn't seem convinced, and for several days would sadly say "cord", and cry and shake her head every time she witnessed a diaper change. When it finally fell off, we showed Chloë that Sister had a belly button, and that the umbilical cord was all gone. "All gone!" she rejoiced, obviously relieved.
We had to explain to her that not everything of similar likeness should be toasted. She loves to say "cheers!" and crash her sippy cup into my glass. Or her silverware into my silverware. Or carrot sticks, or books, or iPods, or recently, babies. There were a couple of instances where she tried bashing her baby doll's head into Elaina's head and say "cheers!" but we managed to stop her just in time. We have explained that babies are not for cheers-ing.
She really is such a wonderful big sister.
She is becoming quite creative and in-tune with things her freinds are doing. She loves to run around with a squirt gun, pointing it at random objects (we're trying to teach her not to point at people), making gun sounds "psew, psew" while she pretends to shoot things. We've never taught her this, so she must have picked it up from some friends or something.
After seeing how much fun she had with friend's little tea set, we got her a little set of plastic dishes. She
loves them. They are strewn about our living room every day, either on our coffee table, or in our entry way, which seems to be her kitchen. We also pulled out a little pot and a little frying pan for her to play with, and let her have a rubber spatula. She was thrilled. She loves to stir and "mix" and make "din-ah" (dinner) and makes "soup" and "cah-yee" (coffee). Sometimes there are duplos or pieces of crackers involved in this creative process. She always brings a bowl or cup to someone, offering to share her imaginary creation. It amazes me how creative she is, and how natural it is for her to copy what she sees her parents doing.
(My favorite part is when she goes to pour water from her sippy cup(which she isn't supposed to do, and says "No. Mess.")
Speaking of which, she just randomly started saying "sah-yee" (for sorry) when she bumps into something. A few days ago, she bumped into the wall, and without skipping a beat said "sah-yee!" She also started say "b'ess you!" when one of us sneezes. She even says it if Elaina coughs a little while she's eating. She picked up the word "yeah" recently as well. She used to just echo us in affirmation of what she wanted ("Do you want some juice?" "Doose," she'd say, nodding.) But now, she just answers "yeah," and it's really pretty adorable.
The other day, she found a little mischief to get into. I feel like I have the house decently toddler-proofed, but sometimes I leave interesting things in reach of little fingers. For example, my mascara.
It was all over her face, hands, shirt, and when I found her, she was painting the floor with it. That kid.
The other day, a spider ran across the floor (gotta love old houses), and she was running around and almost stepped on it. "Bug!" she exclaimed, and I jumped up and told her to stay back, and not to touch. Then I grabbed a rubber spatula and smashed the big ugly spider. Chloë burst into tears, sobbing into her hand, distraught at the demise of the bug. We tried to console her by explaining that spiders were bad, and they can be ouch, and so we squish them, but we don't squish good bugs like butterflies and ladybugs. That seemed to help a little. Her sympathy for the dead spider was very sweet.
She still loves all things musical. She's realized that iPhones all have the magical ability to play "
Hallelujah" on YouTube, and she usually watches it several times a day.
She's taken to singing quite often, sometimes something recognisable. Her favorite song to sing is "Holy." She's actually getting good at the verses, but here she is, just wandering, singing Holy.
"Holy, Ho-ly is the Lord. Holy Holy is the Lord. Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord. Holy Holy..."
It has only been recently that Chloë has shown much interest in movies. She'll actually sit for a while and watch what's on the screen. She seems to like Finding Nemo more than any other movie. We all had a nasty flu/stomach bug a couple of days ago, and I was very thankful that we had the luxury of turning on a movie to entertain her for a bit. We were all really sick. I'll spare you the details, but it was a long night and a very long day, and we're so thankful Elaina never got it.
Until next month!
