A Tidy Pachyderm

One of the things that is most notable about Ellie is that she seems to be inherently tidy.  We're a little flummoxed as to where she got this -- we think that it might be a recessive trait, and it does appear that there are people who have it in both our families, so that's a reasonable hypothesis.  It's not that she always puts her toys away or anything, but she seems to have some sort of innate sense of order, and a desire that things be in the right places.

Not, sadly, an overwhelming desire to put things in the right places, but a desire for other people to fall in with her sense of what is right.

Sometimes, though, the people around her are unresponsive, and she does have to take things into her own hands.  This happened Saturday.  After playing for quite some time that she was swimming in the living room in her new swimsuit (which she adores), she decided that she was done with that game, and so she asked me to put her away.

I was confused.  I mean, I assumed that she didn't want a lengthy jail sentence (though you never know, with Ellies), and I couldn't think what else she would mean.*

She got tired of explaining it to me over and over at increasingly high volumes, and so decided to do it herself.

Margaret also helped, as she has an interest in Ellie being put away.

*Leo and I do occasionally refer to putting the children to bed as putting them away, but rarely in their hearing, and Ellie is not known these days for begging to take a nap.