Ella and her baby

One night several weeks ago, I could not get Ella to put her baby down for dinner...so she ate like this, holding the baby. She is certainly a good little "mother" to her babies. This one in the picture is her favorite, but she has several of them and she carries them around, hugs and kisses them, rocks them, pats their back, puts them to sleep in her baby crib and pushes them in a baby stroller. I've given her a few pacifiers and a bottle to play with and she puts that in the baby's mouth, pretends to feed the baby food, and even takes out wipes and wipes the baby's face. I am sure she's learned all this from daycare, there's a baby there several months younger (she's probably 7 months old now?)...Lila. Denise (our daycare provider) always tells us about Ella "helping" with Lila. She puts the paci in Lila's mouth, takes it away, takes her bottle away, pushes her swing, etc. Even this morning, when I dropped the kids off at daycare, Ella zipped up the stairs, couldn't care less that I was leaving, and started looking around for Lila right away. She wasn't there yet. IF (and that's a big if) we ever have another child, I'm sure Ella will be thrilled to help...if not super jealous!