I love Alice...

Alice is so funny right now. Well not really. If I am being honest, I have to try really hard to remember the funny parts with all the pouting, whining, clinging and crying...but this is not a post about those struggles...

Alice knows exactly how to use the word "just". She uses it to minimize the impact of things...like, "I'll just have one candy" or when I'm asking her to go get her shoes on so we can leave, "I just hafta go on the swing again," or "just a sec". She says it with that face that is reassuring me that she's totally all over my request, it will just have to wait until she's done doing just one more little thing. Another way she minimizes things is to say, "a little bit" even when she has no intention of limiting herself. She'll say things like, "I just need to play a little bit more." It's really endearing.

Alice has taken to wishing people "Happy Birthday" often, like in situations where it would be appropriate to say, "I love you" she'll say, "Happy Birthday Mama, I love you!" Then I say, "Happy Birthday Alice, I love you too." So birthday greetings are now an expression of love at our house.

Alice is full of stalling tactics. Today, Chris and I were cuddling in bed and we needed a minute to hash through a little disagreement, so we asked the girls for a few private moments. Alice came up with several ways that she could postpone her separation from us by helping us with things. There was a fan on a low setting, and she said, "Do you want the fan a little bit or low?" Hmmmm. We were looking at each other wondering what answer would earn us the quickest privacy, and Chris said, "low" which to Alice meant off...so she had to cross the room and helpfully oblige by turning off the fan. This really was just a tactic she used to keep us closer to her a minute longer. She does this at bedtime too, and she knows that I'm a sucker for conversation, so she'll start asking me little questions and whatever to get me to stay longer.

Sometimes I feel bad because our lives so revolve around Ruby. Alice is friends with the siblings of Ruby's friends, and she loves them and doesn't know the difference, but it really is a tag-a-long situation more than a playdate for her specifically. We were watching a video of Ruby's dance recital and we kept pointing out all the people that we knew in each of the dances, and Alice kept asking, "where's my dance?"

So...I'm putting her in dance. She's going to be three in October, and I'll enroll her in a little combo class and she'll be so pleased. It is a year sooner than I enrolled Ruby, but Ruby didn't have an older sibling to compare herself to. I know Alice will love her own little dance class, and it will be super cute in the end!