Compulsions or just plain cute

Ella has started doing some things that at first I thought were cute, but now am beginning to wonder why they are still sticking around.

I'll try to explain through the above pictures.

Picture #1 is of aforementioned-aspiring-Cosmo-covergirl modeling what she simply likes to call "The layered look". Look closely and you'll see THREE sweaters on her little bod over a t-shirt. The first sweater is too small, but has a hood. It is a thick pink overlapping outdoor type thing that someone gave us as a hand me down about two years ago. She wears about a 3T -4T and this sweater is 24 months. She loves it. (Note: Ella LOVES hoods and prefers that all items she wears on her upper body have a hood.) Over sweater number 1, she pulls on a close fitting zip-up sweater shirt with a hood. It is her size, but is meant to go over a t-shirt at most. The arms from the thick pink sweater are now shoved up above her elbows, but that doesn't stop her! Then, to complete the look, she pulls on a white sweater with buttons which she doesn't bother to close due to the sheer complexity of a task like that at her age. I tried to convince her that her Michelin Tire Man look wasn't really the hottest thing, but she refused to listen - convinced that she was totally stylin'!

Picture #2 is an example of her OBSESSION with little plastic baggies. If she could put everything in her life into a baggie, she would. Saturday morning I found her trying to shove a medium-sized board book into a baggie half it's size. She kept asking me to help her. I kept telling her that it was an impossible feat. She didn't understand why her bathtub book (foldable and squishy) would fit, but this book wouldn't. I showed her that she had folded her bathtub book and that is why it fit. Good golly, you'd think I'd shown her a whole batch of homemade cookies out of the oven. She was that excited. Of course I didn't expect her to fold all soft books near her and try to shove all of them into baggies. This would make every librarian cringe, but I tried to roll with it. She also has an OBSESSION with socks. Sometimes she layers them on, more often she just insists that the socks on her feet are bright or that she is carrying at least a few pair of extras with her at all times.

Now you tell me. Weird or cute? C'mon...look at that face. I'll pay for the psychologist later and just milk this stage for all it's worth!