Completely Competent

I'm not sure how it happened (probably time, but let's not dwell on that to much, tempus edax and all that), but Ellie has turned into a well-organized and independent young woman child toddler.  I'm comfortable with toddler.  Anyway, when I take her to school in the morning, she gets out of the car, grabs her bag full of clean diapers and breakfast, tries to run across the parking lot (we've entered that stage, and I am not a fan, but more on that another day), tromps into school, waves genially at all the young men clustered around the door, says "'cuse 'e" to anyone in her way (I'm just going to assume that she's also learning Italian somewhere), and goes to the elevator.

Frequently, she requests that she be allowed to "push butts," which -- before any grandparents worry about what that might mean -- is merely how she says "push buttons."

She's got it all together.  Let's hope we can keep up.