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

First Day of Preschool!!!!!

Tuesday was Ella's first day of school! She's only going two mornings a week but that doesn't mean I didn't cry Monday night and Tuesday morning. What a big milestone to put a backpack on your child and send them off, homework in hand (she really had homework!), to SCHOOL! I can't believe it. Ella is the ideal candidate for preschool though. She's so independent, so social, and SO ready to learn. I'm excited about this new environment for her to get some input that is different from what she gets at home. She did great on her first day. She was so excited to finally go to school-she's been talking about it since january so it was awesome to see her "dreams" fulfilled. She hardly hesitated at all when it was time to leave me and follow the line leader upstairs (exactly what I expected). Both of her teachers said she was "a joy" when I picked her up so I hope that continues. I think it'll be a good year!


All dressed and ready to go

VERY excited

Raleigh got in on the big walk to the car (Ella beaming, Chris taking pictures, me just being anxious)

Lining up with all the other kids. That's her teacher in red. She and Ella have the same hair!

My last glimpse of her as they went up the stairs to their classrooms. Yay Ella!

Mommy Jail

Mommy Jail is something my friends and I have joked about as the place we should all go for certain things we've done with our children that we regret. Things like not paying attention and they get hurt or pretending you don't notice when they eat something off the floor. How much we regret them varies based on the offense, how it actually turned out, and whether the offense was actually "wrong" or just deemed so by judgmental others. So, it's confession time. I've had various mommy-jail offenses in my 2+ years in this role but the one that has been hanging over my head for a long time is that I've let Ella go to bed (nap and night) with a bottle/sippy cup in her bed ever since I stopped nursing. This may not sound so bad but it was not water. It was milk. Yup, tooth-rotting, sugar-filled milk. I've known for a fact that she always finishes the entire thing, puts it down, rolls over and goes to sleep so I've comforted myself as I read horrifying articles about "bottle rot" that she never falls asleep with milk in her mouth. Either way, I knew it wasn't the best thing to send her to bed with milk. But, she goes to bed so easily (9.5/10 times) I was too scared to take it away for fear that I didn't actually have a kid who puts herself to sleep but a kid who has an addiction to milk as a comfort item to put her to sleep. Well, about a month ago, we decided if she was ever going to night potty train we'd have to do it. Plus, just because her teeth are healthy so far, the dentist agreed it's not the best plan to brush and then let her drink milk. So we did it. We took it away. We told her big girls don't need milk in their beds and just put her in her bed. And she rolled over and went to sleep. WHAT????? I was all prepped for screaming and crying and she did...nothing. I thought maybe it was just that first night but she has had NO reaction. She doesn't care. Who would have guessed? Not me. I feel liberated. No more ongoing "bad habits" I'm too scared to kick. Ahhh. Freedom!!!! Oh wait...that familiar mommy guilt feeling is reminding me how often I let her watch TV when I probably should just sit down and play with her....oy. Mommy Jail, here I come. Thank God that he is FULL of grace for all the places I fall short as a parent.

"But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. " 2 Cor 12:9 (NIV)

Cows and Chips

We had a great day trip on Saturday to a Dairy Farm and then explored downtown Frederick since we were out that way. We had a great time and the only problem was Ella eating stickers in the car on the way there and throwing up on her shirt. Who knows what possessed her to eat stickers (we thought she'd outgrown such things) but I think hurling turned her off to ever doing it again. Enjoy the pics!



We got there just in time to feed the baby cows which was our main goal. Those cows were HUNGRY in a big way and kinda aggressive! We had fun though :-)

The cows were either very affectionate or desperate to lick milk off of anything they could, including each others' faces.

Ella seems to be totally cured of her fear of touching animals! I'm SO glad!

After the farm we walked around in downtown Frederick which was quaint and fun at the same time. All three of us had a blast in a specialty toy store we found and Ella had her first encounter with a jack-in-the-box which cracked us up!

We had dinner outside at a yummy Mexican restaurant and Ella got very intense about her chips and I had to get out the camera and take a video :-)

After dinner we walked around this beautiful riverwalk area at sunset and Ella plopped herself down and stared contemplatively at this fountain for a long time. I wonder what you contemplate when you're 2?

I didn't realize Chris took this picture of me pretending to be sad because Ella wouldn't come sit with me but it's so funny!

She gave in and, as you can see, I'm much happier :-) It was a great Saturday!