26 months

Our sweet girl is now 26 months and has really started to communicate with us in fun and exciting ways.  I have been trying to prepare her for the arrival of her baby brother, but I think it will not be real to her until the little boy is here in our home and is not leaving.  One thing she does understand is that my belly is large and brother is in there.  However, brother is sometimes also in her belly too.  I am really looking forward to the interactions and adventures these two will have together!  The little boy has only one week left until due date, but the time seems to be going so slowly.  Change is hard to wait for.  I am much better just busting through the change rather than preparing for it.  On another note: here are a few Jayeisms that I wanted to document!

Grammie Crackers
The other day Jayelle tried her first graham cracker (these are not sold in Scotland), and I told her what they were called and said do you like them?  And she said "Grammie likes them too!" It just melted my heart and my mom's when she heard this.  Gotta love Grammie Crackers! 

Funny Daddy
Dave was being silly the other day during our meal time and Jayelle looked up at him and said "Dad so funny."  This was the first time she had said funny, and what a perfect person to think as funny.  Dave is so wonderful with Jayelle, and she just has a blast with him.  It is great how she is starting to recognize emotions and especially humor too!

Ice Cream and Kindness
We went to the Edinburgh Festival a couple weeks ago, just to have a very quick look around.  While we were browsing the vendors, Jayelle started yelling "No E-Elle's eyepeace (ice cream)!" Come to find out there was a small girl eating an ice cream cone near by that was apparently being claimed by my daughter. Jayelle loves ice cream. Dave and I have been trying to help Jayelle learn kindness and sharing, and this was one of our teachable moments.  We explained that her tone of voice was not a way to meet friends and that the ice cream belonged to the little girl.  Each developmental stage is a learning oppertunity to honor God, and just as Jayelle is making progress in kindness and sharing, I am also being reminded of how I need to be more kind and compassionate to others.  We sometimes catch Jaye roleplaying kindness with her stuffed animal toys.  She will have one animal hit the other, and she will say "Hey be kind."  I can tell our chats about kindness are starting to rub off.  We have also been trying to memorize a passage of scripture that outlines kindness (Eph 4:32). Jayelle will repeat most of the words back to me.  I decided that if she can memorize songs, why not important things like God's Word, not to mention it has brought me back into the practice of memorizing scripture again (something I really love to do, but have fallen away from sadly.) 

He's Got the Whole World.
Jayelle loves music and dancing. Jayelle's favorite song right now is "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands."  It has relevance to her as I made up some hand motions for her and we dance to it and it helped that not too long ago we sang it in church after the children's message.  Tonight after dinner Jaye asked me to "Dance," meaning she wanted to turn on the music to dance.  I asked her what song she wanted to listen to and she said "World." After agreeing to her question, I said "Jayelle who has got the whole world in his hands?"  And she said "God."  I have to admit, I was suprised that she: (1) could understand my question; and then (2), I was even more suprised that she could answer it correctly.  (The song doesn't say the name of God once.)  It was special to see her begin to understand God, and I know God is so pleased that she loves to sing and dance to this sweet little song that reminds us of his greatness.