Let's Get Reacquainted! Part II: Holly

This is Holly. She is 2 years old.

She is a Daddy's girl! While Atley comes to me in the morning, Holly always goes to Ian. She will not go down the stairs in the morning, unless Daddy lets her ride on his back. When the door opens for Ian to come home from school she is the first person (even before me!) to jump up and run to give him a hug and kiss. I love it when Ian in disbelief says "She really likes me!" He is perplexed why this little girl is so attached and in love. But, isn't every little girl's first love their Daddy?

She is very good at pretending...too good. She refuses to use a baby doll and instead uses the most random things as her baby. The weirdest by far has been her underwear. Yes, her underwear. She will take them out of the drawer one by one and talk to them. It helps that they have princesses all over them. Here's a great example of her random toys as people. She's using a bead, baby powder, hand sanitizer, a play ketchup bottle, a dinosaur, and a rubber ducky. I'm not quite clear on the story line here, but when I asked her later she told me the hand sanitizer was the Mommy and the powder was the Daddy.

She also loves to play dress up. She'll ask me to put a ridiculous amount of bows in her hair and then tells me she is Repunzel. Then she has a blue dress and whenever she wears that dress, she is Belle. Here she is dressed up as a butterfly. Also, check out that crazy long hair! It's a recent development.

Holly loves to have her nails painted, but I'm finding that I should probably only paint her toes. She uses her fingers for undesirable purposes and I quickly find that the polish on her fingers has been sucked off her thumb, or deposited on a booger in her nose. This was our exchange the other day when I told her picking her nose (and even worse eating it!) is disgusting.

Holly is sensitive. With even a small reproach, even teasing, she breaks into tears. We've found that we have to be very careful how we talk to her. Once she took a piece of bread from the dinner table. It was her bread but Ian was teasing her about taking it. She slowly put it back with a frowny face and then started to cry. It took us at least 3 weeks of very positive reinforcement to get her to help herself again.

We love Holly and are so glad she is part of our family. It is amazing to me to see the different personalities that my children have. Their differences strengthen my testimony of divine nature. They came to us from living with their Heavenly Father. They have spirits that are so unique. I love discovering what makes them unique and feel blessed that I get to see these changes in them from day to day.