As I've told you before, Ella is quite enamored with our neighbor, Arlo, and every time we drive by his house or play in the yard, she points and calls his name. Sometimes I tell her "Arlo is sleeping" or "Arlo is at school" because, honestly, no matter what time of day or night it is, she knows what those things are and it makes her stop. Other times, like when I want her to get in the car at daycare or to get her to leave somewhere fun, I will use the Arlo bribe, telling her that if she does x (whatever x may be) we can go and see Arlo. By the time we get home the Arlo bribe is usually forgotten and we can move on to the next obsession (swinging "big" in the swing, "driving" the car, etc.) but sometimes the thought of Arlo is still fresh in her mind and I am obliged to keep my Arlo promise. So, we trapse over to Arlo and Violet's house unannounced (ya know- cause we're BFF's) and interrupt whatever nap time/meal time/playtime situation they have just recently begun and settled into.
We joke about Ella's obsession with Arlo (his father suggested she needs a signed poster of him above her bed), but I think that when she says "Arlo" she is actually talking about both Arlo and Violet. I realized this when the girls were sitting on the lawn mower together and Ella patted Violet's back and said, "Arlo." Unfortunately, "Violet" is just too much for her little brain and mouth to figure out right now. So, Arlo it is.
The funniest part about it is that these two girls who can't wait to see each other don't actually spend any time playing together. Andrea says that Violet is forever pointing towards our yard and yelling, "Hi! Hi! House," but as soon as the excitement of seeing each other wears off, they go running in opposite directions. The only time they interact is when Ella tries to bully Violet into giving up whatever toy she has, or Violet decides to sit in the wagon seat that Ella has decided was hers. Andrea and I spent a solid twenty minutes giving each of them a turn in the swing while the other one fussed from the ground, yelling "wee! wee!." When they are together I spend a lot of time trying to get Ella to understand sharing and being nice, but I wonder if she is too young to be a good friend or a good hostess.
Despite all of this, there is apparently one thing that can bring these girls together and that is a good old-fashioned bounce house. We brought the whole crew to the Bethany Harvest Festival last week and set them free amongst the cotton candy stands, hay mazes, and mechanical bulls (seriously). Violet found the bounce house first and fearlessly dived right in to the sea of eight-year-old giants. Ella was a little more timid, but once she saw her gf in there, she couldn't pass it up. They were having so much fun playing in there- no fighting, no pushing, no whining- that I had to go in and drag them out. I guess every friendship needs some sort of anchor, some common ground, and in this case that ground is all squishy and filled with air.
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