Her special skill is in opening bags, undoing zippers and turning out boxes. You can not leave a purse, backpack, grocery bag, or really anything you want kept together within her reach. She loves to find out what’s inside and I think her favorite birthday treat was being encouraged to open boxes and spill the contents out.

Her laughter fills the house and more than the other girls she loves to sing. Her speech is still coming–shes working so hard on words that just aren’t quite there yet–but man she makes up for that with singing. She’ll bop around the house humming or singing snatches of songs from our Music Together classes. At times, she tries to use song to communicate with endearing results. Of course, after starting our preschool activities she loves to sing the ABC song and is starting to recognize some letters.

Stella’s tantrums are epic. The screams. The tears. The kicking of strong little legs. The spitting. The hitting. And the calm after the storm accompanied by her wonderful hugs complete with back pats from her little girl hands.

And the best times are when we’re walking and she slips her little girl hand into mine. I can feel her strength and her fragility in her soft, warm embrace. I can not believe that in two years she’s grown from a teeny-tiny infant smaller than my forearm to a solid child. she is her own person. Stronger in many ways than we give her credit for. I am blessed with her as a little daughter and I can not wait to see what the rest of her “terrible two’s” will bring.

It was a beautiful day for it. Sunshine, cool breeze, temperate weather. The time was right…after lunch so it was very quiet. The girls had a fantastic time. Elise and Stella both loved the swings. Elsie has been loving them, but this is a new development for Stella. Stella spent the entire time laughing her perfect baby laugh, laughing to the point where she gave herself the hiccups…which only made her laugh  louder.

After swings we went to the small child play area with a large sandy area that is partially shaded. There is a small climbing structure with a “Maia sized house” and slide. Maia loves the play structure and Stella and Elise enjoyed the sand, both giving a shovel a try. They then scooped sand and, wonder of wonders, put it into their small buckets and not into their mouths. Yay!

Then it was teeter-totter time. This teeter-totter is really a cantilever type beam with a spring in the middle, so it bounces as opposed to moving the kids up and down in the air. Better for little ones. Elise loves to pull herself up by the seats and make the whole thing bounce and once she realized she could sit on the seat and bounce big time I had a hard time convincing her to do anything else. At one point she even tried to throw her little leg over the saddle herself, but the seat is still a bit high for her.

Stella also enjoyed the bouncy teeter-totter, but not as much as she enjoyed the sand area and flirting with the other moms and grandmas. Stella was holding court with her bucket and shovel. She’d do peek-a-boo and then smile and look away and then laugh as the other women coo’d at her. She was just too cute, and we almost lost her to the grandma who just wanted to take her home.

There were tears all around when we had to head out. I’m thinking that’s a good thing, in a way, because all the girls had such a good time playing.