#that post abt ellie healing her own trauma through loving baby miller clearly did a lot for me

[mariatesstruther]

thinking of ellie being a favorite among jackson’s preschool kids like

something like baby miller has separation anxiety from the rest of the millers when they start going to jackson’s kindergarten, so ellie pops out of her classes at least once a day to surprise her cousin with anti-stress hugs, complete with tight squeezes and cuddles and sometimes spinning them around until theyre giggling and no longer asking for tío or or mama or papi

one time, one of the other kids sees baby miller getting a hug from ellie on the playground, and theyre like hey hey hey i want a hug please me me me

and ellie knows how it feels to almost never been hugged as a kid. she remembers being too young to know better, lifting her arms up towards the daycare soldier at FEDRA and being looked down at with disgust

so OF COURSE, ellie is instantly like “omg you want a hug??? yeah??? well no problem!!!! i can hug u, can i hug you????” and when they say yes, she gives them the nicest biggest messiest one she can muster. she yells “hug attack!!!!!” (which she stole from tommy) and swings them back and forth so theyre legs do that fun swingy thing kids legs do

and OTHER kids see that and now THEY want hugs, too, ellie!!!! hug me too!!!!!! and she does the same thing to every single little kiddo that wants one. when she comes back the next day, they all do it all over again, and even the shyer kids asks her for hugs

until eventually it becomes a Thing, and now all of jackson’s first official kindergarten class looks forwards to visits from Ellie the Hug Monster