Today we made no-bake cookies, and apple dumplings, and Eleanor was busy busy busy as always, putting herself in charge and involving herself in every little detail of the processes. She kept asking me 'What are we making again?' and 'I want to mix it, I want to mix it!' and 'Can I mix this now?' We made the no-bake cookies first, then started on the apple dumplings. We were making the pastry, and were at the stage where one rubs the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles porridge oats. Well, Eleanor had seen this stage of pastry making before, because last Friday I had taught a cooking class to the Dyson girls on how to make pastry, and Eleanor had attended and participated in that class, although of course she had not been invited to attend - or participate, for that matter. So, as soon as she saw me cutting the butter into small pieces and let them fall into the flour, she knew immediately what came next, so she started insisting 'I want to do it, I want to do it'. So, I let her start rubbing the butter pieces into the flour, and then a few seconds later started to do it with her. She found that four hands in the bowl was a bit crowded, and she said to me in an impatient voice, 'Mom, you're in my way.' I've never had a two year old tell me I was in their way, especially when the two year old is the one who is supposed to be helping, not the other way around!

More crazy two-year-old antics from our beloved Eleanor. Last week when we went grocery shopping she would run identify something in the store which she wanted, and then run down the aisles announcing: 'Mom, mom, I've got a plan.' Then, yesterday, when we had to go to the store again, we went to the checkout and there she kept laying on the store floor doing snow angels. I would pick her up to get her to stop, set her down, and then five seconds later she would get back in the exact same position. Today she got her picture taken with Imogen, Samuel, Georigana and Verity. They were taking school pictures, and the school allows non-school age children to have their picture taken with their school-age siblings. Of course it was impossible to get her dressed this morning. She wanted to wear all the wrong things for getting one's picture taken, and wouldn't let us change her into something more suitable. Plus she put a really stupid hair elastic in, with long ribbons coming off of it. I finally got her to change right before we got into the car, but only because she had spilled her breakfast on her initial outfit.

Eleanor the two-year-old - nearly everything you would associate with a two-year-old, is what Eleanor is at present. She's sweet, helpful, cheerful, loving, obstinate, insistent, impatient, messy, busy, demanding, all-consuming. She loves sweets, chocolate, marshmallows - anything that's a 'treat' - which can cause problems when Mom has to say 'no'. She loves the television, which causes problems when Mom has to say 'no'. She also loves to be around me - Mom - so if I'm doing something she's not interested in, she won't leave me alone, but rather she'll come and find me and make a nuisance of herself so that it becomes nearly impossible to do the thing I was doing. She doesn't like to sleep; bedtimes are difficult, in that I have to stay with her in a dark room until she falls asleep. Naptimes are difficult, too. Just today I was trying to get her to go down in my room while I did some academic research in there at the same time. She kept whispering and then jumping out of bed, running to her room to get her dollies, then bringing them into our room, then whispering again, and then take the dollies somewhere else, then coming back to bed, whispering, then jumping out of bed, etc. All this went on for about an hour. She never slept, and this is after getting up at 6:30 this morning!

Today we made peanut butter cookies. Eleanor LOVES to make cookies, and insists on helping whenever we do. Today she turned the beaters on before they were in the bowl which had the ingredients, and slowly started to lower them into the bowl, full speed ahead! I stopped to her and tried to explain what a mess it makes if we put the beaters into the bowl after we turn them on! Then, after the dough was made, I started making little balls with the dough and coating them in sugar. She got very excited and informed me: 'This is a Mommy job, and a Nelly job.' One picture here is of Eleanor helping me make balls of dough today - our Mommy job and Nelly job. Another is of her in our back yard in September, and the third is of her as a loving and responsible older sister to Verity.