What I've Learned So Far

There will be another Ellie milestone post soon, I promise.  But, as we celebrate the milestone of having been parents for two years, I thought I'd reflect on what I would most like to tell myself on November 23, 2016, before my water broke unexpectedly as I was frantically cleaning our house and chatting with my mom on the phone.  Especially because all of this hard-earned wisdom is about to become outdated when our new child bursts upon the scene in four short months.

You can only take care of your child as well as you take care of yourself.  I should not have needed to prove this to myself through firsthand experience.  Millions of parents discovered this before me.  They advised us, so frequently, with meaningful eye contact, to put on our own air mask first.  I coasted through the first year so much better than I had expected -- not that there were not moments, there were definitely moments.  You know the moments I am referring to.  But I hit a snag the spring after Ellie's first birthday.  I caught colds and flus and felt exhausted and rundown all the time.  We canceled so many plans we were looking forward to, and finally stopped rescheduling.  I was hovering in burnout for months, while everyone else seemed to be enjoying their newly mobile toddlers.  On the one hand, there may be times like these.  And I tried hard to help myself.  I went to a number of doctors, I wretchedly sobbed to Nitin more than once about how terrible I felt.  I admitted to my therapist that I'd steered myself deep into the weeds.  I needed more sleep.  I needed to allow myself to take time off from work and from parenting, to rest.  I needed to take very gentle, radical care of myself.  I needed to realize that mothers are allowed the full range of emotions, and that allowing myself the full range of my human experience would not deeply wound my child.  I also needed meditation, vitamins, allergy medication.  And I needed patience, because hard times visit us, but they often move on.  Perhaps I needed a nudge from an antidepressant, but I avoided that yet again.  There may yet come a time for it.  But the lesson here was, lean as far into caring for yourself as you must.  We do is children no favors by running ourselves into the ground.

I learned that in parenting, too, seasons always come and go.  Ellie openly favors one parent, and then the other.  She hates toothbruhing and will not stand for it until she starts asking for her own toothbrush (the purple one) having made a tentative peace with oral hygiene.

As Ellie enters the toddler phase, and becomes more adept at verbal communication, a few pieces of advice from others have been incredibly helpful.  As we learned when our children were infants, first week the obvious explanation when a child is exhibiting challenging behavior.  A child who is hungry, who is exhausted, or unconfortable will share her displeasure with the world.  But beyond that, I look to the strength of the bond between Ellie and I when her behavior veers off course.  She is often letting me know that our connection is faltering, and she needs my patience, my concern, my affection or my full attention.  When I give those things, she is able to become more calm and reconnect.  My favorite blogger shared her mother's simple advice -- take the joys and concerns of your children very seriously.  Take her seriously enough to bend to her level to ask a question, or explain a rule.  Keep a soft, calm voice.  Children look to us to let them know if something is wrong.  

I am running out of wakefulness, but before I sign off, I'll add these briefly.  There is so much emphasis on finding the mom tribe, immediately, with whom you can text in the middle of the night about acid reflux or breastfeeding woes.  It sounds lovely, and I do condone joining groups and seeking opportunities to connect.  But the pressure to make extremely close friends, or else, in the midst of everything else on my plate, was daunting.  My advice is to do your best, without forcing things, and be patient.  Some things take time.  Some people get luckier than others in the new mom friend lottery. Either way, continue to enjoy the friendships you already cherish, regardless of surgery they are mothers, or mothers of children the same age.  Do not compare your social circle to anyone else's -- especially that of a family with older kids.

My last thought.  Do what you need to do so that everyone gets add much of what they need as possible.  Sleep as much as you can, even if it means naps, taking shifts, sleeping in separate beds.  Make exercise happen.  Get outside. Eat some vegetables.  Take one day, or hour, at a time, when necessary.

Almost two years!

I sometimes think that the relationship between parent and child is, for the child, the first great love story, which sets the stage for all others.  Trust is learned now, before there is a word for it.  Inside jokes and shared grins begin now, before there are punchlines that anyone else could hear.  And for my part, I had loved deeply in my life before I parent, but then I fell off a cliff.

We had a really delightful weekend.  It was the first little stretch that Ellie had seemed hearty and healthy in quite a while.  She has been under siege with a plethora of viruses, fevers, curious rashes and a persistent ear infection that has required course after course of escalating antibiotics.  Ellie has, right on schedule, begun exploring her personal autonomy.  This weekend, she bandied about a new catchphrase -- "No thanks, I don't want it." She declared it alone in the sandbox, in her crib after we had left her to nap, and of course, in response to any question.

We are floored by new realizations about the extent of her reasoning abilities and understanding.  I did not expect that at this age, it would be so important to her that I carefully explain how I reasoned my way to certain decisions -- we need to go inside, because Zoe needs to use the potty, and she is waiting for us to let her outside; you need to sit down, because if you fell off the chair, you would be very hurt, and mama would be so sad.

I read somewhere, in a positive discipline article, that so often when a child is misbehaving, it is because of a disconnect between the parent and the child.  And so I have been teaching myself to wait, and respect Ellie's pace, whenever I can, even if it takes fifteen minutes to travel from the car to the front door, because she is collecting all of the fallen leaves in our path.  She calls them leafys, and she sings the cleanup song she learned at preschool as she gathers them.  Like other people, small children feel safe and whole when they feel listened to, when it seems that their opinions and needs matter, at least enough to be acknowledged, even when an adult makes a different decision.

Ellie is happening upon the twos, so sometimes, we have had trouble discerning her wishes and deciphering her moods.  One of her frequent responses to yes/no questions is, "Yeah no." It typically means yes, but it is difficult to be confident.  She answers questions very earnestly, with a serious expression on her face, sometimes.  Her vocabulary has grown exponentially, but we still sometimes have trouble understanding what she is saying.  What seems to master most to her, however, is that someone is trying to understand.  She repeats herself patiently.  Sometimes, when hungry, tired, or unwell in particular, things do spin out and it is hard to get back on track. She will cry, "blue one," or "hold it," repeatedly, and we will either not be able to determine what she wants, or provide it.  Sometimes she will sob for milk while she is holding milk.  Some meltdowns are unavoidable and become protracted, but if we are lucky, she will accept a hug or crack a smile on response to a joke, and the cycle can be broken by reconnecting.

In general, she seems to be enjoying her relationships with classmates.  Sometimes, she can be very insistent about getting the attention of someone, repeating Hi Romy, Hi Romy until a child responds.  She has also been known to encourage her classmates to hug her beloved lamb, Baa, very enthusiastically.  But when a child took Baa, Ellie was fairly chill about it, tugging back after a minute while saying Baa.  No tears, no yelling, no hitting.   And when we got a call about a biting incident, I first worried that she was the biter, but it turned out that she had been bitten, and was fairly nonplussed by it.  She likes her classmates, but we hear the most about her lovely teacher, Ms. Kat.

She does have moments of being more assertive.  She yells No at Zoe for no reason we understand, as well as at other dogs, and occasionally, on the playground.  I struggle with how to handle these exclamations.  No can be an extremely important word.  I do not want to create a taboo around it, exorcism with a girl.

Ellie is still very fond of hugs and cuddles, and I soak those up, knowing they will not last forever.  I wish so much for more time with her.  I particularly wish that I could give her shorter days of preschool and more laid back time at home with us.  I never had such long days until I became involved in extracurricular activities in middle school.

There is so much I could write about her fierce spirit, her tenderness, her intelligence and humor.  I need to sleep, so I have to wait.  For now, I will just say, what an incredible gift to be her parents.  I know we only borrow our exquisite children from the universe.  But my whole heart is wrapped around this gift from the universe.  To me, she is spectacular.

PostScript: It is a rainy Monday morning, and the typical mad dash ensued.  The contrast between the slow weekend mornings, with long hugs and library books, with the clipped weekday mornings, a temse jumble of toothbrushing and raincoats and running late, is jarring for me. I wonder how it feels for her.  I want to give her shorter days at preschool and quieter, more gentle weekday mornings.  We focus on the $15,000 per year that it would cost for me to work eight hours less each week, and the effect that could have on college savings.  But as I feel the distance between us widen so slightly on weekday mornings, I wonder if it is worth it.  Tuition will cost, it is estimated, $140,000 per year for each child.  But who will she be when she arrives at the doorstep of adulthood? Will she be firmly rooted in the foundation of our love, the comforting circle of family third ties? I want to hold her closer. I want to be sure.

22 Months!

Our sweet girl will be twenty-two months old by this time next week -- just two months shy of two years old.  She sat on my lap on the rug just inside the front door with this morning and I pulled her pink and purple Nike sandals on as she sipped milk out of a yellow cup.  I gave her a big hug before letting her go, and just before she slipped out the door, she said, "I love you," pronouncing the "l" more like a "w."  Really just that moment is worth nine months of pregnancy, a caesarean section, bleeding nipples, the time she threw the wooden bookend at my foot.  I think about this one true thing all the time these days -- being her mom is the best and most important thing I have ever done, will ever do.  My favorite weekends these days are the ones where the three of us (four, including Zoe) do not have many plans with other people; we go on walks, we read books, maybe we visit a grocery store, the library, a farmer's market. 

Ellie started preschool two weeks ago, the day after Labor Day.  I had really flexed my worrying muscles in preparation for her first day and week of preschool.  We had a collection of several books about the first day of preschool on repeat for weeks, visited the playground her class would play in, visited her teachers and her classroom, peppered her with questions about preschool.  There were tears -- the first tears were mine, as soon as I left her classroom that first day -- but Ellie cried less than many of the other children, despite the significant transition from hanging with her Nani everyday to being one of nine children in a classroom.  Her stuffed lamb, Baa, a gift from Grandma on her first Easter, has become a constant companion, so much so that we were compelled to buy a second Baa, so that the first Baa could be washed regularly.  As she has become more comfortable at school, Baa spends more time in her cubby, and last week, Ellie gave her teacher, Ms. Kat, a hug before she left.  She got a cold at the end of the first week, and the last couple days of the first week, she was tearful and bleary at pickup, and I contemplated quitting my job, selling our house, and moving to a place with low housing prices where Ellie and I could spend our days in the woods.  She recovered quickly from the cold, and last week, she was happily engaged every day when I came to pick her up.

There has been an absolutely incredible language explosion in the last couple of months.  We were very surprised by some of the words that she began casually using (pillow, for example) and she is stringing more sentences together.  Nitin found her quizzing herself with her "first 100 words" book one morning when he came to wake her up.  She also practices funny sentences, "Mama shoes, all wet," "Dada shoes, all wet," "Zozo shoes, all wet."  She also loves to sing these days.  The "sunny days" introduction song from Sesame Street is one of her favorites, and of course, she has caught on to the ubiquitous "Baby shark" craze; she frequently asks to listen to that during tooth brushing: "Baby shark, doo doo doo doo?"

She also plays very well with the other children at preschool, as well as younger kids.  She has even become more gentle with Zoe recently, though Zoe would be wise not to trust her completely just yet!  Every day, there are several moments when I think, "remember this," and I wish that I took the time to jot down a note or email myself then, because there are so many moments that some do slip through the cracks.  She is still very passionate about water -- splashing in puddles, splashing in the bathtub, watering her Dada's garden with the garden hose, etc.  She knows she is not supposed to splash in the bathtub, and has become a little bit more compliant with that rule, but she will frequently gently splash and say, "No splashing, no Elmo," because I once told her that if she splashed, there would be no Elmo video during tooth brushing.  (That had been an ineffective consequence at the time -- she splashed vigorously, and we watched Baby Shark instead of Elmo, because truly, how could I otherwise brush her teeth?)

Since the day that Ellie was born, she has been the focal point of our lives, and right at the center of my heart.  I have worried over decisions that we are making, knowing that it is impossible to choose correctly all the time, and there are benefits and drawbacks to every choice that one can make.  In the interest of candor -- these posts may need to be edited before Ellie someday sees them -- some of the most painful moments were those in which I questioned whether I should work, how much, and who would watch Ellie when we could not be with her.  I struggled tremendously with this.  Nitin's mom very generously provided care for Ellie during the work week for about a year and a half, from the time that Ellie was four months old, until she began preschool two weeks ago.  In many ways, this was simply incredible for Ellie, to be individually doted on during such a fundamental period.  I do not know even now if I would have done this differently.  But it twisted my heart when she gave me advice about our daughter, when she exercised  veto over my parenting decisions, when she made comments about "raising" our daughter.  These were some of the most painful experiences of my adult life.  It may be a coincidence, but since Ellie has begun preschool, I feel a new cohesiveness to our family of three, and in particular, I feel there is no longer an outside force pressing against my precious bond with her. 

I could not be more grateful to have been blessed with such a delightful, loving child, who is so full of joie de vivre.  I love how she throws her head back and laughs her warm, bubbling laugh when something really tickles her.  She has been waking up at night a bit more these days, and when we come in, we say, "Ellie, sweetheart, are you OK? What is wrong?" and she looks at us, and she says, "MOLT!!!" Which is her funny pronunciation of milk.  It is absolutely hysterical, and we have started telling her this story during the day, and one of us says, "MOLT!!!" she screams with laughter.  I love that her sense of humor is already is so much better than a lot of the grown ups I know -- and it really delights me that she has a sense of humor about herself!

I frequently wish that I had more time with her, and I toy with rearranging my schedule to be part-time, so that I could spend more time with her (and her sibling, fingers crossed) in the mornings.  As any parent of a toddler knows, the after five witching hour can be a tricky time, when folks are grumpy, hungry and tired all around.  But whatever happens, I hope not to keep our special bedtime routine going for as long as I can.  (I hope to tweak our dinner routine, eventually, so that we eat dinner as a family more often, instead of me frantically warming up stirfry for Ellie and scurrying around the kitchen.)  After Ellie's bath, she sits on my lap and snuggles in her hooded towel, and then she makes a mad dash to her bedroom, where we put on her new diaper (not her favorite part), her pajamas, and then brush her teeth with a video (not my favorite part).  And then we snuggle in the glider while she drinks her milk, and we listen to "Thanks a lot," by Raffi.  And we read books while she drinks her milk, until the last book of the night, "Wherever you are, my love will find you," which Ellie increasingly chats through, having probably memorized the book by now.  Then we turn off the lights, turn on the sound machine, and sing songs: Goodnight my someone from the Music Man, Catch a falling star, sing a song, you are my sunshine, Baby mine, Lavender Blue, and a host of others.  I tell Ellie and her menagerie of stuffed animals goodnight, and she says, "One more song?" "Last song?" And I sing another.  And she says, "One more song?" and I have to leave, of course.  On good nights, Ellie will call "Bye!!" from her crib, and I'll shout back "Bye!!" And this may go on for several rounds, with Dada sometimes chiming in.  Like I said, the very best, and the very most important, thing.

A little shy of 21 months

An unexpected post! Not that unpredictability is such a winning quality in a parent.  This will be quick, but I wanted to capture a few things.

We returned from our trip to lush trees and cool breezes off the lake in Evanston.  Many hours of Daniel Tiger in the backseat of a pretty cozy crossover "SUV" later.  We had a beautiful time.  We visited with my parents and many old friends who fit like loose cozy sweaters.  We walked the charming downtown streets, lined with businesses that have been there since I was a kid waiting in the car while Dad ran am errand at Lemoi hardware, mom picked up a coffee cake at Bennison's.  Gigio's pizza, Elenora Smith Park across from my childhood home, the skinny wooden slats of the fences near the beach.  I love taking Ellie home with me all the more now that she can appreciate a taste of pastry, a swingset, or Chicago deep dish pizza.  I feel deeply rooted there.

An odd thought visited me while we drove back to Washington.  We have a wider network of friends here, stronger professional contacts, a church we sometimes attend, doctors and dentists.  We met here and, but for a couple of years in law school, have been together only here.  But if I died tomorrow, I know my remains would not belong here. I guess it is the same with my Grandpa Rollie, buried in Carnegie after a life spent other places, and my dad, whose ashes will be spread in  Big Sur someday.  What are the things that keep people from living in their true homes?  It seems so strange that this will be Ellie's taproot.  For all its history, this place seems only a few inches deep in some places.  Maybe that is one reason people are frequently coming and going; it is difficult to feel you are from here.

I have digressed fantastically, of course.  We looked at a large, beautiful house a few blocks from the lake.  My mom indulged me by driving up and down streets off the lovely strip on Central St with the library and the bread shop and the bakery.  But then we drove back and here we are in our lives again.

Before that all happened, we had a magical trip.  Ellie ate blueberries, which Grandma buys several pints at a time.  She adored my parents' garden, with its tall sunflowers, which must have looked like giant beans talks to her! "Flowers, flowers, flowers!" She went on a few dates with her dad, too, between hanging out with grandma and grandpa.

A few funny moments:

At the dinner table, Ellie dangled a spoon in front of Maggie until she was interested, and then yanked it away, scolding  "No spoon!" A little dickens.

After a trying dinner one night, I rubbed my eyes and said, "oh Ellie," and she said, without missing a beat, "oh Zozo."

One day, we changed her poopy diaper before a walk, and after Nitin bagged it, she tried to kiss the bag and said, "Bye to poop."

And one other moment that, however things turn out, I think I'll mention.  On the Tuesday morning we were there, I peed in a cup, dipped a strip, and quite unexpectedly saw two pink lines materialize.  I shouted for Nitin at the base of the staircase in my parents' house, and showed it to him and stared, wide-eyed.  Nitin took the news pretty casually and said we had to wait to see if the line kept darkening.  Mom was sitting with Ellie of on the couch all the while and had taken the whole scene in.  We told Dad at lunch, and he was delighted.

But now we are in the pins and needles of early pregnancy.  No ultrasound until 6.5 weeks.  We are at 4.5 now.  Two HCG numbers so far, 97 on Friday and a whopping 574 on Monday.  One more tomorrow.  Nitin says there is a 95 percent chance of a baby at this point based on a study he read.  I guess we shall see.  Could be one, could be none...could even be two! Or a molar pregnancy or an ectopic pregnancy or a miscarriage or...who knows. The uncertainty is a little daunting.

I guess I went and hijacked Ellie's blog tonight with my own musings and her possible new sibling!  We'll have more news on Ellie soon.  Tomorrow is her preschool orientation, and in a few short weeks, preschool will begin.  We may or may not fly to Providence first.  Or confirm the pregnancy is viable.  So. 

We did ask Ellie if she would like it if we brought a baby home.  Her response : "Yeah!" Nitin said we should have caught that on tape.

20 Months!

I am writing as we hurtle down the highway towards Chicago for a visit with grandparents and friends. I meant to write a post in July detailing the explosion of Ellie's vocabulary and her many adventures -- but those adventures kept us busy.  It can be difficult to keep the months straight -- so pardon any updates that I already noted in June!

The summer is flying by more quickly than ever before.  Ellie has been very chatty and has started to pull simple sentences together. At the zoo, she said, "me meet panda," and meet the pandas she did!  She is very fond of explanatory sentences: "This is Dada, this is mama, this is Baa, this is Zozo."

She understands what is happening around her so well.  She also knows how to ask for what she needs -- "help," "pouch," "milk" and Elmo seems to be the catchword for screen time.  She sure loves Elmo, but even Elmo videos have not made her enthusiastic about tooth brushing!

She can be very friendly! She particularly likes to say hi and bye, even (especially) to inanimate objects -- very often "hi trash" and "bye trash."

Her sense of family identity is very strong. She looked to call roll, saying "mama" and "Dada" over and over.  She can say her name, though the "L" sound is not clear, but she more often refers to herself as "booboo."

We had a wonderful visit from Ellie's grandparents in July while Nitin was in Italy.  She had a blast showing them the parks in our neighborhood and all of her toys and books -- many of which Grandma and Grandpa picked out!

The toddler age is a busy one, and boundary testing and building frustration tolerance are real things.  But the gifts of this age are many -- she is frequently "in on the joke" in a book or in conversation, and her laugh is a beautiful sound.  She likes to sing along to songs, and we are surprised my how many of the words she knows in her favorites.  She also learned to hum, which is a pretty cute phenomenon. 

She has a very, very sweet side -- we cuddled in the hotel bed last night when she woke up scared, and she was tired, but so snuggly.  She gave me a few sly smiles.  I wish I had a photo of those moments. 

She is also ever the adventurer, enjoying the zoo, sprawling indoor play spaces, and spray grounds and playgrounds all over!  Her next adventure is preschool, beginning in just a short month! I am both excited about nervous, but I know that once she settles in, she will have a blast and her facile mind will be given so many new opportunities to grow!  We sure love this sweet kiddo.

19 Months!

Uh oh. Did you see what happened? I have not written in over three months! Whoops.  A whole lot to catch up on.  The busier she gets, the faster time flies, and it can be so difficult to find a moment to write it all down. We are still a few days shy of nineteen months, but close enough for rock and roll...

Ellie is as she has always been -- an unrestrained bundle of energy who loves to pull tails, throw her head back and bellow with laughter, and use her outdoor voice!  She is in  constant motion.  But there have been many new developments, too: for one, the language explosion is underway.  She constantly calls after Zoe ("doh doh"), she is recognizing some letters (she calls many of them "G," having learned that letter early, and perhaps mistaking it for the generic term for all letters), and she is beginning to understand counting, though she usually does not "count" in order.  Her receptive language skills are, of course, ahead of her expressive skills -- for a while now, if someone says Sesame Street, she'll run irk the living room and sit in front of the television expectantly.  If you ask if she would like a pouch, she will lead you the pantry to retrieve it.  

Her words are many, and perhaps reveal her priorities -- more, dog, puddle, Zozo, milk, please, water (wawa), hiiiiii, byyyyyyye, and many more.  She really loves to give kisses -- she will kiss Nitin and me, of course, on our knees or cheeks or whatever is most convenient to her, and is particularly affectionate when she wakes up.  But she will also kiss Zoe, her stuffed animals, animals in books, the Elmo on a toilet seat that Shobha bought and now plans not to use for its intended purpose.  She also loves to play a game where she announces she is leaving ("byyyyyyye"), run/stumbles out of a room, and then comes hurtling back, landing in a big hug in our arms.  The sweetest.  She is so comfortably affectionate.  But that does not mean she always has time or patience for cuddles.  She can also be a girl in a mission, and sometimes she needs her own space.  

We can already see that Ellie means to give us a run for our money.  She often wears a tremendously impish expression -- "Who, me?" No dinner passes without Ellie trying to put her feet on the table, spraying her last bite of food all over the table, or rubbing messy food in a circle on her bare belly. What to do, what to do.  A stern no is often meet with gleeful laughter -- after all, this is my predictable role in the game.  If it did not cause trouble, it would not be any fun!  So I usually settle for telling her that is not good behavior, and it looks like dinner time has ended. There is only so much you can do with a nineteen month old week delights in her own mischief.  As she gets older, perhaps we will try sticker charts, withholding dessert, and other tactics that require some semblance of higher order reasoning.  But it remains a distinct possibility that she'll always be one step ahead of me!

I see a lot of my childhood self in Ellie.  She has such an enormous capacity for joy, for silliness, for jokes she has made just for herself.  She is not afraid of much.  She runs headlong toward her next adventure.  She feels her other feelings strongly, too -- especially as bedtime approaches, Abad toothbrushing night can make her so sad, wailing in despair.  But the feelings cycle quickly.  She has a hearty appetite and will eat most things we give her, though some foods are more popular than others.  She loves to eat shredded cheese -- cheese was another early word.  But she enjoys variety -- feed her any food too often, and she will temporarily sour on it.  These days, she is very enthusiastic about puddles, and wants to wear the (too big) rainboots we got her even when it is not raining. 

I cannot believe how quickly time is moving.  I still call Ellie my baby, and I will always think of her that way.  That is another word she has learned to say lately -- baby.  She will often repeat the word "mama," and I will say the word "baby," back to her, and then she will reply "baby" back to me.  We also often call her "booboo," and that has become a word she repeats so often that I wonder if she thinks it is her name...

Meanwhile, quite a bit is happening in the world that swirls around our little family.  Nitin has left DOJ for a position at a nonprofit that was formed to bring suits against the government.  I am still in my position at ED but it has been a very difficult time to work in my office.  There are days when we discuss a different type of life in a quieter, slower pace place, where family could feel more like the true centerpiece of our lives.  Ellie is at the very heart of my heart, always -- I sometimes just wish for more slow mornings or lazy afternoons with her.  And then there is the prospect of the brother of sister we hope that she will have someday...

But for now, a summer of enjoying our family of three humans and one delightful labradoodle, and trying to get to a strong, solid place where it feels right to welcome another family member...

Fifteen -- and a half -- months!

Hello! I meant to write sooner, but I have been chasing around a baby who can WALK! Wait! Is a baby who can walk, give kisses and high fives, and say ma, da, yeah!, and nonono...a toddler?! Ellie's walking has really taken off in the last week.  She can also climb a fight of stairs in the blink of an eye, which is terrifying. 

Likes: Ellie continues to love reading her books, and about forty percent of the time, she reads them upside down.  Her singing has become even more enthusiastic -- she shouts DAA to let you know she is singing along.  She sings this way for other songs, too, but it works particularly well for her favorite song, You'll Be Back, from the Hamilton soundtrack.  Yogurt remains a popular food group.  Avocado is more of a sometimes food.  I finally wised up and started feeding it to her only with a spoon. Avocado stains!  Ellie also loves to feed Zoe her cheddar rocket crackers -- I will often find that she has wandered over to Z's crate with her "spillproof" snack cup.  Other things that are only spillproof if your toddler does not shake them violently: every toddler sippy cup on the market.

Dislikes: Ellie is a fan of bathtime but she is no fan of hair washing, AKA the thirty seconds when Ellie must have her hair rinsed and she feels she is drowning.  I taught her to "look up" so the water will roll down her back, and she does, but she thinks it is a game, so she snaps her head back down too quickly and gets water in her eyes. It is a work in progress.

While saying goodbye to me one morning this week, Ellie showered me with kisses -- she bows her head to touch most of her face to the object of her kiss and says, "mmm-ah!" She delivered several kisses this way and it was so endearing that I could have kicked my work shoes and quit my job on the spot.  Oh, let's be honest. I could do that any minute of the day! Ha. 

Ellie is every day the brightest spot in our lives.  We cannot wait to share spring with her, go on walks to the park, blow bubbles, and take some family excursions to the zoo, a lavender dark, and behind...

I hate to do it, but I think I am cutting back on pictures -- they are a bear to add on this platform, and I want to prioritize capturing every written memory of sweet Ellie that I can! But here is an animation of Ellie reading her Hedgehugs book...right side up!

Fourteen months!

Well, hello.  I have taken a hiatus from posting, but in my defense, Ellie is difficult to keep up with these days! Since I lasted posted in December, we traveled to Chicago for Christmas, have had about three colds each, and welcomed the new year.  The temperatures in this time period have ranged from the high sixties to, when in Chicago, below zero.  Welcome to globally warmed January!

Ellie is cruising and standing on her own, but not quite walking!  She continues to have a very playful personality and a great sense of humor.  The most reliable way to crack her up is to dramatically wrinkle your nose while changing her diaper and tell her, "Ellie, this is the STINKIEST diaper I have ever seen!" She thinks smelly diapers are absolutely hysterical.

She is also a burgeoning bookworm, and she loves to bring us the same books over and over to read to her.  She particularly likes books with flaps that she can lift, like Dear Zoo and Where Is Baby's Bellybutton? She will often climb right into one of our laps for storytime.  She does not always have the patience to finish a book -- she may interrupt the narration of one story by handing us another book, and if you do not switch books immediately, she will register her distress!

She has also identified another new way to raise concerns -- "no no no no no no no." Sometimes, she will even use this "phrase" to indicate that she desperately wants something you are holding.  I think the literal translation is, "I am not currently getting what I want!" So, I think we are headed straight toward toddler terrain.

She continues to be very, very sweet and charming.  She is enamored with the stuffed puppy today Brendan got her for her birthday.  She still likes to play with the hair on the back of her head with one hand while she holds her bottle with the other.  She is beginning to show more gentleness towards Zoe, and like Zoe, she likes to look out the window at the neighborhood.  Unlike Zoe, than goodness, she does not lose her mind barking at squirrels.

Here are a few photos from the past few months!

Merry Christmas from Ellie and Zoe!

One puff for Ellie, one puff for Butterscotch...

Come on in, the water is perfect!

Sheesh, parents! Do I have to do *everything* myself?

Love spending sunny weekend mornings in this room...

Also, can you tell how large this baby is? She is tremendous.  We just bought size 2T pajamas and they fit perfectly.

I did NOT see that plot twist coming! 

Biker chick

I will try to be a bit more diligent about posting.  I have been thinking a lot about how to make 2018 just as special as 2017 was for our family.  Visits to the zoo, weekend trips and summer vacations, concerts and picnics...here's hoping that 2018 is bursting with new, highly photogenic memories!