Eliza's aspirations

At a recent check up to the doctor (I usually do well checks all at once if I can) the doctor asked the kids what they wanted to be when the grow up.

"A doctor!" Olivia replied.
"A vet." Abigail piped in.
"A police officer." Nathan quietly muttered.
"A PIKACHU!" Eliza bellowed. The doctor laughed and I joined in. And there was no convincing her that this was impossible.

A few weeks go by and I decide to ask again. However now she's changed her mind to be a ditto pokemon because apparently they can make themselves into any other kind of pokemon.

"Well, Eliza as genius as that plan sounds, you are going to be a human for the rest of your life. That is just how it works. You were born a human, and you will be a human forever." I broke the rough news.

"I know." She sighed, and then quickly added, "Because YOU never let me go anywhere dangerous."

Right, her mean old mom keeping her out of haunted woods or other places she thinks she might meet a witch or something that would trade her humanness for the ability to be a cartoon animal that can only say its name.

So we have joked about this for months now, that Eliza is stuck on becoming something other than a human when she grows up. Then at dinner the other day the kids were asking me about fire eaters. I showed them a video of a fire eater and Eliza exclaimed, "THAT! That is the human I want to be when I grow up."

Snapshot of Nora at 2 years old.

This morning Eliza asked me what she was like when she was two years old. Ya know, an entire two years ago. My mind drew a complete blank. Why couldn't I remember a single moment of her third year of life? Oh wait, I was pregnant and had a newborn, and then had two newborns, and then we bought a house and moved and struggled to purge ourselves of head lice. That's right, sorry kid your 2 year old self lived through some crazy. But then Aaron looked on my blog and found some stories for her, and went back to when all the kids were 2 and had cute stories for everyone that had us all laughing.


So I have a renewed desire (once again) to start updating regularly because once again I have two very little kids, plus 4 not so little kids, and as much as I think these are moments I'll never forget, experience has taught me that absolutely everything happening will leave my mind in 2 years or less.

So Nora as a 2 year old... She can do a somersault. I think she'll probably be an olympic gymnast by the time she's 12. Alright probably not, but none of my other kids possessed this skill on their own. I don't know where she learned it, but she will say, "Flip!" and proceed to flip herself over.  She's learning new words every day and it's absolutely adorable to hear new words come out of her mouth. One of her favorite things is for me to hold her, and hug Aaron, so she's sandwiched between us. She'll put one arm around his neck and one arm around mind and smush all together. It's every bit as cheesy and adorable as it sounds.

She's also still obsessed with letters. She can name almost all of them now and her all time favorite thing is to play on Starfall. Again, I'm certain not only will she be winning gold medals for gymnastics, she'll also be the smartest child ever and win some prestigious award. (I hope anyone who reads this knows I'm joking. I'm not really this obnoxious about my kids... am I?)

She has started to be nice to Matthew again. She cries when he leaves for his visits and is absolutely delighted when he gets back. "Machu! Machu!"

We moved her and Eliza to bunk beds and the transition is going okay. Last night apparently they both made their way to the big girls room and Nora climbed up into Abigail's bed and Eliza slept on the floor next to Olivia. But most of the time they stay in their bed pretty well.

I wish I had a funny story to end on but apparently it takes less than 2 years to wipe my memory, probably closer to 2 minutes. This really was easier to update when I only had 2 kids.