Me too!

Me too! I'll help!
Like magic, Daddy can mix
two loaves of bread without
even giving his hands dirty.

Poor Elise. The lost, ignored, neglected second child. The mere shadow of her big sister. Not so! The "me too" epidemic has set in: Elise will be included in everything Kalina does, or explode in her enthusiastic endeavors to do so. It's really cute.

"We went fishing the other day," I'll mention to a friend. "Me too!!!" insists Elise. Holding up one figure, she tells us that she touched the fish, and then cries a little and points out the door to let us know that Daddy was along too, but has since disappeared (assuming Daddy's at work at the time).

 Kalina's kittens are packing a suitcase to go on vacation. "Me too!!!" insists Elise, barreling over to me. Don't worry, Sweetie, we won't leave you behind when we take our family trip!

Other times, when we happen to be talking about trikes or painting or playgrounds, Elise will drop everything to come charging into the room and let us know, through various exclamations and vigorous pats on her own tummy, that she has been/will be participating.

Me too! I want to sit on a frog, too!

Sometimes, we see this simply in the form of copycatting. Kalina is twirling around the room with a stuffed animal on her head, and Elise dives for her stuffed bear to do the same. Kalina is coloring with markers, so Elise grabs her own piece of paper, and expertly uncaps a marker to join in. Or less desirable, Kalina is patiently and effectively teaching Elise to climb up the stairs on the wrong side of the railing, so Elise readily learns, much to Mommy's dismay, which probably sounded too much like this: "Oops. Kalina, wow, what a great job of teaching you did! Um, Elise probably shouldn't do that, it's really not safe. Let's all go play with blocks."

Kalina brave enough to ride
her coveted puffin, which
goes up and down!

Kalina more often than not seems proud of her mini-entourage, and is happy to include Elise among Lamby and Dolphin and the farm animals. Or at other times, she's blessedly oblivious. They've worked out an arrangement, it seems, in that Kalina is willing to play with Elise, as long as they do mostly what Kalina wants to and Elise follows orders. Elise seems willing to follow orders as long as she can be included in her big sister's amazing adventures (usually involving kittens, and sometimes flying). 

Me too! I'll ride the carousel!

I know that this means Elise is getting more independent and more aware of her world all the time. And, in fact, maybe I can use this to my advantage when it comes to potty training. But it does get difficult to continually break the news to Elise that she won't be going to preschool for at least another year (and besides, she'd still freak out when I left), she hasn't yet developed her sister's skill and self control that would enable her to open all the pots of paint at the same time, and she definitely may not be allowed to run loose in the grocery store yet, no matter how much she promises she'll walk nicely and helpfully like Kalina does.

Fortunately, Kalina understands at greater than her 3 1/2-year-old level, when she's well-rested, at least, that some activities are for doing during Elise's naptime, only. She's happy to help me distract Elise ("Bubbles! Goose! Duck!" she calls out--three of the littler girl's favorite things), and patiently endures the recent development of the tantrum.

Still wearing the Easter hat.
We're always the talk of the
playground in this one.

And Elise's skills and intellect are advanced enough that she really can keep up with Kalina, as long as they're not holding a footrace or an oratory competition. Now if I could only keep up with the two of them!