It has been soo long since my last post, impossible for me to fill in all of the gaps. Dahlia is now 2.5 years old. It occurred to me today that she will soon be three and it totally floored me. I've been really noticing her growing and changing, but in so many ways in my mind, she is still my baby. When I hold her and her legs dangle over mine, I think, "my gosh, wasn't she just barely the length of my lap?" It's funny how change occurs so.

Dahlia has been waking up/stirring shortly after going to sleep, almost still asleep but crying. Usually, Brad heads in to sooth her, but tonight I did and she cried for me for awhile even though I was rght next to her, rubbing her belly and stroking her cheek. She finally settled into playing with a lock of my hair and drifted back off into a deep sleep. It left me wondering what is going on with her? The only thing I could come up with is that this emoting may be the result of the need to discharge intense emotional experiences throughout the day...many occur, especially between her and Elias, but also between the two of us, too. Like, because I do still hold such a baby view of her, she gets frustrated with me because am often trying to do things for her without her approval, like breaking her muffin in half (mostly because I know she will invariably drop it) rather than letting her eat it as she wishes. We often have conflicts because she is hard to motivate. Anyway, I guess I have to start taking time to move away more and allow her to hold her own reigns around certain things.

Since Elias returned to school, Dahlia has started to blossom in directing her own play. For a long time, it seemed impossible to pin down her own interests, but now that she is out from under that which she adores, she has suddenly taken a striking interest in pretend play. It is fun to do...Elias was not into pretending very much, but Dahlia really goes for it! Elias is into make-believe, taking a found object and describing it as something else, like a mars rover from a series of things linked together, like a light socket with chain, a karabeener and a beaded chain. Dahlia pretend feeds her babies and makes a variety of pretend teas and pretend talks on the phone. Her pretend seems more around the act of doing something while Elias is about a more concrete object and what it can do. Maybe. I'll have to noodle on this a bit more, but I think that's right. At any rate, I am excited to see Dahlia become a little more of herself without Elias, not that she doesn't hold her own with him. She does.