Sadie-11 months!

This baby is exploding with speech, mobility, and utter cuteness.  She was a late crawler and early talker just like Ella.  She scooted on her stomach some until just a week or two ago.  Her actual "crawling" (more like sitting and pulling forward with her hands) started just before she turned 11 months.  She likes standing and walking holding onto adult hands but is cautious (like her mama!) and isn't pulling up or cruising yet.  No concerns about that, she can take her time :-)



She is a moody talker meaning, she has times during the day where she talks non stop and then moments of silence.  Her go to phrases lately have been "ohh wow!!" or "whatz zat?"  She also sometimes says "uh oh" and "all done."  She also has random things she's only said on one occassion.  Like "french fry" and "are we there?" (I'm not kidding)





Sadie is a dancer.  It's just part of her.  We think it's my Rockette-grandmother's legacy living on (where she got her blue eyes also!)  The girl cannot hear music and not shake her bootie.  It's hilarious.  And her moves are developing over time.  She not shakes her shoulders, moves side to side, bounces up and down, shakes her hips, claps, bobs her head-quite a repertoire for a tiny person.  The girl just has the need to move when ANY kind of music comes on, anywhere.  It's SO cute!

Ella Talk

Me (in a funny voice while dancing around): I Love You!! I love you!! I love you!
Ella (in a scolding tone): Mom. You are being a little too crazy.


E (while we're in the car running errands): Mom can you take a shower when we get home?
Me: Why? I took a shower this morning.
E: Please? Please? Can you please take a shower?
Me: No Ella, I'll take one tomorrow morning.
(lots more begging and me getting frustrated)
Me: Why do you want me to take a shower? I'm clean!
E (quietly): ummm...so I can watch TV
Ahhh, it all comes together now. She had no concerns for my hygiene, it was just a new way to beg for TV time (the begging is the main reason she's been banned from TV lately).
Later she told me "Mom, I won't let it hurt my brain! I promise!" (Yes, I told her too much TV will hurt her brain.)


Ella: Mom? Did you know vegetables are good for my brain, and my tummy, and my poop! That's what they're good for!
Me: That's true! How about some broccoli at lunch? I love broccoli.
Ella: Nope. I don't like vegetables.
(TMI ALERT-she knows vegetables are good for her poop because she's been constipated for most of her life so it's kind of a mantra around here)


Ella: Mom, come look! Come! Now!
Me: What happened? Are you ok? What are you doing? (I come around the table to look and she's sitting there bouncing her leg up and down)
Ella: This is called the hopping leg. Do you like it?


(in the car, both sitting quietly and pull up to a light about a mile from the mall)
E: Oh! We're going to the Alumbia Mall!
Me: We are! How did you know the name of the mall? How do you know where we are??
E: Cause it's the Alumbia Mall! We're near Popeye and Abuela's house too.
Me (seriously incredulous): Wow Ella! You're right! I'm so impressed!
E (to a tune she made up, over and over and over): I'm right, I'm right, I'm totally right!


Me: Ella can you tell me about the Christmas Story?
Ella: Yes! It's about Disney World. There's Mickey and Princesses.

Ella is 28 months today!

Ella and I were at my parents house the other day and while I was chatting with my mom Ella kept pulling at my coat and seeming like she was trying to climb in it and saying "open it." I thought she was just playing around but finally she got frustrated and got my attention...

Ella:off please!!
Me:Oh! You want me to take my coat off?
Ella: Yeah Mom! Take it off and stay a while!

My mom and I looked at each other and burst out laughing. Where does she come up with these things!

She has been amazing me with how she connects words and events and how she hears everything we say. She is completely capable of original thoughts that make sense...I really feel like I'm talking to an adult sometimes. Today we were getting ready to go leave the house and she asked for her coat. I told her we didn't need it because it was warm outside. A couple minutes later she said "Mom, when it's warm outside i get to go to the pool!" It took a couple minutes but the wheels were turning and she remembered what else goes with "warm outside"...it's fascinating to me. One of her favorite topics lately is all of the new babies that are being born or growing in tummies. She told me yesterday "I so excited for Aunt Ping's baby to grow in tummy and come out and grow up and be my friend!!" When my mom and I were talking the other day about my friend Ana just having had a baby Ella piped up from playing to note that "that baby is name Daniel." I didn't even think she was listening let alone would remember the name of a baby she hasn't met! I love the excitement of hearing what she'll amaze or amuse me with next :-)

Funny Girl

For the most part Ella has been in a great mood and well behaved for the last week or two. It's great! We're enjoying her so much! She's still not napping for more than 30-45 min but I'm not giving up hope (even though it's been almost a month). She's always rubbing her eyes by about 6pm and will sleep for 13 hours every night if we let her so I really don't think she's ready to give up napping all together.

She constantly surprises me with how much she knows and understands and how many original thoughts she has. Her newest skills include:
-doing most of the steps to help Daddy make coffee in the morning
-matching all the pairs of clean socks in a pile of laundry (then putting them in her shopping cart and putting them in the appropriate person's sock drawer-with some direction)
-helping load the washer and dryer, pouring the soap, pushing the buttons to make it start
-naming every person in a book someone she knows (usually girls are Ella, Hannah, Lexi or Mommy and boys are Christopher or Joel, men are Daddy, Uncle David and Uncle Carl) Often she really does pick people who resemble the real person. If she doesn't know anyone who looks like the character she'll name them "a new friend"
-she matches objects on memory cards with ease and is starting to be able to do the memory part (remember where they are when they're upside down)
-a number of our friends are pregnant and she seems to understand and will tell you that they have a baby in their tummy that is going to come out and be our new friend

She's been using a lot of the phrases I say and it cracks me up. She'll say "good job mom!" when I make her breakfast or "there you go! great! " when I finish doing something. Most anything we do together from pouring juice to cleaning the playroom she'll congratulate us by saying "Mommy we did it!" She also likes suggesting what she'd like by saying "How 'bout...." For instance:

Me: Ella it's time to brush your teeth and go night night
Ella (very upbeat): How 'bout more toys? ok?
Me: No Ella, come here please.
Ella: Umm, how about tv? ok?
Me: Ella...
Ella (still upbeat): Ummm how 'bout no?

Here's a conversation we had tonight as i tried to put her pajamas on:

Me: Ella can you take your socks off while Mommy changes your diaper?
Ella:ok! (takes one sock off but puts it on her other foot, on top of its original sock)
Me: What are you doing silly?
Ella (whispering): shhhh, other sock is hiding!

Big Talker!

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!

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.