playmates

Recently Ansel has been taking advantage of the fact that he has a big sister. For pretty much his whole life up to now he has not let Isabel "help" him and has been very suspicious of her playing with him. (Sometimes he did have good reason.) We have been working with Ansel on not screaming and hitting when he wants something, but asking nicely and controlling his feelings. I don't know how much can be attributed to boy/girl differences or just that my kids personalities/temperaments are different....but Ansel threw fits much earlier and more often than Isabel did. I almost cried the other day when Ansel said he was ready to play nice and got off his "time out chair" and told Isabel "my turn, please."

Lately, they have just been playing together so nicely. Which makes me even more excited for Lincoln to be born in about a month! Last night I was doing dishes and cleaning up the kitchen while Joseph was at a meeting and the kids kept lining up in front of the counter and waiting for me to say, "ready, set, go." We did this so many times and they would run out to the living room and jump into the bean bag chair. Isabel still loves animals and so she got a pet and fashioned a leash out of a belt (which she commonly does) and I heard her asking Ansel if he wanted a pet too. He did and so they both took their pets for walks as they continued the racing game. It was just so great to see them playing together and having so much fun!