Growing Up Too Fast

I am sure you will find the number of photos posted that highlight Holly's cute little Pony tales to be excessive, but they are just so darn cute i could not help myself.This is a top I just recently purchased for her and the stripes have a sparkly silver glitter in them that's hard to see in the photo. I had these little silver hair ties that Holly found int he bathroom.They inspired me so I put her hair into two little pony tales. She wasn't thrilled about it, she took them out several times, so I had to distract her with my purse.We were on our way out to run errands, so I am not sure why I was so inspired to dress her up so cute, but when I did, she took my breath away. She looked so grown up.It is interesting how her face brightens up when her hair is pulled back off of her face. I love the regular pixie look, but this is something new that makes her look so much older.Here she is with my credit card, a born shopper apparently a girl who knows what she wants, I think I am in a world of trouble when she does get older. This evidently is the object of her desire.We were at Costco and she was being so good, we had been there I would guess almost two hours already, and she even kept her hair up and didn't pull it out the whole time.We ate lots of yummy food and drink samples and all was good and content. Then on our way out we walked past this and she went berserk. Started clapping and signing open and more and reaching up.Wanting me to take her out of the cart. Since she had been so good, and I wasn't sure at the time what she was so excited about I unbuckled her and let her run around. She ran back down the isle we had just passed and found this Kitchen and started to play. In truth I had been looking for a play Kitchen on craigslist for months.Joel kept saying he would build one, incorporate it into the kitchen island, which would be a wonderful idea, but a lot of work, with no definite timeline on when he would build it.All the craigslist finds were not that great a discount from new, over an hour drive away and required a truck, as it was assembled and doesn't come apart easily.Well the Costco price of this kitchen was about 40 less then what it costs on the Step 2 website, and I wouldn't have to pay shipping, so I took the plunge, sent a picture to Joel and bought it for her.This was earlier in the week, so it wasn't until the weekend until Joel was able to assemble it. She spent all week climbing on the box drooling over it, and asking that we open it for her.I actually picked up three baskets of food, with Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner Items (43 piece set) for $19.99 she got these earlier in the week to appease her.On the day we put it together we gave her a basket full of food from the living room where she was shopping and let her run into the kitchen to put her food away. She loved the kitchen.Joel wanted to set it up in the real kitchen so she could imitate us, while Joel is cooking and cleaning she can play at her kitchen and do the same. It fit perfectly against the existing island.It was only a tad bit taller, and there is still plenty of room there, we can even use the shelf of the island as a make shift pantry that holds some of the play food. She loves her knew kitchen.That brings me to the next part of the post, the sophistication of Holly's play has really increased and developed. While she still empties and pulls out all the cabinets and drawers, she does other stuff too too that illustrate her understanding.For example, Kat is always putting dishes in the dishwasher. Holly loves to help but Kat likes to be efficient, one day she didn't click the dishwasher shut all the way and Holly opened it and started pulling out all the silverware.She was obsessed with the dishwasher, so I had to give her one of her own. I took the bottle washing rack, filled it with her plastic spoons and put it in her oven (she isn't interested int hat yet) and voila she has her own dishwasher. The next day Kat left several plastic spoons in her sink, and later went into the kitchen and found Holly "Did the Dishes" they were all put into her wrack and into the stove. That is an amazing level of imitation and imaginative play. She is really growing up.