Expressly Elise

At the zoo with a friend!

One of my favorite expression to cross Elise's face is of complete involvement. To anyone else, it might be seen as merely neutral; however, this look is anything but. To me, it means she's engrossed and absorbed by the exciting activity of the moment--it's the only thing she wants to be doing right now. Yet she's patient--if the task includes gathering supplies and other preparation, she'll happily pitch in. To exclude her for any reason after she's mentally on board would be cruel, eliciting shrieks of injustice that could probably be heard next door. It's the expectation of participation, which seems to be Elise's life philosophy.

In fact, there's little Elise won't do (as long as it's not scary, like walking across a sewer grate, or a boring chore, like cleaning up her room). She joyfully insists on helping me scrub the bathrooms ("help"), stain stick laundry or rake leaves. There's no keeping her away from the kitchen while I make dinner, and she's always more than willing to pick people up from the airport, in her own purple car that she must drive in her dreams. Passive observer she is not.

And there's no getting past her, either, whether I'm sneakily trying (and failing) to make waffles all by myself for dinner after a long day (because sometimes you just don't want "help"), or have a chocolate. Elise takes notice, and then takes part.

Sometimes I try to talk her out of it. "You can't do the stain spray because it has chemicals in it that could hurt you." I inform the girl. "I will be super careful!" she counters (and I know it's actually true). "But sometimes we all have accidents," I reply. "I promise," she returns. She always knows all the right things to say, and I do think my refusal would come back to haunt me when I'm begging for my kids' help as teenagers, so we end up with an awkward arrangement in which I carefully set her up with the spray pointed away from her face (she gets it wrong every time on her own), and hyper-vigilantly let her help treat a few grape jam spots.

And there's nothing she considers beneath or beyond her, either.
Kalina, when Daddy and Grandpa are working to fix my tire (that has a rock embedded in it): Good thing there are boys! And good thing there are girls.
Me: Girls can change tires too, you know. Would you ever like to learn how to change a tire?
Kalina: No. (Girl after my own heart.)
Elise, smiling enthusiastically: I will! I will change a tire!
This goes for pretty much anything, up to and including being turned into a gopher (we have a thing about gophers these days, for no apparent reason) or exploring a sewer (we've always had a thing about sewers--when will it stop?!?), or learning to tie her shoes (which she hasn't, nor could she yet, but she's more than willing to give it a shot).

Today, we're all about glue sticks and holding pet mice--but what about tomorrow? I only hope Elise's enthusiasm extends to everything good and useful and nothing like cliff diving or lion taming. Fortunately, even then I'll have a trick up my sleeve. If I tell her she's required to go swimming with sharks, chances are, she'll stop before she even started.