Daycare has been closed for a couple of days now and so Granny has been watching Eva. Apparantly she spent the day yesterday cooking for Granny. Granny's favorite was the stack of pancakes with ketchup on it. Eva puts sauce on everything... she really loves sauce of any kind. Food is so much fun with sauce, you know.
This morning Eva tore a Winnie the Pooh card she has in half. I asked her what she was going to do with it now, because it was torn and she couldn't use it anymore. She looked at me and in a voice that clearly spoke "Don't you know anything?" said, "Tape it." I couldn't argue.
Eva got new rubber boots since the snow has melted and it's muddy everywhere. Eva loves to wear her rubber boots. She puts them on, and goes to the door and tells me "Chickens out." It turns out that she very much enjoys helping me with the chickens. She will walk up to a hen and say "Hello Chicken," then try to pet it... which of course, never works. On Tuesday we were feeding old bread to the chickens and Eva spent at least 15 minutes trying to chase down the chickens so that they would eat the bread out of her hand. Scarlet (the dog) eventually caught up to Eva and took the bread from her instead...alas the chickens never did get any of her bread.
Granny tells me on Tuesday that she sees Eva over with the cat, Ginger, and Ginger is eating something. Granny wondered what on earth Eva could have given Ginger that she would eat. When she saw Eva run to the other room and then come back a minute later carrying a little plastic plate (from her kitchen) with dry dog food on it. She carried it over to Ginger and put it down in front of her. Ginger took a bite and then Eva popped a piece in herself. They polished off the meal together. Yes, my daughter eats dog food. I am working really hard not to care.
So, Eva likes to help with everything. Whenever I have to carry something upstairs, Eva searches the room until she finds something too to carry. She helps me bring in the groceries, put them away and run the dishwasher. Other than handing us the dishes, her job is to put in the soap squares and to push the button to start it. She has actually gotten really good at fetching things, but still has the tendency to stand in one spot in the room and turn in circles, looking straight out, when she is searching for something. Let me tell you, there are very few things that are exactly 3 feet off the floor in our house.
Another change that has occurred recently is that Eva finally has started agreeing to letting me put "pretties" (Barrets, rubber bands, etc...) in her hair. I have been taking full advantage of it, she even will let me comb it now without screaming. Whenever we tell Eva that she looks pretty she will literally strut down the hall. She stops and primps and then holds her shirt or dress out for us to admire. I have a nagging feeling that I might regret our encouragement of this behavior. It sure is cute, though.
I try really hard to use correct English with Eva and not succumb to repeating back her words using her very adorable toddler pronunciation. However, I must admit, that I can not help myself with her word for "ladybug." Eva calls ladybugs "picklebugs." I don't know why she enunciates that word as she does, but it is very hard to resist calling them that myself. The other day, when Eva was on time out there was a ladybug right next to her and she was very upset by that. She kept trying to scootch herself away from it. When that didn't work she stood up. I of course, not realizing she had a ladybug issue, told her she had to sit down or I would restart the timer. She sat back down visibly upset and then emphatically declared "Picklebug, Icky!" while pointing at a spot about 2 feet away from her. I moved the bug and she was fine. I had to work hard not to laugh.
I love that Eva can carry on conversations now and I adore how she thinks she knows everything, but in reality she gets it all wrong most of the time. I do not know how I lived so long without her, seriously, I didn't realize it was possible to love a precocious little girl as much as I do.