First Trip to the Movie Theatre!!

Those of you with kids should check out this program with AMC theatres. They're doing free kids movies at 10am every wednesday all summer all over the country. Today was the first one and we had a great time!


It was Ella's first time in a movie theatre! She held my hand really tightly when we walked in because it was so dark and her jaw dropped when she saw the "really big TV" (what I'd been telling her we were going to see) with penguins that were bigger than her (the movie was Happy Feet)! She did really well sitting on my lap for a while and then wandering up and down the stairs right next to me and then ate her snack. She had a few people near us cracking up with her "dancing" along with the Happy Feet Penguins. All in all it was a very positive first movie experience for all. Another kid who had a hysterical temper tantrum for about 30 minutes of the movie was a good reminder of what could have happened when taking a 1 year old to the movies. Also, on a random note, for the 2nd time in 2 days Ella ate an adult size serving of curried chickpeas from an Afghan restaurant. We discovered she liked them a few months ago and she still scarfs them down. I'm glad but kind of surprised that she has a taste for such strong flavors!

19 Months Old!

Ella is over 1 1/2 now! Need to update on behavior/milestones etc.... This is really long and really mostly a record for me so I remember when she was doing what for future reference (like if a future child starts refusing to nap and I'm trying to remember if Ella did that and how I survived). So, please don't feel the need to read all of this.

By 19 months...

Mastered Skills (most kids can do)

• Uses a spoon and fork (pretty well)
• Runs (yes)
• Throws a ball underhand (yes)
• Enjoys helping around the house (yes)

Emerging Skills (half of kids can do)

• Understands as many as 200 words (no idea...she understands a lot but 200 sounds a little high)
• Recognizes when something is wrong (e.g., calling a dog a cat) (yes)

Advanced Skills (a few kids can do)

• Washes and dries hands with help (yes)
• Points to picture or object when you call it by name (yes)
• May know when she needs to pee (no)

Aside from that more formal stuff, here's what I've noticed she can do that's different/new…

Physical

• "running" around, still falls pretty often but doesn't really get hurt, more just loses balance on "tough" terrain (every day she gets out of the car in the driveway and takes the long way down the driveway to the stone path to get to the front door of the house so the doesn't have to walk on the grass)
• she LOVES the pool and is getting more and more confident. I've been making her go under water at least once each time we go just so she won't be scared of it and starts to get used to it but this past week she was begging for "more, more" and wanted to keep going under even though she came up wide eyed and sputtering every time :-)
  
• she’s still a pretty petite girl but seems taller and taller to me (I’ll have to measure her and see), her curls are getting longer and longer but not really laying down yet, more just getting to be a bigger ball of curliness radiating around her head, it’s really cute and still no-maintenance, I just wash it and stick a barrette in it

Behavioral/Personality

• in the last couple days has wanted to (rather posessively) carry around a blanket with her
• very independent, have to stop her from wandering off by herself outside or in public places, not scared at all
• however, in a group of people she has started to be shy for the first few minutes and only want me to hold her (or Daddy), also, starting to cry sometimes when we leave
• she likes babies a lot and is very gentle with them and very concerned if they cry
• favorite toys-toddler size shopping cart, baby dolls, little dishes and pots and spoons, bubbles, big balls

Verbal/Social

• I understand most of what she says though some of it is a little muddled for the untrained ear. She can most commonly be heard saying "more? more?" or "yeah" or "no" or "mama"or "outside?" or "rah rah" (Raleigh the dog).
• somehow knew where her towel drawer was and what a towel is (one of the many words I say around her but never "taught" her and she surprises me by knowing!)
• really likes playing "pretend" with kitchen toys and "feeding" people, dolls, herself fake food and drinks
• Very assertive and sometimes whiney "no-oo!"
• Has dubbed me "mom-o" and Chris "dad-o" all of a sudden this week
• Told me her first "story" of what she did while I was gone!! We came home from a date and asked her what she did (we were really asking her and my mom was answering for her) but she said she went outside and when I asked what she did she started blowing. It took me a minute to notice she was trying to tell me that she blew bubbles when she was outside! So exciting to see her start to remember and communicate things!

Sleeping/Eating

• Schedule
  8am (ish) wakes up
  8-9 breakfast, play, bath, get dressed
  9-12 usually out (music class, meet up with friends, pool, playground etc.)
  12-1 lunch, play with toys if there’s time, get ready for nap
  1-3:30ish nap (she’s doing pretty well with her nap still, sometimes it’s
  only 1-3, sometimes a full 3hrs, and about once every couple weeks she won’t take a nap at all, usually if she’s too tired or too wound up and it’s
  past her nap time)
  3:30-6 play outside (or inside), watch sesame street, sometimes run an errand*
  6-7:30 eat dinner and play some more
  7:30 or 8ish bedtime
  
• *Ella is NOT interested in sitting in a shopping cart at the grocery store or Target or in a stroller at the mall and she will not stay with me if she is not in one of those things so, I basically avoid taking her on such outings at ALL costs. It’s just not worth it to make her miserable and make myself miserable if I can run those errands at another time without her. Part of me feels like I should be able to make her “behave” but really, she’s only 19 months old! I feel like she’s too young for this to be a discipline issue, she doesn’t understand why she can’t run around and play so she’s not being rebellious, she’s just being One. And I like her that way :-) You’re only one once so why not get in as much playing as possible :-)
• We hadn't tried for a while but we put her to bed at someone else’s house because I thought it wouldn’t go well since she doesn’t have a bottle anymore to soothe her. But, we tried last night at Drew and Ping’s house so we could play games and she did great! She went down well, woke up all confused and cute, and then had some milk and then went right back to bed when we got home!
• Naptime/Bedtime routine-diaper change, books on the couch in her room with lights dimmed (I offer her milk while we read and she takes it about 60% of the time), songs, pray, lay in bed, tuck her in, blow kisses :-)
• Still eating small quantities most of the time and very picky. She tends to like:
  -anything chocolate
  -yogos (candy covered yogurt balls) (LOVES these)
  -yogurt
  -cereal (crackling oat bran, shredded wheat)
  -bagels or bread with cream cheese
  -broccoli with ranch dressing
  -peaches, pears
  -any juice, milk, water
  -cheese crackers
  -pretzels
  -guacamole or plain avocado (LOVES it)
  -curried chickpeas from Afghan restaurant :-)
  -I try to get her to eat toddler staples even though they’re not so good for you but she’s usually not interested in any of them (French fries (sometimes), chicken nuggets (usually flat out refuses them), hot dogs (almost never), macaroni and cheese (likes it one out of every 4 times it’s offered) Oh well.

• I LOVE THAT GIRL SOOO MUCH

Very Late Passover

My Dad's side of the family is Jewish and we try to celebrate Passover and Hanukkah with them. This year my grandmother really wanted to wait until Marissa could be home from Boston to celebrate so we were a couple months late but here are some pictures from our (extremely modified) seder.


Family gatherings on my side of the family consist almost entirely of 6-8 adults staring intently at Ella.

Ella and Grandma


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Mama (my grandmother), Ella, and Aunt Marissa

Shenandoah Crossing

We went on a really fun weekend trip last weekend to a tiny town in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. I REALLY love the Blue Ridge Mountains. We were surrounded by them when we lived at Va Tech and it's really one of my favorite areas of the country. We stayed at a little timeshare and there were a couple unpleasant parts of that but I'll focus on the positive :-)



















Ella cracked herself up all weekend playing with my sunglasses!





Ella and Daddy by the fountain (she knows that word from a book so she was VERY excited to see one in person)




She loved throwing pennies in the fountain and was actually pretty good!




Ella in the Lilies














Ella LOVED the horses and said "Neighhhh" constantly all weekend


Baby Chick



Beautiful Sunset!

Strawberry Picking!

So Much to write about and finally a little time to do so...

Last week we went with my friend Christie and her new baby (the adorable Ladan) to pick strawberries at Larriland Farms. We had a lot of fun even though our jam turned out more like chunky syrup than jam. Oh well, still tastes good and it was fun to feel like the wives on Little House on the Prarie :-)

Ella was very excited to carry the biggest box they had

She surprised me and got the hang of picking and putting the berries in the box right away!

She had fun running through the strawberry fields and occassionally stepping in our basket of strawberries and squishing them

Christie stirring our jam :-)

Very Fun Day! I think we'll go back for bluberries in July :-)