We’ve been having some bad days with Eleanor for the last week or so. I assume her chronic crankiness is due to the two teeth that are working their way out of her bottom row of gums. Yesterday, however, was an unusually good day.
She woke up early but in a very good mood. We had breakfast and got ready to go out to the park. On our way out of the house we had a very short attack of the piercing screams, but cured that with a quick time out, which Eleanor emerged from with a surprisingly pleasant attitude.
We got to the park where we chatted with some other moms and followed around a 22 month-old boy. Although Eleanor seemed enchanted by him and wanted to point out all of his body parts to him, “eye, eyebrow, cheek, chin, arm, toes,” she was very gentle when she did so. He seemed pretty amused by her antics. His mom was nice enough to share some of his grapes with us and Eleanor even said “thank you.”
After the park we headed home. We had some lunch, read some stories, and Eleanor went down for a nap without much complaint.
The best part of the day was when she woke up two hours later. She was extremely cheerful and playful. She wanted me to sing, dance, and spin with her. After some serious spinning I had to sit on the ground from the dizziness. While I was sitting there Eleanor walked up behind me, put her arms around my neck and said “I love you!” then kissed me on the cheek! Then she walked around and kissed me right on the lips. It was the sweetest thing ever!
She has been saying “I love you” for a couple months now, but it is very rarely unprompted. She usually just returns an “I love you.” Or spontaneously announces “I love Daddy” or “I love Mama.” And she’s not a generally affectionate girl. Although she loves receiving them, she doesn’t give out hugs and kisses very often. I think that this was the first clearly affectionate spontaneous “I love you” that she has given me and it was better than a big bowl of ice cream. It almost made me cry and I had to immediately call Josh and tell him what had happened. What a sweet girl we have!
Later in the evening after dinner Josh was sitting on the couch with Eleanor when she decided that she wanted to play her favorite game, make Mommy or Daddy pretend to sleep. She set up a pillow at the end of the couch and then proceeded to shove Josh’s head in the direction of the pillow while saying, “Daddy seeping, Daddy pillow, Do eeet!, Do eeet!” She is becoming just a tad bit bossy! It was hilarious!
After that fun game, we headed to bed. She did get a little cranky, but no worse than her usual bedtime resistant cranks.
It was such a refreshingly great day with our sweet and funny little girl! It’s days like this that make me feel like we are actually getting this whole parenting thing right.
