Cerin Amroth

Ella has always been fond of her bottle. She took to it right away and loves to suck down 8 ounces of milk as if it were one swallow. She also likes drinking water out of her sippy cup. She has always been opposed to the two – milk and sippy cup – together. I think she may view the bottle as a comfort item. She never reacted very strongly to my stopping nursing. However, I think the bottle is the last vestige that she refuses to let go of.

We already made one foray into trying to get rid of the bottle. We turned back after a few days when she was refusing to drink more than a couple of sips of milk out of the sippy cup. We’ve decided to try again because we’d rather get rid of the bottles now, than waiting until after she’s 18 months.

She accepted the sippy cup of milk Saturday night and Sunday morning and night, but on Monday the protests set in. At first, I thought she was only protesting sitting in her chair. I held her on my lap instead, but that didn’t seem to make up for the loss of bottle.

This morning was especially bad. She also has a cold right now, and her screams of protest were interspersed only by her coughs. This went on for about 15 minutes – with her continually pushing away the cup in response to each of my attempts to give it to her. Then, without warning (and seconds before my giving up and getting the cup), she leaned back and pulled it toward her mouth. I swear I heard her sigh in resignation, but maybe that’s only the mood she conveyed. She drank down most of the milk in just a few seconds. After she sat up and realized there was more left, she leaned back again and polished it off.

At dinner this evening, I set my glass of milk on the table. Ella immediately motioned toward it. I asked if she wanted a drink, and she nodded yes. I held it up for her to take a drink, thinking she would react negatively to its coldness – since we warm her milk in the microwave. On the contrary, she took a big gulp and asked for more. I asked if she wanted me to get her sippy cup of milk out of the fridge. She nodded and grunted yes. Then she proceeded to polish off three-quarters of a glass of milk with her food. I was shocked.

She also drank a full cup of milk before going to bed. She straightened like a board when I tried to put her in her chair, though. I figure holding her on my lap while she drinks is a small price to pay for getting her to drink out of the sippy cup!

Here’s a few things I’ve been meaning to mention, callously tossed into one entry.

*1.* Up until a few days ago Ella only said “Peeeez” when directly prompted, as in:

“Ella, would you like some more goldfish crackers?”

Ella nods vigourously.

“Can you say ‘please’?”

“Peeeeeez.” (Sometimes “Peeeeeef” or just “Peeeeee”)

But the other day she got herself stuck in the couch. She had climbed up on it and clambered all around, but found herself on her stomach with her face buried in the crease and unable to get enough leverage to pull herself up again. After struggling with it for a while she moaned piteously.

“Are you stuck in there?” I asked. She moaned some more. “Need some help?” I said.

She paused for a few seconds. Then, heavily muffled, came the word: “Peeeez.”

*2.* Now that the weather is finally warming up, our trips to the playground are becoming more frequent. She loves slides, but at our last playground visit she expressed little interest in the short, straight kiddy slide. Instead she pointed at the taller, much more dangerous-looking _spiral_ slide. I performed one of those risk-reward parenting calculations and figured that it was worth it — fortunately the way the slide was set up I could set her at the top and easily be there for her at the bottom. The only problem was getting her to _sit_ at the top of the slide and go down seated, facing forward. Though thrilling, that was not near thrilling enough for her — instead she tried to launch herself down the slide on her tummy, or back up on the top platform (as if to get a running start) and start walking down it until the point when it got too steep and she tumbled end over end to the bottom.

Not that that ever _happened_, of course — I managed to enforce the “sitting” rule the whole time. But the kid clearly has a thing for danger.

*3.* When Ella and I stopped by the kids’ section in the bookstore the other day, there were two other kids there whose parents were definitely “Georgetown moms”:http://www.polytropos.org/ella/archives/2004/06/report_from_azk.html — not _literally_, since Georgetown has its own Barnes & Noble, but they definitely fit the type. I’m becoming familiar with the whole “gather ’round the train set” scene, and there are generally two kinds of parents there — friendly ones who’ll say hello and maybe start up conversation, usually about everyone’s respective kids, or aloof ones who talk only with who they came with (or only with their child) and ignore everyone else except to enforce the Sharing Doctrine when their own child gets too grabby. These Georgetown moms definitely fit into the latter category. One of them was talking at length about — and I am not making this up — how hard it is to find “good help these days.” She even used the exact phrase.

This wasn’t the first time I felt a big divide between me and other parents — it’s just the most stark example. I’m at the point where I’d like to find more opportunities to spend time with other parents during the day (playdates and the like), but random encounters at places like the bookstore constantly remind me that just being fellow parents isn’t enough — _everybody_ has kids, from all walks of life, and you still need to find the ones that you have something in common with, that you’d enjoy spending time with. And this is, I’m finding, even harder for an at-home dad. This week or next I’ll be swinging by a weekly gathering of at-home dads out in suburban Virginia — whether it will turn out to be a helpful new community, or a source for bemused social commentary, or both, I suppose I’ll find out.

“258″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella258.jpg — Standing by the door, ready to go out. A common place for her to be these days. She’s not carrying that bag for any particular reason — but she’ll always grab a bag or a hat or something to take along when we head out.
“259″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella259.jpg — Getting sleepy and watching Sesame Street with Mama.
“260″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella260.jpg — Reading Day.
“261″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella261.jpg — A rare good glimpse at some of those teeth. She’s got at least twelve of them now. And, having just tried to get a wad of paper out of her mouth, I can attest that they are both sharp and sturdy.
“262″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella262.jpg — I wish I could remember just what she was gesturing about here. Might just have been a pre-bedtime stretch.

Ella’s been nothing if not resilient the past couple of weeks. Suanna and I have been trading off being sick with one bug or another all that time, and through it all, the worst that Ella has come down with is a few minor sniffles.

She had her three-month checkup yesterday. All is well. She’s hit the point where her weight gain is tapering off — given how mobile she is, and how finicky an eater, it’s not at all surprising. Since her last checkup she grew almost an inch and a half, but only put on four ounces! This puts her in the high seventies, percentile-wise, in both height and weight. Dr. Klapp (Ella likes to applaud when I say her name to her) was very impressed with how perceptive and communicative she was, toodling around the checkup room, pointing out the flowers in the wallpaper, and generally making a distraction of herself.

Current words: Dada (usually “Daaaa”), Mama (usually “Mamamama,” when she’s upset), apple (“A-POW,” very slowly and deliberately) and bye (“BAAAAA,” accompanied with a wave).

Her sleep is now blessedly regulated and somewhat normal, even for naps. She still likes to have a couple books read to her before going to sleep at night, but the last couple of days she’s turned away the books before her nap in favor of getting straight to the sleeping part. The bad part about her sleep schedule is her wake-up time: now around 6ish, and occasionally earlier. That combined with our general ill health has made for a lot of naps for us as well. “You watch her for half an hour and I’ll nap, and then we’ll trade,” or similar negotiations, happen a lot these days.

She’s still a picky eater, and her whims are all the more inscrutable. She’ll turn up her nose at anything but yogurt for breakfast, but wants to eat all the stuff she refused later on in the day. Some meals she’d just as soon skip, and at others she’s ravenous — with no particular pattern as to which is which. Our attempt last month to ease her out of her morning bottle didn’t meet with success, so we’ve been back to morning & night bottles of milk, with sippy cups of water throughout the day. Pretty soon we’ll try (on Dr. Klapp’s recommendation) making a ceremony of getting rid of the bottles, and then _only_ offering her milk until she finally buckles and drinks it out of a sippy cup.

An Ella vignette:

The other day she was playing with these three little fish that she can punch out of one of her books. She dropped them in the space between the futon and the chair where she can’t reach, and then looked at me imploringly — well, no, not imploringly so much as expectantly.

“Would you like me to get those for you?” I asked.

She nodded. Her yeses right now consist of either a grunt or a nod that engages not just her head but her shoulders, because she still has to concentrate to pull it off.

“Can you say ‘please’?” I said.

“Pizz,” she replied. I don’t count it as a word yet, but she’s caught on to the fact that when I say “can you say please,” some sort of sound starting with ‘p’ will appease me.

“And how about a kiss?” I said. She leaned forward and puckered up her lips for a kiss. Then I fished out the three fish, and once she had them in hand, she promptly dropped them back in the space between the futon and the chair and looked at me again.

“Would you like me to get those?” I asked again. She nodded. “How about saying ‘please’?” She didn’t respond because she was busy craning her neck to try to see the fish. Then, realizing that I hadn’t made a move yet, she anticipated my next move and puckered her lips for a kiss.

The third time, she plopped the three fish down, twirled around, and approached me for a kiss right off the bat, hoping to circumvent all that other stuff and get right to the fetching.

Her favorite book is currently _Caps For Sale_. Her favorite activity is to take one of her big bouncy balls out into the hallway and throw it around. My favorite time with Ella has been this past month, for sure.