Ella has started talking a lot!! The phases have gone like this:
1.Signing
2.Jibberish
3.Using a few words
4.Few words plus new jibberish
5.Lots of words
6.Lots of words plus new jibberish.
She just started #6 this week. I had gotten used to understanding most of what she said but now there's a lot I don't understand. It's exciting though because all of that will turn into real English if the trend continues.
It's been a big week for her. She has started singing songs for the first time. She'll sing along with CDs and also sing to herself while playing (recognizable songs!!). It's SO cute to listen to! She's also started to kind of verbally summarize things she hears. If I'm reading to her and the page says "Elmo ran into the house as fast as he could" as soon as I finish she'll say "Elmo house fast." She's also been picking up books to "read" (which she's done for a long time) but she points to the words and pictures and says things that make sense! She's learning so much so fast!
My favorite things she's saying right now are...
"Hew-oh" (Hello)
"Honan" (Hold on)
"Honan a mini" (Hold on a minute)
"Eya Hode it?" (Can Ella hold it?)
"cholit mi?" (Can I have chocolate milk?)
"coo" (cool)
"hee-ya-go" (Here you go)
"hey-now" (playground)
"eena" (music)
Not sure how the last two fit but they really do sound like the real words if you say them enough times. Apparently "approximations" are all that is expected at this age so I'm enjoying this fun phase of Ella-ese. I'm hoping to get some videos posted here of her talking so we'll never forget how cute her "learning to talk" period is!
Friday, September 28, 2007
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Ella's Words
So this blog is sometimes for other people to be amused by cute things Ella does but I really started it as a record for myself so I'd remember what she did at different times. So, I apologize if it's not amusing today (or other times) but that's a lot of pressure and I really just want to write everything I think of because I'm sure I won't remember it by next week. So, here's what she's been up to...
Ella has an in home evaluation every other month by a teacher for the deaf and hard of hearing in our county. This time her audiologist came also and both were very impressed by her! Developmentally she's doing all of the things a 24 month old should be doing and a bunch of the 30month things too! (She's 22 months old now). Her speech and comprehension are ahead for her age too. The summer has been full of activities that are not good for hearing aid wearing but I'm hoping to be better about having them on her as much as possible.
Chris and I have also been pretty awed lately by Ella's speech and comprehension. She is saying the entire alphabet (LMNOP gets a little slurred) and counts to 10 (somehow almost all the numbers sound like they start with "H" but that's ok). All of it is recognizable by her tone but all with a "toddler" accent which means it's a little garbled and there's some letter switching but apparently that's normal. The audiologist said that kids don't develop all of the sounds in the English language until age 8! She said pretty much every 3 year old (with normal hearing) will say they are "free" years old. Anyway, Ella is picking up new words literally every day.
She's also learning new concepts that go with words-for instance, I got some books for her at the library and asked if she wanted to read her "new" books. The next day I showed her some clothes I got at the store and she said "oooo, new clothes." She's surprised me and proven since then that she gets what "new" means, not just a word to go in front of books. It's exciting to see how much she can understand now and remember. She's been telling everyone all week that Brooklyn is at Nana's house (one of our dogs went to go live with Chris' parents-a great deal for everyone involved). It kinda sounds like "Broo-lin ziz a Nana how" but it totally counts in my book. She told the audiologist that and she furiously scribbled notes about how Ella said a 5 word sentence (apparently 4 words together by the time they're 3 is the goal).
She's also catching on to being polite. She's starting to say "please" and "thank you" and "sorry" without being prompted. When she doesn't want to hold something in her car seat anymore (cup, book etc.) she's been saying "NO NO" louder and louder until I take it from her (I'm trying to decide if that's better than just throwing it on the floor). It's pretty frustrating though because I can't always reach back and take whatever it is right away so I've been asking her to nicely tell me that she's "all done" and hold it or wait for me to take it. Well yesterday she started saying something over and over and I couldn't turn around and started telling her to stop yelling at mommy until I realized she was saying "No thank you, NO thank you" and holding her cup out for me to take. I felt sheepish for getting upset when she was using her "nice words" so I took the cup and praised her for saying it nicely. She's just so cute sometimes!
She also has been saying "excuse me" a lot (to the dog, to chairs, anything in her way) and then "thank you" when the dog or person moves (the inanimate objects just get shoved away). She also says "hold it?" when she sees something she wants to touch or when she's done she'll say "Mommy hold it?"
TOYS:ALERT-Ella doesn't like her toys. For the most part she won't play with anything for more than a few minutes. It's very frustrating. I'm going to get some new open storage bins and shelves so things are more accessible and easy to see and hopefully that will help. She loves toys at other people's houses but here, nope.
Oh, but she is fabulous at puzzles all of a sudden. A few weeks ago she didn't understand how to turn the pieces to make them fit so she just got frustrated and didn't want to play with them. Now she easily identifies the matching space for each piece and turns them until they fit. Amazing. She surprises me with little things like that she knows what it means if I say "turn it" and if I say "try turning the other way." I know they're small things but it makes my little heart happy to see her turn something the other way and realize my tiny child knows what "turn" and "other way" mean. Wow. She's amazing.
Ella has an in home evaluation every other month by a teacher for the deaf and hard of hearing in our county. This time her audiologist came also and both were very impressed by her! Developmentally she's doing all of the things a 24 month old should be doing and a bunch of the 30month things too! (She's 22 months old now). Her speech and comprehension are ahead for her age too. The summer has been full of activities that are not good for hearing aid wearing but I'm hoping to be better about having them on her as much as possible.
Chris and I have also been pretty awed lately by Ella's speech and comprehension. She is saying the entire alphabet (LMNOP gets a little slurred) and counts to 10 (somehow almost all the numbers sound like they start with "H" but that's ok). All of it is recognizable by her tone but all with a "toddler" accent which means it's a little garbled and there's some letter switching but apparently that's normal. The audiologist said that kids don't develop all of the sounds in the English language until age 8! She said pretty much every 3 year old (with normal hearing) will say they are "free" years old. Anyway, Ella is picking up new words literally every day.
She's also learning new concepts that go with words-for instance, I got some books for her at the library and asked if she wanted to read her "new" books. The next day I showed her some clothes I got at the store and she said "oooo, new clothes." She's surprised me and proven since then that she gets what "new" means, not just a word to go in front of books. It's exciting to see how much she can understand now and remember. She's been telling everyone all week that Brooklyn is at Nana's house (one of our dogs went to go live with Chris' parents-a great deal for everyone involved). It kinda sounds like "Broo-lin ziz a Nana how" but it totally counts in my book. She told the audiologist that and she furiously scribbled notes about how Ella said a 5 word sentence (apparently 4 words together by the time they're 3 is the goal).
She's also catching on to being polite. She's starting to say "please" and "thank you" and "sorry" without being prompted. When she doesn't want to hold something in her car seat anymore (cup, book etc.) she's been saying "NO NO" louder and louder until I take it from her (I'm trying to decide if that's better than just throwing it on the floor). It's pretty frustrating though because I can't always reach back and take whatever it is right away so I've been asking her to nicely tell me that she's "all done" and hold it or wait for me to take it. Well yesterday she started saying something over and over and I couldn't turn around and started telling her to stop yelling at mommy until I realized she was saying "No thank you, NO thank you" and holding her cup out for me to take. I felt sheepish for getting upset when she was using her "nice words" so I took the cup and praised her for saying it nicely. She's just so cute sometimes!
She also has been saying "excuse me" a lot (to the dog, to chairs, anything in her way) and then "thank you" when the dog or person moves (the inanimate objects just get shoved away). She also says "hold it?" when she sees something she wants to touch or when she's done she'll say "Mommy hold it?"
TOYS:ALERT-Ella doesn't like her toys. For the most part she won't play with anything for more than a few minutes. It's very frustrating. I'm going to get some new open storage bins and shelves so things are more accessible and easy to see and hopefully that will help. She loves toys at other people's houses but here, nope.
Oh, but she is fabulous at puzzles all of a sudden. A few weeks ago she didn't understand how to turn the pieces to make them fit so she just got frustrated and didn't want to play with them. Now she easily identifies the matching space for each piece and turns them until they fit. Amazing. She surprises me with little things like that she knows what it means if I say "turn it" and if I say "try turning the other way." I know they're small things but it makes my little heart happy to see her turn something the other way and realize my tiny child knows what "turn" and "other way" mean. Wow. She's amazing.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Arundel Mills = Amusement Park
Sometimes the time between when Ella wakes from her nap and dinner/bedtime can be very hard to fill. I'm usually kinda tired by then and traffic is bad if we venture too far from home. Plus big kids are out of school and crowding the playgrounds by then and I've usually finished errands by then (why go when people with jobs are there when you can go when it's nice an empty in the middle of the day?). So, I often find myself trying to figure out what to do to entertain my child between 4 and 6pm. TV is the easy answer (not for the whole 2 hrs, don't worry) but I'm trying to steer away from that. She's in a stage where none of her toys are very interesting to her-at least not for more than 5 minutes. She'll play at other people's houses with their toys for hours but if we own it, it's boring. She used to be in love with the water table outside but that's gotten "old" too. So, on one particular day last week I did something I haven't done in months. I took her to the Mall. Ella and Malls were not a good mix last time we tried it. A few months ago we went with my friend Theresa and her (quiet and docile) 2 yr old. Ella had a fit. She hated being in the stroller and just wanted to run around and did the limp body whine/cry on the floor thing every time I tried to hold her hand. It was wretched so I've avoided malls every since. My mom had a positive mall experience with her a few weeks ago so I decided to try my luck. However, this time, it was not to shop for anything in particular but rather to make Arundel Mills seem like an amusement park and it worked!!! Not only was she amused and pretty well behaved but it was free and educational. First we spent about 30 minutes in Bass Pro Shop looking at the HUGE fish tank and the Mountain face complete with stuffed Mooses, bears, and a real flowing stream. She learned all the animals names, touched some of them and was completely mesmerized. Then we walked for a while (we had a talk all the way there about holding mommy's hand) and she did very well. Then we got to the "rides" and spent another 30 minutes going from ride to ride and pretending to "drive." She has no idea you can put money in and make the rides actually move and I have no intentions of telling her. She was more than happy to just climb in and out of them. We walked some more and then got 2 breadsticks at Sbarro and had a little snack in the food court. It was a lovely outing and only cost me $2 for the breadsticks. So, for all you moms reading, Arundel Mills can be a free amusement park for a 1 year old!
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Maryland State Fair
We had a great time at the State Fair. I'd never been before but I definitely think we'll make it a family trip each year now that Ella is old enough to enjoy it-animals and rides and yummy food! What could be better?
Brand new baby chicks!
I really think this is the biggest cow I've ever seen
Daddy, Ella, and the sheep
Brand new baby chicks!
I really think this is the biggest cow I've ever seen
Daddy, Ella, and the sheep
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
On Strike
Ella is on a hunger strike. At least that's what I think it is. She's not acting sick and she's eaten the equivalent of 2 meals in the last 3 days. She ate a little at dinner tonight so I'm feeling encouraged. She's been drinking lots of milk and juice the whole time so she's getting something with food value but still, kind of scary to see her go DAYS with so little actual food intake. The first night she slept her normal 12 hrs but last night she woke up screaming every 1-2 hrs ALL NIGHT. It was wretched. How do people with new babies do it? How did I do it? So, I'm praying she'll sleep well tonight because the Lord knows we both need it. Hopefully the strike will end soon....
Thursday, September 6, 2007
The Flower Family
On August 25th (Our 6 year anniversary), Ella got to be the flower girl in our friend Derek's wedding. It was a kind of crazy weekend (sleeping in a hotel room with a 20 month old is not recommended by us) but we had a great time reconnecting with our Va Tech friends. As for Ella as the flower girl, we ended up being the "flower family" and Chris held her hand while I dropped the flowers. The basket of flowers they wanted dropped was as big as Ella so there was no way she could walk by herself. It was pretty amusing and unexpected but went well.
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