So you wanna know … about Eleanor

Eleanor, aka Peanut, aka Fussbucket – I think you’re starting to visualize our girl E – was second in line out of the womb, the one the medical reports say got the party started that crazy morning.

She is a hybrid in the looks department. She has Rob’s round face and brown eyes. Her long eyelashes look like those women spend good money to fake – they’re thick and dark and perfectly curl up on the ends. She is fair like me, but her blonde hair has a reddish hue. She’s easily mistaken for her brother or sister at different angles, but looks uniquely Eleanor just as frequently.

Eleanor’s been the smallest of our bunch, though not by much, since birth. She has a totally different body from her brother and sister. She’s petite and wiry and feels like a string bean next to her solid brother and sister. Everything about her just looks smaller somehow – strange, since her numbers are never far off (the other day, she weighed in 1 lb. 1 oz. lighter than Toby, and her head circumference measured only 1 cm smaller than Callista’s at their last well-child checkup). Optical illusion or not, she is the peanut of the group, from her tiny hands down to her dainty feet.

She may be the smallest, but she lives up to the “small but mighty” cliche. She’s amazingly strong and nimble, preferring to “stand” whenever she feels something somewhat solid under her feet. This includes the changing pad, when her “standing” turns into near back bends as she scoots her way backward. If she can plant her feet and apply pressure, she will. She was the first to roll from her tummy to back, and I suspect she’ll be the first to take off running. She isn’t a big fan of sitting still.

She’s hilarious. I can’t put my finger on what it is about her – maybe it’s the fact that she’ll look at you, her brow furrowed, talking, cooing and ow-OOOOOHing and sporting the most serious face she can muster, pause and then break into a smile that looks like a perfect cartoon grin. It’s almost like she’s telling us jokes and cracking up at her own punch line.

Eleanor is passionate. She cries with her whole broken heart, screams with her mouth wide open, talks with gusto and has a smile that could light even the darkest cave. She eats with passion, often accompanying her suck/swallow with a quiet “aye-yuh, aye-yuh,” as she clenches her fists tightly tucked near her chin. She falls asleep with passion, too, turning her head from side to side and sucking with great fury at her pacifier or the first two fingers on her hands. She hasn’t decided which is best, and there is no knowing which she’ll prefer at any given time.

She’s going to make one hell of a teenager.

She’s just started to notice her brother and sister and has nothing but smiles and chatter for them. It’s like she’s so relieved to see she isn’t the only baby in the house, that someone else surely understands the trials and tribulations of being tiny, helpless and breathtakingly adorable.