Panty Time

Elisabeth has arrived at that wonderful "I can wear big girl panties any time I want" age and I LOVE it! I do, I love this walking, talking sassy pants age and her obsession with underwear makes it all the more enjoyable. She often sneaks into her sisters' room to paw through their drawer and select the underwear of the day. Sometimes I'll go to change her diaper and discover she's added a pair of panties or two since earlier in the day. It's always a surprise what's going on underneath her clothes! I cannot emphasize how much I love her chubby thighs.

And wouldn't you know that panties can double as a belt!

These past couple of months since the big girls went off to school and left us home alone all day have been some of the most memorable in my eight years of parenting. I'm used to little girls roaming under foot like a band of wild Indians. Now I'm left with one little panty-wearing warrior princess, and she's lonely. So we go for walks. We eat yogurt and watch Dora. We meet friends at the park and go grocery shopping, which is her all-time favorite due to the free bakery cookie and one penny horse ride. Elisabeth is the most verbal of my three toddlers and there isn't a day that goes by that I don't crack up laughing at some of the wild things she comes up with.

Elisabeth checks the sky each day before we pick the girls up in case it's raining; she will not leave home without her "gumbrella" if it's raining. She often strolls into a room and informs me that Katherine is being mean to her. "Katherine's at school, honey," I say. "No she's not. She's being mean." Well, how can you argue with that?

Like most children it's hard to recall, on demand, the best and the funniest of Elisabeth, but she's made an impression on my heart these past few weeks, enough so that I know I'll look back on the days when it was just the two of us and feel wistful.