Ellie update!

Well even though this blog has been a bit Scarlett-focused with her weekly letters, our house is definitely NOT Scarlett focused. In fact sometimes it is hard to give her the attention she should be getting with "Hurricane Ellie" coming through.

So what is up with the big girl?

Um, she is the most fun kid EVER.

And I am defenseless against her adorableness. Take yesterday. After she got up from her nap, I gave her some cheerios and was going to snuggle her as she watched a little "George". I sat her down on the couch and sat next to her. She started melting down. What? Then she climbed into my lap and settled down. Huh? So I asked her if she wanted to be in my lap to cuddle. "Uh-huh!". Oh. My. Goodness. I was a puddle. Okay, baby girl. I will cuddle you on my lap as much as you want. Then she asked for "More O's...Peeeeese!" You got it, kid. I cannot make rational decisions with that kind of cuteness. And you said Please. Done.

She LOVES Frozen. She has even started to sing along. Like the part where they say "Deep, deep, deep, deep snow" she will say "deep deep deep" and Olaf's "Happy Snowman" she will say "Happy". Oh, and she calls Olaf 'Summa' which might be the world's cutest ever!

 She gives all the kissses and hugs these days too. I love that! She's such a little love. She's now grabbing my cheeks and giving me kisses. Heavenly! And we start our morning with tickle fights. Problem...she now understands how to tickle and is GOOD at it. So we both end up belly laughing.

And she's FUNNY. Her expressions are hysterical. And she is learning things like crazy, so she learns funny things, and then we get LOTS of entertainment... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bc1j3dLr9Bo

What is she up to these days?

1. Fine motor stuff: She LOVES fine motor activities. We end up doing lots of these kind of things, like putting cheerios on a stick, pushing pipe cleaners and pom pom balls through holes, and lacing cards. She's really good at them, and it is adorable to see her concentrating.

2. TOWERS! Girl loves her towers. This typically means that we have blocks EVERYWHERE, all the time. And even if we don't get those out, she tends to build towers out of any other materials she can find...

3. Climbing: Yup, whenever I am busy with Scarlett, I can pretty much count on Ellie getting into trouble climbing something. Coffee tables, high chair, whatever! Any random boxes laying around instantly become step stools and the climbing commences.

Of course, this does, sometimes lead to very fashionable bruises and scraped. Even with the injuries, she doesn't seem to mind and is off climbing again pronto.

Knock on wood: She hasn't climbed out of her crib yet. I think the sleep sacks hinder this. Whatever. I want to keep her caged a bit longer. I am really hoping to make it to 2. 

Oh, and she LOVES sliding just as much. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x79GMMOoE3Y And yes, this kid will try to go to the tallest slide on the playground. Talk about freaking Mommy out!

 4. Bubbles: She is obsessed with bubbles. And baths. And water, really. She is so stinking happy in a bubble bath that it is ridiculous. And she thinks there is fish in ANY body of water. Even the crockpot when it sits soaking in the sink (what? Oh Ellie...) I have a feeling that this will make this summer SO much fun. She liked sitting in her pool and such last time, but now that she can RUN through sprinklers and such? She is going to be in heaven.

 5. Being Silly: This kid is so silly. She loves to laugh. We do the "tickle monster" book a lot, which we both just love. And we have sticker fights. And she makes crazy faces.

And what is cool is that she now knows when she is being silly. She will announce "funny". Or when we're having a particularly good time she will look at me and say "HAPPY!" Yes, love, you make me happy too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfUMKoCPry8

5. Playing with Scarlett: E is such a good big sister, it is ridiculous. We have tried really hard to make sure that she can have lots of contact with S. So S has gotten poked in the eye a couple times, but overall this has been great for both of them. S will babble away at her big sis and E is great at being gentle with her and just overall being a great big sister. We were concerned about jealousy issues, but that has been really minor. I'm seriously proud of how good Ellie is with her. All I hear some days is "Oh, HI BAYBEEEEE!"

6. "Wh-un" I guess this means her gross motor skills are also progressing pretty well, because she is constantly "Whunning" (running)

This kid won't stay still. I'm so glad that we have 5 acres, because she is ALL OVER. We take walks every day too. That is a little harder as she is so distractable. She stops for rocks, to say hello to the doggies or horsies, etc. We did find that being silly on walks keeps her focused...my sweet girl: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQzkTwzZFqU

7. Naps/sleep/nursing: She is still a good sleeper, doing between 10 and 12 hours a night. And we're at one nap a day. ,that is usually just over 2 hours. She still nurses before nap and bed, and I'm ok with that, most of the time. Sometimes I definitely feel like all I do from 7pm to when I go to bed is nurse someone, but I know that these times will pass in the blink of an eye. When I do tandem nurse (which I've only done a handful of times since I don't particularly like it) Ellie stares at Scarlett which is pretty sweet. As far as weaning...I don't know. My ultimate goal was to get her through cold and flu season (especially with a newborn in the house) and that seems to be winding down. On the other hand, she is clearly still into nursing. She loves going in for her nap, because she knows what it gets her (BOOB! Whoops, should have taught her a different word for that!) She definitely still asks to nurse and gives me an enthusiastic "uh-huh!" when I 'get' it. So for right now, we'll keep going. It is working for both of us pretty well right now. 

 8. Vocab: This kid's vocabulary is crazy! She's got words for pretty much everything. Seriously, she probably has a working vocab of 400ish words. And she will do 2-3 word sentences too. I cannot believe how fast she is picking this up. It is so much fun to really be able to talk to her. Of course, it bugs me BIG TIME that she WILL NOT say 'I love you'. I keep working at it. Such a little stinker. But she will use 'please' now, which is a small victory. Of course, when asking for O's and prompted "What do you say" she told me this week... "PEEEESE. WHUN." Apparently I don't deliver her O's fast enough? Oy.

9. Eating: Girl LOVES food. She will eat pretty much anything, so that is a such relief. Not having mealtime battles is great. She would still live on blueberries alone, if allowed. and in the morning, she loves her "CAKE-CAKES" (pancakes). Chicken is usually a hit, as is most kinds of pasta. And while she doesn't care much for salad, she sure loves "crutes" (croutons).

10. BUSY! I have to say, the best and worst thing about Ellie? She is BUSY. And curious. She needs to be exploring and discovering and going a million miles a minute. This is exactly what makes her so fun and have such a big personality, but it is also completely exhausting sometimes. I do feel like one of my unique parenting challenges with her is to make sure I am giving her adequate time and space to not squash that. Like the other day, we were at Sam's. We needed to get home and I really wanted E to sit in the car. No way, she was not having that. She was walking and exploring. So of course, I got annoyed when she wasn't going fast enough and stopped in front of the deli section. I tried to hurry her along, when she pointed to the rotisserie chickens and said "Hot" and then proceeded to blow in that direction to cool them. She was figuring that out and making the connection, and I just wanted to hurry her along and fit my own time frame. Don't get me wrong, she has boundaries, but she's an awesome reminder that 'busy' takes a lot of different forms, and giving her time to check things out (including every rock on our entire street!) is important.

In all, I could not be more in love with this kid. She makes my heart melt and me totally crack up at least 10 times a day. The little person she is becoming is just so amazing to me and I just love being her Mom.