Neat Freak

I know that Heather likes a clean house, so I probably shouldn't be surprised by Evie's recent tendency towards cleanliness. A few weeks ago Evie decided that she likes her binky rinsed off before she puts it in her mouth. So every time we get ready for a nap or bedtime, the only time I let her have a binky, we have to go wash it. At first she would hold it up and say, "hands" and that meant that she wanted it washed. I guess maybe it's because when she says "hands" near the sink, we wash her hands. Now whenever I hand it to her, she hands it back and says, "yucky" and then we go rinse it off.

Last night Dan, in a moment of capriciousness, told Anna that if she ate all her food on her dinner plate then we'd take her to get ice cream for Family Home Evening. He didn't think she'd really do it and it did take some encouragement to get Anna to actually eat all her food, but after she latched on to the offer, I think we both realized it would be easier to encourage her and follow through than tell her that we weren't going.

After getting our soft-serve cones, we sat in a booth. Evie's was the smallest so she finished hers first and then she started amusing herself by taking used napkins to the trash can. Whenever we go to the bathroom, Evie always wants her own paper towel and she particularly enjoys putting it in the trash can, so I figured this was a similar sort of thing for Evie, except that she diligently found every napkin around our table and carried it to the trash. Then she started wiping up spots of ice cream with her napkins and taking those to the trash. She was like our own little custodian.

Evie is entering the stage where she wants to do everything like Anna and she wants to do everything by herself, even though she's not quite big enough and her motor skills aren't quite developed enough to do much on her own. It's becoming a tough time because when her language skills fail her or when we don't let her do stuff on her own, she throws a fit, often throwing herself to the ground even if she's on top of a chair. I can see that we are now really entering the terrible twos and I am not excited, but I'm feeling a bit of relief knowing that Anna seems to be on her way out of the terrible twos (now that she's almost four). I don't have to negotiate with Anna quite so much any more to get her to get in her car seat or to do other things, but now getting Evie into her car seat is a fight almost every time. But it was sort of sweet yesterday, as I was trying to get dinner ready, to hear Evie saying, "help you mom" as she followed me around. As usual I was running late, so she didn't get to help me, but I guess it's time to start letting her help add ingredients as I cook.