Play Wit' Me Grammie

I spend four days a week taking care of four of my grandchildren. My days are fairly quiet with the two older ones at school all day. A lot of my time is spent holding, feeding, changing the almost 3-month old Quinn. Elly gets restless waiting for me to have time for her and is always saying "play wit' me Grammie". It's a request that has to be taken seriously because if left to her own devices she is drawn like a magnet to markers, pens, paints, pencil crayons...anything that will make a mark on something - walls, paper, furniture, skin...you name it. I've brought crayons and coloring books for her, paints and painting books. Her mother bought her a ream of computer paper, more markers, smelly markers, kids paint. Elly loves drawing and does it quite well for an almost 3-year old. When I was at the grocery store yesterday I saw something that would be a nice change for Elly...little shortbread cookies, and icing tubes. This was our project for today.

She had her hallowe'en costume on before we started so I told her to get a shirt on instead so we wouldn't get her fancy costume dirty. No problem...she went up to her bedroom and came down with a shirt in her favorite color...purple. I offered to help her put it on but got her standard response "Me do it." So don't mind that it's backwards.

I showed her how to put the frosting on first and then the colors. She tolerated my help at first but pretty quick I was hearing "Me do it."

She worked very seriously on her projects.

The blue one that looks vaguely like a face is, in fact, "Mommy - she gots blue eyes".

When we were finished she ate only one cookie - with lots of frosting. And there was none on the furniture, walls, or clothes.