eloise {three & a half years}

{lion: jellycat via nordstrom // dress: old // pants/skirt: Cat and Jack for Target}

{And the outtake! This is such an Eloise goofy face!}

{three & a half years} Oh my, I can’t believe Eloise is 3.5 years! She seems so, so big these days and wise beyond her years. It is such a joy to witness this joyful little soul explore the world.

Over the past few weeks Eloise has been putting herself down for a nap in the afternoon during her quiet time, which I have shared a few pictures of. It is amazing that she can go from playing and singing to completely asleep in about 10 seconds. If she does fall asleep, I usually let her snooze for about 30 minutes, because she is obviously tired, but if I let her sleep too much longer than that she is awake until 10 pm or later! No bueno. When she isn’t sleeping though, she does so well playing quietly in her room. She reads books, plays with her dolls or magnaformers, or changes her clothes. Eloise has also, recently, been cleaning up her room! She makes her bed, and organizes her toys in the baskets as well as the clothes in her drawers and closet. Yep, she may be slightly Type A from her mama!

At Thanksgiving and then again right after New Year’s we took two separate road trips to Boise which meant 10.5 hour days in the car. I talked about our trip a little already, but Eloise did so SO well on these trips. Partly because she was excited to get to Grammie and Paga’s house and partly because she really loves to travel (and has never minded the car). Eloise busied herself with coloring and reading during the long hours and only watched about four 30 minute shows in total over the 40+ hours of driving! She would, if we let her, watch shows and do screen time the entire trip but we are pretty strict about how much time she gets. And, like with plane travel, we exhaust all of our other options for things to do before we offer screen time. We feel really lucky that she is such a great little traveler!

These past months we also had Aaron home on the second-half of his paternity leave which was 6 weeks starting in mid-December. He usually takes quite a bit of vacation around the holidays, but it was really lovely to have him home for these weeks during a busy time. Eloise preferred if Aaron took her to school and picked her up, so we let that be their thing when she had school days. Aaron is also the first person that Eloise asks for in the morning, so with Aaron leaving before the rest of the house is up now has been a bit of a change. But, Eloise just had the BEST time having Papa around for those weeks!

Eloise also started ballet which you may have seen pictures of in our weekend posts. We found a great little studio over in Fremont which offers pre-ballet for 3 and 4 year olds. Plus, it is a kids-only class which means it’s sort of like childcare, right?! The teacher (Ms. Aminda) is so great with the kids and the class is set-up so well for Eloise’s age and attention span. She tends to stop participating when she sees me watching thru the classroom window, so I try to give her space to be herself and just quickly check-in to see if I can watch her being an impossibly adorable ballerina. There is a mix of songs and play along with learning basic ballet positions and techniques. Plus, the stamps at the end of class are Eloise’s favorite part! The sessions are 6 weeks and Eloise just started her second session of Saturday morning classes. We are planning on keeping her in ballet until the late spring and then I am hoping to find a good swimming lesson to get her into. If you have any advice about swim lessons for this age, I am all ears!

And related to ballet, Eloise LOVES to dance. Any time she hears music, or even when she doesn’t and is just singing to herself, she is always moving her body. She loves to have dance parties at our house and had the BEST time at my cousin Micah’s wedding in January. I will be sure to share photos and videos because it was so sweet!

One of the biggest things that has happened since last fall has been that Eloise will finally get herself out of bed to use the potty in the morning if she is awake and needs to go before we get her up! Guys, this is life-changing. We already sleep in pretty late (our normal wake-up time is 8 am) but in the past, Eloise will just yell from bed that she had to go potty. A super fun thing to wake up to! But now, she will walk down the hall, use the potty, wash her hands, and go back to her room to read until we are up (which on Sundays is usually around 8:30 since that is our sleep-in day)! We are really proud of Eloise since she just started doing this on her own a few weeks ago.

And, last fall we were doing the preschool tour thing since we needed to find a new school for Pre-K, and the good news is that we found one! It is right down the street from her current school and after the tour, we love it already. Eloise’s weekly schedule will basically be the same, Monday thru Thursday mornings, but then we will more than likely add Friday mornings which is a Spanish immersion program. This new school has a good Pre-K curriculum which I think will ready Eloise for Kindergarten without being crazy-academic focused and will allow her to still have a lot of time for physical activity and creative time (either play time or art and music). And then we also took a tour last week of an elementary school that we would love for the kids to attend. Without getting into too much extra detail now, it is a public school but you have to apply to get in. We don’t have to worry about anything related to Kindergarten for another year, but I definitely teared up when we walked into that big elementary school for the tour!

And the newest rendition of Things Eloise Says:

“Papa, I don’t want you stretching your arms. I don’t want your arms to break.”

“I love watching these.” (The advertisements on TV. She’s a marketer’s dream.)

Kitchen timer goes off. Eloise whispers: “Aaron, can you go check on what’s in the oven?”

“For Christmas can I get seeing glasses? Not sunglasses, seeing glasses so I can see where I am going!”

Aaron and I were trying to get out of a store without buying anything so we told Eloise we didn’t have any money with us. Aaron: “I didn’t bring any money, did you bring any money?” Eloise: “No Papa, you just use a card!”

“Eloise, what is your favorite color?” “Pink.” “Since when? (It is usually purple.)” “Since my birth.”

“Did you already get married?” Eloise asks me and Aaron. “I wanted to get you a card. Bummer.”

Looking out the window. Eloise: “Bird, what are you looking for?”

“I call them pea beans.” (Pea pods.)

Scream cheese is string cheese.

Me: “Do you just repeat everything that Mama says?” Eloise: “Apparently.”

“How did he get grass in his truck?” (She saw a truck carrying a load of hay.)

“Mama, when I get married will you and Papa buy me a ring? That fits me? And maybe it could be from Target?”

Playing “store” with Daphne: “It costs three dollars and fifty-five bucks!”

“I can’t even believe it. I can’t even bless my heart!”

“Please can I have some cold water, Papa? You have to say ‘please’ otherwise it’s demanding.” (Oh my gosh, Aaron and I were dying over this because she said it so matter of factly.)

“It was in my imagination.”

We have a new babysitter (for date nights, yay!) who is an au pair for another local family and is originally from Columbia. Eloise says she is from “Columpia.”

“Mama, my foot hurts. Right here. It’s crispy!” (I don’t know what she meant by “crispy” but I think it was part of her ploy to get me to carry her!)

{weight} 35ish pounds (my guess); height: 37.5 inches

{hair} (reddish) brown.

{teeth} 20 teeth plus four molars.

{eyes} dark brown.

{clothes}  some 3T, 4T.

{diapers} NONE!

{feeding} during the day, three meals, (sometimes a) morning snack, & (sometimes an) afternoon snack. cup of milk with every meal.

{likes} singing, dancing, taking walks around the blocks, talking to the neighbors, Teddy the mailman, school and her friends, Daphne, coloring, yelling, Duplos, digging in the dirt, splashing, counting, any person outside on the sidewalk, bubbles, sidewalk chalk, coloring, buckles, jumping, watching out the front window (dogs, kids, trucks), books, mama & papa’s cell phone, FaceTime (but she always wants to hold the phone), bath time, shoes, mama’s (diaper) bag, putting things inside a bag or box, helping with anything & everything, when Papa comes home from work.

{dislikes} not being included, having something taken away from her, not eating when someone else is, being hungry, TimeOut.

{nicknames} Bug, Love Bug, Baby Bug, E, Wheezy, Kiddo, Love, Bugaboo, E-Lo or Elle.

 

Happy three & a half years Eloise!

M

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