And the doctor said...

Mommy: 3 little monkeys jumping on a bed (holding three jumping fingers in the air). One fell off (hand falls to the side) and bumped his head (hits her head). Mama called the doctor (holding a finger phone up to her ear) and the doctor said...

Ellie: Na na na na na na na na na (shaking her finger at Mommy)!

I know adults who have more problems with this...

And I'm one of them.

We got some eye drops for Ellie this weekend because she has a cold and crusty eyes. I totally expected a long, drawn out battle to get her to lay down and keep still long enough for me to put drops into her eyes. After all, that's the way it is with me.

I asked her to lay down and she did. Then I put a drop into her right eye and she blinked. Then I quickly put drops into her left eye before she had time to react. She sat straight up and I was convinced that she would start crying.

Instead, she said "Mo Mo" and signed for "More". She even laid back down to show just how ready she was for more. Seriously? She's a freak! Who LIKES eye drops?

The uses of "Oh Oh"

Some of the reasons to use "Oh Oh":

- I accidentally dropped something
- I accidentally on purpose dropped something
- My shoe fell off
- My shoe is about to fall off
- (followed by "Mer Mer") Merlin is eating my toy
- (followed by "Mer Mer") Merlin is eating the food I handed him
- (followed by "Mer Mer") Merlin is running away
- (followed by "Mer Mer") Merlin is sitting on Bun Bun
- (followed by "Mer Mer") Merlin went into the other room
- (followed by "Mer Mer") Where is Merlin?
- My barrette fell out of my hair
- I pulled my barrette out of my hair
- I ripped a piece of paper
- I took something apart
- It won't go back together
- I squished a bug and now he won't move
- I seemed to have shut myself into a dark bathroom
- (first "Oh" spoken high and second spoken low) Up! Down!
- The water disappeared down the drain
- I pulled a leaf off the tree and now it won't stay on the tree
- I am going to stand up now and poop in the bathtub
- I made a mess
- Half the bath water is now on the bathroom floor, my bad
- The car door is locked, now what?
- I heard a bang downstairs - something is wrong

A glimpse of things to come

This weekend was a very long one for us. Ellie practiced her new word. Everything was hers. She practiced over and over again. We tried to maintain a rule that she had to say please for everything, even if she demanded "Mine!".

The draining part, though, is that she actually had a few minor melt-downs. Usually if she's upset over something, she'll still say please and then calm down when we give it to her. There were a few times when she laid on the floor and kicked and screamed, and nothing could stop her. Luckily these moments only lasted a few seconds, but it definitely showed me that I'm not ready for what's to come.

I have no idea how I'm going to handle temper tantrums. These first minor ones found me just staring in disbelief. They say that the terrible twos start at 18 months and Ellie is now over 17 months old. Ugh. She's too cute to start this now!

Scared for Life

Apparently losing Merlin has had a lasting effect on Ellie. Over and over again she has taken it upon herself to go after Merlin, taking his leash with her, when he runs away (to play with other dogs at the park). She also seems to need to know where Merlin is whenever we're at home and calls out to him every now and then. She has certainly learned that, for what ever reason, it is very critical to keep track of this dog. I think it's wonderful that she has decided to help take responsibility to make that happen. And it makes me laugh.

Today's word:

MINE!!

Proof that she is learning stuff at daycare.

Na Na it is

One of Aunt Erin's goals before moving to New York is to have Ellie call her by name. I'm nearly certain she got her wish because it seems as though Ellie is calling her "Na Na". Works for me. I wonder if Erin will accept it.

Merlin Oh Oh

So how did Ellie do without us? Apparently she did just fine and barely noticed we were gone. Grandma had all sorts of cute stories about Ellie, including finding her stuffed sheep in the dishwasher. I love seeing how much Ellie loves her grandmas and it was nice to hear that they had a good time while we were gone.

Grandma told me about how Ellie won over Grandpa's heart. One morning, Grandma and Ellie crawled into bed with Grandpa and he started singing cowboy songs to her. Though she looked like she had gone back to sleep, if he stopped singing she would sign "More, more!" I'm sure this is enough to melt any cowboy's heart. Well, that and the fact that Ellie LOVED grandpa's tractor and wasn't scared by it at all.

But in the end, there was one big adventure that Ellie remembered the most. Grandma lost Merlin (our dog) for a while (one afternoon and over night). Apparently when Grandma was outside calling "Merlin! Merlin!" in hopes of getting the dog to return, Ellie decided to help as well. She walked from one side of the house to the other yelling "Mer Mer! Mer Mer!" Luckily the next morning someone called saying they had found him.

When Daddy and I returned, I asked Ellie how her weekend was and she said "Mer Mer Oh Oh!" to which I laughed. When I asked her what else she did, she said "Mer Mer Oh Oh!" and when I asked if she had fun with Grandma, she said "Mer Mer Oh Oh!" And when we went on a walk to the dog park with Merlin that evening, she would yell "Mer Mer!" whenever Daddy called out to him, and more than once I saw her shake her finger at the dog and say "Mer Mer Oh Oh!" when he finally did come back.

Apparently it was the high-light of her weekend and she learned a lot.

Away from Ellie

Our trip to Las Vegas went very well. We really enjoyed seeing O and Stomp. We also saw Zoomanity, but was highly disappointed in it.

I was constantly surprised by how many kids (and construction) there were in Vegas. I don't think it ever occurred to me that Vegas might be a fun vacation destination for families. Weird. Anyway, the one the surprised me the most was a set of parents who brought their young daughter (I'd guess 6 years old) into the Bodies exhibit. For those of you who have not heard of it, it's an exhibit of real human bodies that have been preserved in a way that you can still see all the muscles and nerves. It was really quite fascinating, but this poor little girl was obviously terrified of the bodies. I don't really blame her. I'm sure they are quite scary for someone her age. Now maybe she was interested in seeing the bodies before coming in, who knows, but I really felt like it was the parents' responsibility to remove her when they realized she was scared. Then they could take turns seeing the exhibit themselves. What they ended up doing, though, was carrying her though, and as they got closer to each body she would cry and try to hide her head in their shoulders. Am I the only one who sees this as sad? Sure, take your kids to such an educating experience, but when they're older. And if you do see your child break down then stop and try some other time.

Ok... enough of that. Let's move on to the more important things. How did we fare without the little one?

It came as a surprise to us, really. It was quite a relaxing weekend. However, we did think we would worry about Ellie the whole time. The surprise was that we ended up not worrying at all. Instead, we just missed her. Lots. I don't know how to explain the difference. We expected to miss her in terms of "I wonder if she's ok" but instead we missed her in terms of "I miss her hugs!"

I don't know why this came as such a surprise to us, but it did.

Stay tuned for how Ellie did without her parents around!

Eyelashes

Mommy: Ellie, where's your nose?
Ellie: (points to her nose)
Mommy: Good job! Where's your ears?
Ellie: (points to her ears)
Mommy: Wow! Where's your hair?
Ellie: (points to her hair)
Mommy: You're so smart! Where's your mouth?
Ellie: (points to her mouth)
Mommy: Where are your eyes?
Ellie: (points to her eyes)
Mommy: Hmmm... What else?
Ellie: (reaches over and touches Mommy's eyelashes) Eh?
Mommy: Eyelashes?
Ellie: (with a super happy look of accomplishment on her face, continues to touch Mommy's eyelashes and every time Mommy says "eyelashes" she smiles and/or laughs)

Amazing. She totally got her point across and accomplished her desire to learn.

Happy Anniversary

Michael and I are off to Vegas to celebrate our anniversary. Can you believe another year has gone by? This will be the first time we sleep in a different place than Ellie. I'm not sure what I think about it, which is why I haven't mentioned it until now. It's also why I won't linger on it too much. It will be weird. Weird, I tell you! Weird!

Happy Anniversary, Niffer!

Puppeteering 101

Daddy holds a lion puppet over his hand and in a deep voice (as every lion's voice is) he says "Hello, Ellie!"

Ellie looks at the lion talking to her and thinks for a moment. Finally, she reaches out, takes the lion, sticks her hand up the hole and says "Hello!"

Though she needs to work on the deep voice.

Dat dat?

Ellie: Dat-dat?
Mommy: What's that? Do you have something?
Ellie: Dat-dat. (holding out her hand)
Mommy: Oh? Let me see.
Ellie: Dat-dat.
Mommy: Can you bring it to Mommy?
Ellie: Dat-dat!
Mommy: Oh! What is it!? Can Mommy see?
Ellie: Dat-dat! (puts it into Mommy's hand)
Mommy: Ewww! (realizing it is a dead fly) Thank you, Ellie! That was nice of you.
Ellie: DAT-DAT! (walking away very proud, indeed)

I love you

Ellie now says "I love you!" Well, she'll repeat it if you tell her.

And how does she sign it? Is it the typical crossing of the hands across the chest? Or holding up your thumb, pointer and pinky? Nope.

I know we've all done this, so it shouldn't be too difficult to imagine... she takes her hands to the side of her tummy and clasps her fingers closed. Picture you grabbing at your love handles to see how much weight you need to lose. Yep. That's it! You got it!

That's the latest way of saying "I love you"!

Hellello Nana

Ellie is adding to her vocabulary at an alarming rate.

The other day I was carrying her to the car from daycare and she looked at the infant center and said "Nana". I was shocked and responded with "Do you want to see Miss Anna?" to which she got all excited. Seriously? Not only does she love Miss Anna enough to remember her (it's been 5 weeks!) but she KNOWS her name? Impressive. Miss Anna was honored to say the least.

The other thing she has started doing is picking up phones and saying "Hellello". She does it to remotes and dog bones too, but it still counts as a new word.

Every day she amazes me with how much she understands. It really is true that it's hard to remember that they understand so much when they can't speak much. It blows my mind when she demonstrates she knows stuff.

Ellie is a silly girl

A little 4 year old girl at daycare sat down next to Ellie and I:

Girl: Is that a girl or boy? (I guess it goes to show that kids are not judgemental and think it's perfectly ok for a boy to wear pink)
Me: She's a girl and her name is Ellie.
Girl: Oh, well did you know that Ellie is a very very silly girl?
Me: No, I did not. Why is she silly?
Girl: Well she ALWAYS wants to color on other people's drawings.
Me: Oh.

Ellie loves paint!

Yesterday I when I picked up Ellie from daycare, she showed me her latest painting. I asked her "Oh, did you do this?" and she took the piece of paper with the purple blobbed design on it and went on to explain the details to me. I would share her words with you, but honestly I have no idea how to spell many of the sounds that come out of her mouth. Let's just say that it was very apparent that she was very excited and proud of this painting.

At first I was thrilled by her excitement. It was fun to watch her explain it to me and share her thoughts about it with me. But then she decided to demonstrate her words so that there was no misunderstanding. She licked the paper. And licked it again. "Num num" she says.

"Ellie are you eating the paint?" I asked and a teacher over heard me. She said that Ellie LOVES to paint because she LOVES to eat the paint, but not to worry because it's not toxic.

Ha ha ha! Here I was thinking that her excited words were words of "Look what I did, Mommy! I took paint and put it over here to represent a flower, and this over here is a dog. Can you see?" but instead it was "See this color? It tastes really good! And see this over here, that is yummy too. And I put this here because it tastes better like that."

It's just money, right?

Wrong.

I wonder sometimes how Ellie is going to get a grasp on the concept of money. When I was growing up, my mom would pay for everything with cash. If not cash, then she would use a check book. Either way, I would witness the exchange of a piece of paper for all sorts of goodies. I saw that in order to buy these toys or groceries, my mom had to give up a piece of paper or two.

What is Ellie going to think? We rarely use cash. It's annoying to deal with cash and check books are not much better. That leaves credit cards, which means when Ellie sees us buying something, she sees that we get the cool stuff AND we get the plastic card back. Therefore we didn't give up anything for the stuff.

It should be interesting to see how that pans out in the future.

A southern girl at heart

Ellie has recently been very social. When she sees someone, she'll say HIIII. When she sees a child she wants to play with, she'll walk up to them and say HIIII. It is the most adorable thing, but I couldn't put my finger on quite why. Grandma finally pointed out that she says HI with a southern accent. It's long and drawn out. HIIII. I wonder where she got that from.