Playing, Laughing, Mommying

I feel like Evie has had a big jump in maturity this week.  She has started to only sniffle a little when dropped off at daycare.  She is much faster to respond to a request to do or not do something we ask of her, and she is especially responsive if time out is mentioned.  She's quicker to put her own trash away, take her own dishes back to the kitchen, and generally clean up after herself.  And she has started demonstrating role playing at Granna and Grannadaddy's where she takes two babydolls there through routines like diaper changes and bedtime.  She will lay the babies down on the ground, ask for a real wipe, wipe the babies (individually - actually she finishes the whole routine on one baby and then starts on the next) and throws the wipe in the trash, asks for a real diaper and puts it around the babies (though we don't let her use the tabs so the diapers can be used again for their intended purposes of diapering a living toddler's tush).  Then she will pick them up, put their heads on her shoulder, shush them, put them in bed, sing them a song, pretend to give them mama and baby frog, and tell them night night.  It's just about the sweetest thing ever.

Evie's seen a lot of family this week.  She had her usual Tuesday afternoon with Grannadaddy who picks her up from daycare that day.  I decided I wanted to go back to singing in the choir at church so our new Wednesday routine which we started this past week is for me and Evie to go to Granna's after I pick her up from daycare and we have dinner together, then I slip out to go to choir practice and Seth, who has class late on Wednesdays, arrives, eats, and then takes Evie home.  Then on Friday night we had game night at church so Evie stayed with Granna then, and Saturday we spent the evening with Kathy and Grandma Jeanne watching the Tigers game on TV.  Today we had church and Granna tried to keep Evie during the first part of the service while I sang, but once Evie spotted me in the back of the church she started crying for Mama, so after about 5 minutes, she went to the nursery.  And then we went over to Granna's house for lunch together - so she had a very full week of extended family time.  What a lucky girl!

Saturday I decided was a Mama and Me morning for us.  Seth needed the sleep and I felt like I hadn't seen Evie much since I'd been so busy studying for tests and working last week.  So we went to Starbucks for breakfast where we split a blueberry muffin and a bacon/gouda/egg sandwich.  She loved the sandwich more than the muffin, which I was surprised by.  Then we went to the park.  The elementary school where she'll be going (in 3 years) just built a new playground in the front of their property and it is completely fenced in and much more toddler-friendly.  There's only one spot on the equipment that makes me nervous that she might fall off, so I sat up there and Evie was able to roam to wherever she wanted to.  No one else was there the whole time we were, for an hour!  She had a blast.  She loved going up and down the slides, and she even convinced me she could climb up the ladder to where I was sitting, though I did hold on to her for that last step up onto the platform.  We had a really good time.

Looking up at me, asking to climb the ladder

She loved going in this hippo's (hah-poes!) mouth