How to win friends and influence big kids to do what you want

I really don't know how Amelia does it, but whenever I take her to a park she immediately finds a child older than her and usually female to hang around with her and pretty much do whatever she wants. Apparently this ability of hers can even span language barriers. The pictures in this post are of Amelia and a little Muslim girl named Zena. That day her and Zena played with sticks, pretended they were flies caught in a web, played kick ball and generally chased each other around for about an hour. The interesting thing I noticed was that while Zena speaks very limited English, Amelia was able to get Zena to help her up onto swings, slide down slides with her, and hold her hand as she jumped down from some of the equipment.
I had thought that this was an isolated incident until I watched her do the same thing a few days ago with a Hispanic girl named Jaqualin at a different park. This little girl was even strong enough to lift Millie on to the swings and always made sure she was safe when Millie was climbing the ladders up to the slides.
Today, however, it was two girls. These two little girls were the most attentive yet. Amelia didn't even have to touch the ground to get from one piece of equipment to another; these girls would carry her. One even had a little stuffed animal dog that Amelia commandeered for the remainder of her time at the playground.

Tyler's Party

The girls recently went to a birthday party for their friend Tyler. It was a western themed party, and the girls were given little cowboy hats and bandannas to wear.

Millie and the Potty

Amelia has a new thing that she has to do every time she uses the bathroom. She has to be the one to turn on the light and the fan when she goes. You can't simply turn it on for. So if you go with her to make sure she uses her special little adapter seat that prevents her from peeing out through the gap between the seat and the bowl she will refuse to go if you turn the light and fan on yourself. She has to do it. Which wouldn't be a problem accept for the fact that both switches have to come on at exactly the same time. It's like in the movies where the president and vice president have to turn their access keys at the same time to deactivate the nuke. And if they don't come on at the same time she will try and try and try until they do, or in one case until she wet her pants. Only one guess where she gets this OCD behavior from.
Oh and if you ask her why the fan has to come on she'll say,"Dad, that's so my poop won't stink."

Crazy Kids

Amelia and Isabelle have been watching the musical Annie lately. They both love the music and sometimes Amelia will burst into an impromptu version of "Tomorrow"when we're on our way to the store or church or wherever. The other day Isabelle heard me talking to Amelia about what we were going to do the next day. I said to Amelia, "If you are really good for mommy we can go to the park tomorrow." Whereupon Isabelle started shouting, "I love ya tomorrow..."