Evening with Abuela and Popeye

Ella spent a few hours with my parents last night and my mom sent this email this morning recounting the highlights :-)

 

Last night as we were driving to your house, we were all quiet for a moment.  Ella then said, "Abuela, pause, Popeye, pause...I want to tell you....I REALLY LOVE YOU GUYS, I REALLY, REALLY LOVE YOU GUYS. "  We both choked up and responded, "we really love you too"  She responded....I Love you guys.

 

It was such a moving moment...Daddy and I looked at each other and the tears welled up...as they are now. She seemed to be practicing  "you guys" but in her voice, in her eyes and on her face...there was deep feeling.

 

Daddy went into David's to get Cherry juice...At one point we could not see him, in spite of the fact that all the walls are made of clear glass. Ella asked, why did Popeye leave us?  I explained that he went to get Cherry juice...I said, what color shirt is he wearing....She said RED!  That was followed immediately  by Ella singing loudly ...Jeshush loves the little children, all the children of the world, RED and yellow, black and white, they  are preciouis in his sight, Jeshush loves the little children of the world...HEY THERE IS THE RED SHIRT.  There is Popeye...Popeye loves us. He is coming back. (so typical of 3 year olds fear of abandoment and separation).

 

Dr. Andre, my friend stopped in for about 30 minutes.  We were sitting in the foyer.  Ella ran in, introduced herself spontaneously, pulled up her rocking chair, sat down and joined in the conversation, talked quite appropriately...then suddenly disappeared.  She came back 5 minutes later and announced to me and to my friend.  "I DID IT.  I went poo-poo by myself and flushed and I washed my hands"  Dr. Andre applauded her.  We celebrated.  She responded..."Thank you very much!!"

 

At one point before we left, my left foot was hurting something awful...I sat and Ella asked, "can I help you?"  I said, Pray for my foot.  She reached down and touched my foot, then jumped up and ran to the kitchen...Popeye, we have to pray for Abuela's foot and I don't know how to do it by myself.  They both came and she reached down and touched my foot and closed her eyes...Daddy had no choice but to pray.

 

What a splendid afternoon and evening.

Little Mom

Conversation in the car tonight

Me: Ella what are you doing back there?
Ella: Just feeding baby doll.  Mommy, I LOVE her. 
Me: That's great!  What is she eating?
Ella: Milk.  She LOVES milk.  In a bottle.  She LOVES bottles.
Me: Ella did you know that when you were a little baby I fed you milk in a bottle?
Ella: Yeah!  But now I'm a big girl and I learned how to feed baby doll!  Mom?
Me: Yes?
Ella: Daddy said I'm a good helper and baby doll needs me to help her with her bottle.  Mom, babies don't know how to do anything!
Me (chuckling): you're right!  They do need help.
Ella: Yeah, and I'm bigger and taller so they need me to take care of them.  Mom?
Me: Yes?
Ella: I'm a good helper to tiny babies. 
Me: Yes you are.  I'm proud of you.
Ella: Me too.

My little problem-solver

In the last couple weeks Ella seems to have passed some developmental milestone related to problem solving and self-efficacy. She has started doing things like carrying a stool into her room to turn on the light switch or get shoes out of the top dresser drawer. Not only does she no longer ask me to do these things, she hasn't asked me how to do them, she's just figured it out. It's pretty exciting and fun to see how her little mind tries to fix problems. Today she was trying to get little peices of play-doh out of a toy with tiny holes in it. She walked straight over to a kitchen drawer and pulled out a toothpick and went back to the table and used it to poke the play-doh out! I didn't even know she knew where toothpicks were let alone could come up with that idea! Here are some of her adventures from the last week :-)

We let Ella set the table by herself the other day and here is the result. Everything on the table was put there by Ella (accept the vase of flowers). Not bad!

Ella was standing on a chair playing with cups and spoons in the sink. She kept getting different parts of her clothing wet (which really bothers her) so we took off one peice at a time. I left the room for a minute and she was standing on the chair, wearing a shirt. When I came back I found this! She climbed into the sink by herself...thank God she didn't hurt herself. She was SO proud (probably because I was so freaked out!)

Ella was playing in the backyard and I was sitting a few feet away from her. All of a sudden I heard water running and looked up to find that she'd figured out how to turn on the hose. She proceeded to "water" the entire patio, her bike, and her entire body. I'm not used to her being able to do things like that without help! She's keeping me on my toes for sure.

Ping's Birthday Party

Ping (my lovely SIL) turned the the big 3-0 last week. We had a birthday party for her and it turned out to be the day before she gave birth to Silas! I forgot with all of the baby excitement to blog about the party. We had a lot of fun eating a TON of crabs and hanging out with the Fam. The 3 kids got into some (mostly) harmless mischief that we caught on the camera too....

It was so much fun to capture a genuinely surprised and happy expression when she opened our giftt! (even though it was just something from her wish list, she was excited!)

Ella got Aunt Ping's permission to pick "just one" flower from their yard and has taken to doing so every time we got there now. Then she gives it to someone or keeps it and says things like "Oh Mommy! It's SOOOO dutiful! I love flowers!" (and yes, she says dutiful for beautiful)

Ella has also learned where the treats are and Drew and Ping's house (starburst candies) and gets them for herself as congratulations every time she goes to the bathroom there which somehow ends up being 3 or 4 times every time we're there...she's milking this bathroom thing for all it's worth. For instance, today during her rest time in her bed she HAD to go to the bathroom 3 times within about 25 minutes. She knows I'll come running if she yells "Mommy, I have to go potty" and it's a sure fire way to get out of rest time. Arggggg.

So, while we were eating crabs the kids got bored and went inside. Andrew went to check on them and found them in the bathtub, fully clothed, with the water ON!!!! We stripped them down and they had a BLAST.

Dancing, Splashing and screaming at the top of their lungs. Well, Christopher and Ella anyway. Hannah was mostly interested in drinking the water.

SO excited to get to be wild and crazy!


Post bath cuteness :-) Little did they know their new cousin would be coming less than 24 hours later! Can't wait til we have a picture of all 4 cousins together :-) Soon they'll be getting him into all kinds of mischief too :-)

The park

Fun day at the park with Hol and Hope :-) They introduced us to a new park with a 4 tiers of playgrounds to play on plus a farm! We'll definitely be going back.

While Holly and I chatted with her neighbor Ella got a book from the car and settled in next to a tree to wait out the boring adult conversation. I LOVE that she LOVES books!

feeding goats


Hope is getting to be a playground pro!

During our picnic, they may have gotten a little too excited. Ella was squeezing Hope to give her a slightly too loving hug and Hope was pointing and saying "eye! eye!" while poking Ella....oh these girls

Rennaissance Festival 2008

The Ren Fest has become an annual event for us. The first time I went was with Chris' family before we were even dating! That was 10 years ago! This is Ella's 3rd time and she enjoys it more each year. This time our Life Group from church decided to go together and half of them had never been so it was fun to see them experience it for the first time. We had a great day :-)


Uncle Dave, Ella, and me checking out our favorite show-Jonny Fox the sword swallower. He's SO funny and he really swallows swords (among other things). We were laughing about how he has the exact same scripted jokes every year and I still laugh! And I still cringe when the swords drop into his throat...fascinating but gross!

We had a very upclose view of the tightrope walked (close enough that he had us move when he started juggling knives up there!)

Ella "read" the map and tried to tell us which way to go

Ella loves Lauren and Marcus, the kids of a couple in our life group (even though her face doesn't show it in this picture!)

Ella also loves Karen, the leader of our small group

Ella fell in love with the baby bear statue

Chris using his juggling skills

Dave giving Chris W. a lesson

Keith and Jen looking cute :-) They have an especially adorable little baby and I can't believe I didn't get a picture of him this time!

Our Life Group! We love these guys!

And now, the highlight of the day....




Ella got to ride an elephant!

A little closer look at Chris, Ella, and Aday up on the Elephant. Because of her name, Ella has an affinity for elephants so this was quite an exciting thing :-) We really had a great time and Ella was super well-behaved (including sitting through 3 30min shows!) The fair still runs for another month or so-go check it out!

Silas in here!!!!

I'm SO in love with my brand new nephew! Silas Wang-Shuai was born around 12:30pm today and weighs 8lbs 5oz. Everyone is doing great and he's a super cute, healthy little baby! I haven't been so excited in a long time :-) Yay Ping! And Yay God for answering our prayers for a short, safe delivery and a healthy baby! I'm SOOOO happy!!!


What a cute new family! Andrew, Ping, and Silas

Ella and I loving on Silas

Chris remembered that newborns are supposed to be able to mimic you if you stick your tongue out within hours of birth and Silas did it after a few tries!! Cute and smart!!

Block Party Fun

We had a fun Sunday afternoon with friends at their Church's Block Party/Carnival type thing. There was food, a train to ride that the kids loved (we went twice), a rock wall (maybe next year), a few moon bounces (I almost jacked myself UP in that thing), an enormous slide (SO much fun-Ella went 4 times), watermelon (Chris ate about 8 pieces), and face painting (Ella went twice). Thanks for the invite Christys! It was a blast!


The Dads and daughters (Ella was being shy for some reason)

Beautiful family :-)

Chris looking hot

Me trying to hoist myself up on this thing

mid-fall

I knocked Ella over when I fell! It was a mess!

Ella and I coming down the slide! SO fun! (much safer than that moon bounce obstacle course!)

Ella wanted an "Ella"-phant on her cheek

The fam!

Toilet Paper Caper

I came around the corner the other day to find this...





Oy.

Freedom from the normal...

I feel like God has been challenging me to do hard things. It's a long, deep story as to why but a lot of good won't get done if I'm not willing to do things that stretch me. It's been mostly little things but hard things nonetheless. I've become convinced of the value of stepping out of my comfort zone and not being bound by what I would usually do or what is easiest. There's much more to it but for the purposes of this story, suffice it to say, exercising outside in the rain counts as "doing hard things" in my world. But, I was up for the challenge so when Hurricane Gustav's remnants blew in on Saturday morning, I was still determined to go on my 2 mile walk/run. And, Chris was out so Ella got to join me :-) She was kept mostly dry by the stroller, a blanket, and her rain boots while I got gloriously soaked and enjoyed every minute of it. When we were almost home I decided that another somewhat "hard thing" for me is letting Ella get really messy. So, this was a perfect chance to buck my norms for the second time in one morning. I also don't want to raise a kid who is too scared of a mess or of being wild so though it took some persuading (she was not very interested in getting wet) I got Ella to abandon the stroller and go jump in some puddles with me. In the end we both had a great time and I felt God's pleasure in those raindrops as I experienced the freedom that comes with not doing what I would usually do.


pre walk, all suited up, one of us was not very excited

still not thrilled about getting wet :-(

starting to get into it a little...

"Oooo Mommy I found a deep puddle!"

WAY into it now!

A fun, wet morning for all :-)

It has to slide down!!

Ella was stalling and didn't want to go to bed (this is new as of 3 nights ago) so after she was all tucked in she screamed and cried and eventually insisted she had to go potty.  I let her go and she sat there FOREVER and talked and talked about all kinds of things, perfectly happy to be out of her bed and "winning" the go to bed fight.  I was not thrilled however and I kept asking if she was all done and of course, she said no.  Then...

Me: Ella, I think you're all done.  It's been a long time and nothing is coming out.  All your pee pee is out.
Ella: No Mommy!  I need to go pee pee and poo poo.  The poo poo is all the way up here in my head and it has to go all the way down down down to my heinie.
Me: Really?
Ella: Yes.  It has to slide slide slide down.  That takes time mom.

Well, she shut me up with that.  What do you say to that?  I guess that would take time.  So I left her alone and came out and started writing this.  Lo and behold 2 minutes later she calls out "Mommy!  The poo poo came down!!" and she was right.  Huh.  I totally thought she was making it up about having to go at all.  Her stalling tactics certainly worked though.  She demanded the promised 2 treats (MnMs) for when she goes #2 in the potty.  Then, of course we had to re-brush her teeth etcetera. Oh well, at least she certainly entertained me in the process :-)

Phases...

If there's anything I've learned as a mom, it's that kids go through phases. In everything: what they like to eat, when/if they like to sleep, and what they like to play with/do. Ella is in some STRONG phases right now.

1.Puzzles
She is SO stinkin' good at puzzles. She does 25 piece jigsaw puzzles by herself in about ten minutes. And she'll take them apart and do them over and over again. Phases where she'll sit and do anything for more than 15 minutes are rare and exciting around here.


2.Leap Frog's Letter Factory Video
We borrowed this a couple weeks ago from a friend. 2 mom friends swear their kids learned all the letters and the sounds they make from this video. Ella doesn't know all the letters yet but she's learned some and she's OBSESSSSSSSED with the video. She's just coming off of being really into Mickey Mouse Clubhouse which at least has many different episodes. This is just one 40 minutes video that she's seen SO many times and begs for daily. At least it's educational and she's enjoying it!

3. Stickers
Ella loved stickers about a year ago but hasn't been too interested for a while. A couple weeks ago Chris sat with Ella at the bar in the kitchen and they played with stickers for over an hour! As I said, Ella (like most 2 yr olds) usually loses interst in most things after about 10-15 minutes but this started something new. It's lasted a couple weeks not and she'll still sit there with stickers and paper for a good 30 minutes. I've fallen in love with her "style." She ALWAYS overlaps the stickers and makes these awesome collage/mosaic looking creations. Someone told her to spread them out on the page but I tell her to go with her style. Way to be unique Ella Bella!




A couple of her creations