Eleanor at 3.3

I always envisioned having a little girl who loved fancy dresses and pretending to be a princess. I did not realize however, that that vision would include walking into her room at 9:30 at night (a full hour and a half after bedtime) to find her sitting regally in bed, wearing a crown and a princess button, holding a scepter. Her proclaiming, "I princess!" was just icing on the cake. I guess it was no surprise that she wanted to dress up as Queen Elsa for Halloween then!







Nora got a glowing wand for Halloween, and shes decided that she is a fairy who can do magic with it (shes been watching Cinderella a bit lately). So she will wave her wand and say her magic words, "Magic, Magic, Boo!" And then tell me that now I am a princess (she will specify which one). Then she will wave her wand again and say that now I am a different princess. Sometimes she will even turn me into an animal like a toad. Its pretty cute!

Nora lately insists that the only songs I am allowed to sing, are from the movie "Frozen." If I try to sing any other song, like one from moana, or just another song I know, her response is, "No mom, no!" I'm so offended! I tell her that I am allowed to sing whatever I like, and she just shouts 'no' louder. I seem to remember doing that to my own mom. Its my just desserts! 

Nora is not the most friendly to strangers, and when people we don't know come up her her, she usually hides her face and stays silent. This is true even with other kids (at least right at first. She usually warms up fast to kids - especially little girls). Thats why I was so surprised when I took the kids to the park with their scooters, and while we were there, this little girl came up that had the exact same scooter as Nora. The following interaction happened, and I wanted to die from the cuteness:
Other girl: "Hi! I like your scooter!"
Nora: "Yes!"
OG: "What is your name?"
N: "I Nowa!"
OG: "Hi Nowa, I'm Ella! Want to ride scooters with me?"
N: "Yes!"
And off they went and played for a solid half hour. That is the first time I've ever heard Nora introduce herself to anyone, though for someone who can't talk all that well, she is very social and does seem to make friends easily enough (once she gets past that initial introductory period). Super cute though!

We went on a hike to Franklin Falls today. It was nearly a 2.5 mile round trip hike, and Nora made it 90% there without being carried and all the way back without being carried (in fact, she ran most of the way back, as she wanted to be "trail leader" - a position she and Will fought over most of the way back. I was pretty impressed with her stamina. Will at that age (heck just last year) couldn't make it to the end of the block without complaining!

Nora has always taken her sweet time completing each milestone, and I have always tried my best to be patient. But I was starting to get a tad worried that at 3, she couldn't count at all. At her age, Will could count to 100 (of course I know that he was more advanced than most, but other kids her age could at least count to 10!)! So the past few months I have been using numbers as much as possible with her, and sneaking in lessons whenever I could. Will has been helping inadvertently too as hes become obsessed with counting to really high numbers like 500 or 600 and will just spend an hour counting out loud sometimes. So with all of that, she is suddenly getting good at counting! I don't know if she just had a mental leap and was able to make the connections herself, or if all of our lessons helped, but whatever the case, she can now count to 16 reliably. Wahoo!