Sisters and Friends

Lizzie and Sadie have started playing together all the time. It's just adorable, and I am so happy that they enjoy one another's company so much. I just pray that they will continue to get along so well as they get older.

Wherever Lizzie goes, Sadie goes scooting along after her. Lizzie will often bring toys to Sadie, or coax her to follow her for a game. The most common game is what Lizzie calls hide-and-seek. It consists of Lizzie crawling behind a chair or table or corner and calling, "Come here, Baby! Come on, Baby Sadie!" until Sadie scoots over to her, and then she moves and does it again. She especially loves to play under the table this way, leading Sadie under chairs and over table supports in a kind of infant obstacle course. She will also often run into the other room where her cardboard box is and call Sadie to follow her in there, and then they will play in the box together. Lizzie will also lead her down the hallway to her own room and then announce, "Baby Sadie play with 'Izzie now!" and shut the door on anyone else who tries to come in. We listen on the monitor and check on them occasionally; Lizzie has taught Sadie to spin the wheels on the folded-up double stroller and to push the buttons on her Retro Rocket to make rocket sounds.

Lizzie is doing a good job at learning to keep all her toys with small parts off of the floor, and instead take them onto the bed or on the small table next to her armoire. The only difficulty, really, is when Sadie occasionally decides she wants to scoot off to do something else. I'm working on teaching Lizzie that she cannot force her to play, she can only invite her, but sometimes she still tries to drag her little sister off to have fun.

One more photo: Lizzie doing pattern blocks. She did this much on her own. She can match the shapes to the pattern and turn them so they line up just right, but she hasn't got the attention span to finish a whole pattern. Same thing with Candyland; she loves it and asks to play almost every day, but we usually don't quite make it to the Candy Castle before she gets distracted and the gingerbread men go skipping off across the board holding hands to eat peppermint sticks and peanut brittle.