Those Little Moments

Something I've been wanting to document about Elise is her love for a particular teddy bear. We just call him Teddy and up until the last few weeks he was nothing special. He was in Carter's stuffed animal basket somewhere and didn't find his way out very often. The poor teddy is a little beat up, I think mostly just because he wasn't very well made. He was a promotional gift given to my grandma for buying something but I can't remember what it was. He originally came with a ribbon around his neck promoting whatever business it was who gave it to my grandma. She took the ribbon off and gave it to Carter after he was born. It was really sweet and I loved that she thought of Carter and gave it to him. It was just never one that Carter became attached to and I forgot about it. Then one day when we were cleaning Carter's room, Elise found him and it was love. She would carry Teddy around the house saying, "Teddy, my teddy" or "Baby, my baby." I would catch her giving him hugs and kissing him on the top of his head. It was beyond sweet. Every time I see Teddy it makes me think of my grandma and that Christmas when she came to visit and brought Carter the teddy. It was the last Christmas we had with her and I think of it every time I see that Teddy. It is amazing to me how much joy it has brought me to see Elise love such a shaggy looking Teddy, but it is the perfect toy for her to become attached to. In some weird way it feels to me like she's showing affection to my grandma and understands how special she was. I didn't realize how much I needed a special reminder of my grandma in my life until Elise brought one out. I am very thankful for that!

Elise sharing her bagel with Teddy.

Another sweet story I have to share is also about Elise. My aunt and uncle send each of the kids a cookie in the mail for each holiday. Carter absolutely loves it and gets so excited each time we come home to find a striped package in our mailbox which he knows means there's a cookie inside. Today we came home to a Valentine's Day cookie for each of the kids in the mailbox. Carter and Elise were both jumping around in excitement and couldn't wait to eat their cookies. As I was throwing the packaging away I heard Carter scream, "NO!" and turned to find his cookie on the floor. He had taken a bite of it and accidentally dropped the rest of it on the floor. I ran over right as Harper picked it up in her mouth. I pried it out of her mouth and rinsed it off but it was all soggy from getting wet. Carter sat in his chair and cried so hard with big tears streaming down his face. I tried to come up with a solution, like eating an Oreo that Gma and Gpa had brought us this past weekend or scraping the icing off and putting it on a graham cracker, but nothing could substitute for his special owl heart cookie. Elise sat listening the entire time. Then she took one last bite of her cookie and handed it to Carter. The sweetness of the gesture melted my heart and Carter was so happy. I told him he needed to share Elise's cookie, not take the whole thing so I broke it in half and had him give half of it back to her. The pure joy and excitement that lit up her face when she realized she could share her cookie with Carter but also get to eat some herself was just too much. I couldn't believe she had been willing to give her cookie to him if she had genuinely wanted to eat it herself so badly. Now that is the sweetest sister in the whole world! Their love for each other is so beautiful.

The kids super excited about their cookies before Carter dropped his.