Oh, hi. Expect me to fall off the face of the blogosphere a lot for a while. I have plenty I want to blog about, but I'm not comfortable putting some of it on the blog, and time to blog is scarce these days anyway. I imagine it will become even more scarce when I return to work soon - I'm having a hard time keeping up with two kids+life in general already, so I'm really not sure how I'm going to handle everything plus work 40+ hours a week. Guess we'll see how that all goes ...
But now for some random and slightly delayed observations and news of note:
* After 2.5 years, we put the high chair away. I pretty much love everything about the high chair we've had - the Fisher Price Space Saver - and the tray was a convenient way to keep Elle's mess fairly contained. (She's seen at left at a much younger age, probably when she was making much bigger messes than she does today, but she's still not the neatest eater ...) With all of the other transitioning going on, I figured, on the eve of her birthday, that it might as well go away for the next six months or so.
So I dusted off the booster seat we bought last year for our trip to Ohio, and boom! We have more room because the chair isn't sticking out so far anymore, which makes me wish we had made the switch sooner. She loves eating with a placemat and her limbs not being trapped by the high chair tray (read: she keeps swinging her legs over the side and putting her feet on the table, both things that drive me insane).
* After three years plus four days, Elle got her first haircut! Tim has been begging me to cut it short for months, and I've refused - it's so much easier to style with a little bit of length, and with the heat and Elle's hereditary predisposition to sweating (sorry, Elle Belle!), it's good to have a ponytail as an option in Florida. But I had to admit that she woke up with an out of control rat's nest after every night and nap, and the ends were getting crazy dry and tangled.
A nasty nest of tangled hair.
I called my hair person and asked if she would mind giving Elle a trim - she's not big on cutting kids' hair, but she said it was no problem for us and said she'd love to do it. I would have trimmed it myself except I was worried that I would somehow kill the awesome natural waves/curls. Wendy trimmed just a little bit of Elle's hair, and it looks and feels a million times better. The length and curls are still there, and it definitely still tangles, but it feels so healthy and is definitely easier to tame now.
Post-haircut: Healthy and evened out.
* Although we could have hit her three year birthday with the claim that she was totally and completely potty trained, we wanted to wait before pulling the trigger on night-time underwear. For about a week or two before Wesley was born, Elle woke up dry. (She'd always spent the night in Pull Ups.) I worried that she'd regress once he arrived, so we didn't push her to sleep in underwear. But after he arrived and she continued to stay dry - and go 12-14 hours without needing to pee, AND increased her liquid intake before bed (she started asking for water every night before bed about two months ago) - we asked her a few days after her birthday if she thought sleeping in underwear might be a good idea.
She seemed to be disinterested in the whole idea but agreed and said she'd have no accidents at night and would call for us if she had to go to the bathroom. (The other awesome thing right now is that she has never gotten out of bed without permission - like, no reading books in the middle of the night or wandering around in the mornings ... she seems to think the bed is an island that she can't get off of unless we're there with her, and THAT'S AWESOME. I'll take it for as long as it lasts.) She's been in underwear at night for the last few weeks. She's only had two accidents, and one was when she was sick, so I don't think she really knew what was going on.
* Elle's been pretty funny about getting used to having Wesley around. She usually tunes out his crying unless a) really bad and/or b) interfering with what she's trying to do (watch TV, read, etc.) The other day she told me "I think he wants milk!" and asked me to stop him from being upset. She's also still very intrigued by his diapers (she always wants to see them and if they're poopy she goes "Oh, YUCK"). She's helped Tim give Wesley bottles, and she also has told me that Wesley needed to switch sides while breastfeeding. My favorite, though, is her fascination with the breast pump. I usually pump in the morning, and she tells me it sounds like "Fart. Fart. Fart. Fart." So she asks me if I'm farting yet. I've tried to explain what it is, but she's not quite interested in the "what" and understands enough of the "how" (milk comes out, goes in to a bottle, goes to Wesley). She had gotten in to trouble while eating, so she was trying to suck up to me as I got her down from the table. She said, "I yuv your milk, Mommy. It's so white, just like my shirt." Seriously, the kid looks for compliments everywhere if she thinks she's in the doghouse.
These are supposed to be her 18-month stats but the ped's office
scheduled her appointment at 19 months, four days:
Weight: 27 pounds, 7 ounces (88 percentile)
Height: 33.25 inches (88 percentile)
Head: 49.5 cm (90 percentile)
Elle is at such an amazingly fun age right now.
The conversations we have with her are definitely more "real" now. I went to change her diaper, and I asked her if she had pooped. She said "Nooooo." Then I said "You did it, didn't you?" She looked somber and said "I did it." She waved at a little girl at dinner the other night, turned to Tim and I and said "I said hi." She was scared of a toy train that we bought at a consignment sale, and she didn't want to turn it on. She dove in to my chest, saying "No! I'm scared." She'll hold out her hand to me and say "Come on!" so we can walk somewhere together. She took the remote from my Mac - when I asked her to give it back because it was Mommy's, she ran and hid behind Tim, yelling "Share!" at me. I die a little inside every time she calls me "Mom" instead of Mommy.
Speaking of Mommy, Elle started singing this song a week or so ago and I. Love. It.
She's an amazing parrot. She went to Pirate City earlier in the month to watch some early spring training workouts with Tim, and she came back able to say "Pittsburgh Pirates." She's sweet and compassionate, often trying to "tuck in" her bath toys under her washcloth, saying "Night night." She's extremely smart - she sings her ABCs extremely well now and can count to 15 (she could probably count higher but always stops to clap at 15, haha).
Who would have known that toddler sleep would be as screwy as infant sleep? Apparently there is an 18-month sleep regression, and after three weeks of awful sleep for all three of us, I think we've conquered it. After a nasty bout with teething, we seem to have headed right in to a period where waking up 2+ hours early than usual and napping for sporadic periods of time is the temporary norm. It. Was. Maddening. Almost every night, I felt the anxiety in the pit of my stomach - the kind of anxiety where I can't sleep well because I have no idea when Elle will wake up for the day. One day it was 5:45. Another day it was 6:15. We'd only gone so late as about 7:30 once in a span of two weeks, and she *had* been sleeping until 8 or 8:30 before that. Her naps went from a solid 1.5-2 hours to a sketchy 1-1.5 hours, and they were sometimes broken depending on the day's wake up time and the childcare arrangement for the day. I finally hit a point where I decided, with nothing else to lose, that I would just try to get her to go back down instead of giving in to the "I'm a toddler and I'm wide awake" vibes she was giving off, and within two days (and two or three re-wakeups both days), she was back to sleeping past 7:30 consistently.
In the week before the time change, I moved her bedtime up 10 minutes a night, and through the week and after the change, things were virtually seamless. So thankful that she transitioned well, especially since her naps have been suffering a bit since her childcare changed to outside the home.
Ah, yes - childcare arrangements. Many of you who know us IRL know how rocky our childcare experiences were for the nine months or so of needing care.We had three sitters who all watched Elle for a few months and left on bad terms, and at the time, we needed care for some pretty crappy times - nights and weekends, wheeeee. When I got the new job and went to days, our situation changed, and seemingly, so did our luck with babysitters. We only needed four hours of care, 3-4 days a week, and I guess I hadn't blogged about it because things were going well and I didn't want to rock the boat. Buuuutttttt ... I knew it was going too well. Situations changed, and I was once again thrown in to the pit-in-my-stomach stress ball that only childcare issues can create. I honestly think finding care for Elle - from caring, flexible, dependable and affordable sitters - has been the most stressful part of motherhood, outside of what you'd expect to be stressful. (Like unexplainable sleep regressions.) And our arrangement - with various sitters who are in class (high school and college) and/or working other jobs - was understood to be precarious. I can't expect people to stop their worlds because I need them to watch my daughter for four hours in the middle of the day on any given weekday afternoon. But we didn't really need, nor can we afford, care from a daycare center or most in-home providers, because they (understandably) charge based on part- or full-time care needs that we just don't have, with our opposite-shifts-Tim-has-some-weekdays-off schedules.
We're three weeks in to the latest childcare change, which has been good for Elle. I knew that it could be good for her, in that she's outside the home for a few hours four days a week with other children, but knew that it could be bad for her, in that she'll be outside the home for a few hours four days a week with other children. She had been watched at our house two days a week, which means that she was well taken care of, entertained and stimulated, with one-on-one from other adults. But she didn't really have to worry about sharing or the whims of other toddlers in those situations. I've watched with great interest as she's been exposed to more kids her age on a regular basis - from church to the other two days a week when she's watched by a friend who has a daughter Elle's age. And even in these last three weeks I've seen Elle's social side really emerging - she's excited to be around other kids, and she's excited to show me all of the things she does and plays with while I'm away. We're lucky that we found a good fit and that Elle has been comfortable from the beginning.
One thing I've noticed since she started the new childcare arrangement is that she grunts a lot more - instead of "using her words," she grunts and points. Her verbal skills are more advanced than the other kids at her daycare (there is a 21 month old and a 2.5 year old), and I think she's picking up from the way they communicate.
Cute things that Elle has been up to in the last few weeks:
* She loves to color, and points out, matter-of-factly, every wooden puzzle piece or book page that she has colored on. Her father gives her a lot more artistic license than I do (read: I often find crayon on toys, books, furniture and walls), but she really does like artsy stuff like coloring and playing with stickers.
* She watched Teletubbies for the first time last week - the show brings back a lot of memories for me of when my youngest brother, Doug, was obsessed with the show. Elle initially called it "Telebabies." She loves the "sunshine baby," too, and is still in love with Sesame Street characters.
* Elle still loves books. One night it was getting late, so when I read to her before bed, I said "One book." Elle immediately responded with "Two books?"
* We were driving home from having dinner with some friends two weeks ago (before the time change), and Elle kept saying "It's dark." It was really sweet to hear her discover and experience that, and since then, she whispers it any time we walk in to a dark room or if it is close to sunset outside.
* Elle has been telling Tim "Good girl, Daddy."
* She loves being outside. Elle and Tim will go for walks around the lake in our complex and do "Bubbleducks," which basically means blowing bubbles and looking for ducks.
* If you mention to Elle that we're leaving to go somewhere, you have approximately 2.7 seconds to actually get out the door before she freaks out, standing at the door, yelling "Go! We go!" until you actually let her outside.
* Because of the lunch meat we buy at the grocery store, she may be one of the only toddlers in the United States to be able to recognize and name a boar when she sees one.
* Shoes are no longer safe around Elle. She likes to put her own shoes on, Mommy shoes, Daddy shoes - it really doesn't matter unless they are on her feet.
* Possibly due to a small incident involving the preparation of dinner by her father, Elle also can recognize smoke. She points to the "steam" from her cool mist humidifier and says "It's smoke."
* Her utensil-using skills are fantastic. At times, she needs me to help her load her fork up with food, and she graciously says "Good job, Mommy." If she does it by herself, she cheers "Yourself!" (albeit with food in her mouth).
* Elle likes to talk on her fake phones, always starting the "conversation" with a very solemn, low "Hedo." I think she might be imitating Tim's opening "Hello," but I'm not sure.
* She points out colors all the time now, saying "Dat's blue!" or "Dat's purple." She'll ask me, too: "What's dat?" and "Dat is?"
* Her interest in going to the bathroom on the potty has definitely plummeted. We're not pushing it. I have to admit it's funny and cute to hear her say "Bye bye, pee pees" whenever she hears a toilet flush.
* She thinks all candles mean that it is someone's birthday. I lit a candle from Yankee Candle and had it on the kitchen counter. Elle was OBSESSED with it, saying "Birthday? Birthday candle? Happy birthday to you?" She's smart, but boy can she fixate :)
* She chases me around with a "I'm gonna getchou!" followed by a squeal. (Which is pretty much exactly what I say and do to her, haha.)
* She has a rubber ducky that is dressed like a pirate. Elle always talks to "Pirate Duck" during her bath, and calls her bath toy octopus a name that sounds like "applesauce."
* I called her Booger Brain last weekend, and she repeated it. Several times. Hi-lar-ious.
* I think I've blogged before about how she would shake her bottle of teething tablet pills and sing "Shake shake shake, shake your booty." In the last week or so, I've given her a bottle of pain reliever, and she sings "Shake your bottle." Then I taught her "Shake your bottle, yeah." It's quite amusing, but I realized she had taken it to a higher, cognitive level when she changed her tune while holding a toy truck - she paused for a minute and then sang "Shake your car, yeah."
* She was looking at herself after her bath the other night and said "See you later, Baby."
* She used to call my mom (aka "Grams") "Me." Not sure why, but then almost overnight, she started saying "Gams".
* Something cute that she has always mispronounced is "ninonaur" for "dinosaur."
* She's big on the temperature of everything. She always assumes her food is hot, but will eventually believe that it is just warm. The oven is always hot to Elle. And she'll point out that your water is cold until she's nearly blue in the face.
* She's aware of textures and other sensory factors in regard to things like her blankie, which she will tell you is soft and warm.
* She loves, loves, loves to sing. "Wheels on the bus," "Itsy bitsy spider," "Row, row, row your boat," the birthday song from the Sunny Side Up show on Sprout ... there is very little she won't pick up on.
* She tries to say her first and last names now - you'll often find her repeating "Elle Belle Lastname" with a cute little smile.
Right now, my heart is about to burst out of my chest with love. This hasn't been an extraordinary day, but perhaps it's the sheer normal of it all that makes me want to freeze time and just hug the moment to death.
I just put Elle to bed, and I'm listening to her call out "Elle Belle! Elle Belle? Elle Belle!" like I do when I place peek-a-boo with her. This comes after a giggle fit that necessitated me calling Tim at work so he could hear the pure belly laughs of a silly baby who finds the act of her mother poking at her through crib slats in the near-dark to be better than anything Comedy Central will show, EVER. Elle was nearly falling down laughing as I blew her kisses through the crib.
I am so thankful that I'm able to be with her every night now - that I eat dinner with her, play with her for a few hours and give her a bath before our nightly routine of books and staring at the "stars" (projected by our dear friend, Twilight "Durdle"). As I rocked her for a few minutes, we looked at the stars and I pointed out the crescent moon. Elle pointed up at it and said "Moo." (Who can be bothered with an extra consonant when you're 14.5 months old? Not my daughter!) A minute later, she pointed to the moon again and said, "Manana?" It took me a second, but I realized that she'd processed the crescent moon as a banana shape. I then told her she's so smart it's scary.
She's talking so much now that I can't keep up with a list of words. And her pronunciation and diction is getting better every day. Just three weeks ago, she said "Melmo." Now, she says "Elmo." She says "dank du" for "thank you." Every fish is called "gookie." Some puzzling - but consistent - "words": Grams is called "mee." Muffins are "mommy." (Thanks, Elle.) Elle's versions of "flower" and "water" are pretty much the same - gotta look for context clues with this one :) And she's slowly figuring out that not all trees and bushes are flowers.
She copies my exclamations, with an "oh my" or an "uh ...... oh" or an "oh no!" thrown in every now and then. Proof that she's Tim's daughter: She says baseball ("bayball") and "touchdown!" (complete with hand motion).
"Touchdown!"
Proof that she's my daughter: Tonight her eyes lit up and she made a beeline for my "copy" (coffee) cup.
I told her the kitty, Sidney, was a good boy, and she said "Girl." (That's gonna be a fun one to explain.) Mario is now called Mar Mar. Sidney is "Tidnee."
"Mar Mar!" (Mario isn't as excited about Elle.)
Elle can say the names of her babysitters, although poor Jessica is relegated to "Essica," and Ashley is "Astley." She loves shoes and "dopping" (shopping) with Mommy.
Elle likes to tell you when she's pooping. But to her, farting equals pooping, too. So you'll hear "Poopy" or "Pooping?" a lot from her. Usually if there's a red face and a grunt along with her proclamation, you'll know there is something in the diaper for you.
The girl who once dropped to her knees and took off in a crawl if you tried to get her to put weight on her feet is now asking constantly to "alk?" So we walk. Up the hall. Down the hall. In to the kitchen. Back out. She'll sometimes walk by holding on to one of our hands, but usually, she doesn't feel confident unless she's holding a hand in each of hers. She'll stand on her own briefly - something she didn't do even four days ago. Baby Girl is going to be walking, and soon.
Loving her walker.
She's climbing on everything, too. Yay.
For Elle, if happiness came in TV form, it would be the Sprout network. Specifically, the Sunny Side Up show with Chica and Nina (or "Mina" as Elle says). She likes to sing Wiggles' songs - if you sing "Fruit Salad" to her, you'll get "Yummy yummy" back. She still loves her books, too - right now she is loving the Llama llama books (she calls them "ama ama"), Susan Boynton books and any "first words," "first colors" and counting books. If the book has animals, she'll read it over and over. She'll bring a book to us now, say "book," then "rea" and follow it up with a spoken and/or signed "please."
She loves spicy food. She loves fruit. She's eating three meals a day and 1-2 snacks. She hardly throws any food on the floor anymore during meals (I never thought I'd see the day that happened). She drinks water like she's been in a desert for the last 10 years, gasping to catch her breath after gulping, gulping, gulping.
The molars are s-l-o-w-l-y (and painfully) moving in, and she's sporting eight other teeth (four top, four bottom.)
She loves having her blankie - it's magic. She will lay down and/or start sucking her thumb the minute she touches it. When she was struggling with molars last week, she was constantly cuddling up with me and the blankie and sucking her thumb, which would have been absolutely precious except I knew she was miserable.
Molargate.
She goes to sleep easily - she'll sleep from 9 p.m. until 7:30-8:30 a.m. and then nap for about two hours after lunch. She LOVES taking a bath. If you so much as mention "bath," you darn well better have the water ready and the toys in the tub or you're going to hear about it.
She goes by Elle Belle, Belle Belle, Belle, EB, Baby Boo, Boo Boo and Mimi. There are also several "Elizabeths" and "Elizabeth Irenes" thrown in nowadays. My favorite thing in the world, aside from her giggles and belly laughs, is hearing her identify herself in pictures or the mirror as "Elle Belle." I also enjoy her mocking me - when I'm making her meals, I'll often tell her "Hang on, Elle. I'll be right there." So now when she's frustrated that I'm not getting her something fast enough, she starts furiously chanting "Ang on. Ang on." She'll gleefully yell "gooooo!" when you set her up with a "Ready ... set ..." And if she knows we're going to the park, she'll say "wheee" repeatedly when we're near the swings.
She's stubborn and sweet - testing her limits one minute and then giving a hug the next. She squeals with joy when she's near the cats. She could help load and unload the dishwasher for hours at a time and be happy (she LOVES spoons). She's constantly keeping me on my toes and cracking me up.
She's amazing.
P.S. This serves as Elle's 14-month update. No stats from the pediatrician this month, anyway, and I broke format because I got carried away with wanting to remember exactly how she is, right now.
* After 2.5 years, we put the high chair away. I pretty much love everything about the high chair we've had - the Fisher Price Space Saver - and the tray was a convenient way to keep Elle's mess fairly contained. (She's seen at left at a much younger age, probably when she was making much bigger messes than she does today, but she's still not the neatest eater ...) With all of the other transitioning going on, I figured, on the eve of her birthday, that it might as well go away for the next six months or so.
