Though she is still very much an observer, this past month will go down in history as the one in which Ella rolled up her sleeves and started mixing it up with the world, getting dirty in the dirt — sometimes literally. With the warmer weather we’ve started visiting the playground (or one of the playgrounds — there’s a bunch in the area that we rotate through, depending on what errands we’re running and whether we have the car) several times a week, and that’s where a lot of what’s new with her this month has come up.
“What a good walker!” That’s what random playground moms tend to say about Ella when they learn her age. I have no idea myself how age-appropriate it is, but she does toddle all over the place at a pretty good clip and shows little or no hesitation in climbing up, over, or down any obstacle that might get in her way. Playground sets these days offer plenty in the way of climbing opportunities, so I’m always hovering near her, ready to swoop in to keep her from falling or tripping. Almost all the time, though, she makes it to wherever she was going without any need for intervention.
She’s funniest to watch when she’s thinking about going down a set of stairs or a ledge. First she peers over the edge and makes the mental calculation of whether this particular plummet is within her ability or whether she’ll reach her arms out for me to help her out (and it should be said that this is the part of the whole process she’s not very good at). Assuming it’s a doable drop, then comes the decision of whether to go down backwards, on her tummy, or forwards, scooching up inch by inch until she can reach out with her toe and feel firm ground beneath it. She’s very patient and methodical about the whole process, though of course once she gets down she’ll scamper away in a random direction.
Sometimes I swear she’s toying with me. She’ll point eagerly to the slide, but when I set her at the top she’ll quickly stand up and turn around, heading off into whatever network of tunnels, platforms, and precipices comprise the playground equipment that the slide is connected to. I’m getting very good at vaulting up slides at great speed when she tries to give me the slip like that.
(This concludes the “making the grandmothers nervous” portion of our essay.)
Ella is also a lot more outgoing than she has been in months past. She loves to wave, sometimes for ‘hello’ and almost always for ‘goodbye.’ She’ll still clam up fast if someone approaches her too loudly or brashly, but will otherwise warm up to most anyone after ten minutes or so. At the at-home dad playgroup the other day (more on which later), she walked right up to one of the other dads and put up her arms for him to lift her over the fence to where the other kids were playing. I was floored — and delighted.
On the word front, we have a third-party-verified use of the word “cracker,” though it hasn’t been repeated since the one time when she used it. Ditto for “ice.” I am still “Daaa,” but Suanna, at least when she’s not present, is pretty consistently “Ba.” As in:
“Ella, guess who’s going to be home soon!”
“Ba!”
“Ma-ma. Can you say ‘ma ma’?”
“Ba.”
“That’s right! Mama’s going to be home soon. Mama. Ma Ma. Can you say that?”
(triumphantly) “Ba!”
I think we can finally stop referring to the “Trifecta”:http://www.polytropos.org/ella/archives/2004/12/the_trifecta.html. The sleep thing has been a solved problem for a while now, but I’m still surprised at how _easily_ she conks out these days. Sometimes she’s practically leaping out of my arms to get into her crib and take a nap. And — oh, unlooked-for blessing! — those naps are a little longer, too. An hour for each of them is the norm, and if we’ve been playing outdoors, an even longer one isn’t at all unusual. I’m keeping an eye open for when she’s ready to switch to one nap a day — she’s seemed almost there at times in the past — but for now she’s firmly and happily entrenched in the two nap model. I’m not complaining. The only downside to her sleep behavior these days is her wakeup time: a firm 5:30 A.M.
The bottles are gone. She drinks cold milk without complaint. And what magic trick did we employ to bring this about, you ask? Nothing. One time we were out visiting friends all day and forgot to bring a bottle, so we tried giving her her bedtime milk in a sippy cup, and she sucked it down. And that was that. “They’ll Do It When They’re Ready” — those words should be emblazoned on the inside of the eyelids of parents everywhere. It’s a lesson we’ve learned before, but seems like it has to be re-learned with each new situation.
Ella’s food horizons have broadened a little, though not in the direction of “a wide variety of fresh vegetables” or anything quite so ideal. Her staples are vanilla yogurt, sweet potatoes, cheerios, raisins, goldfish crackers, bananas, and grapes. She’s still very picky, but feeding her is a heck of a lot easier, simply because she communicates better. Often this takes the form of the Fruit Parade — me digging stuff out of the fridge and presenting it for her for approval. She’ll shake her head firmly at the apple and the pear, but nod enthusiastically when I bring out the banana. Or she’ll refuse the grapes and the banana but smile at the apple. The Favored Fruit varies — the point is that her preferences are unmistakable, so the two-bites-and-then-on-the-floor-it-goes routine happens less often.
There’s not many clear favorites when it comes to books or toys these days. She was on a _Where the Wild Things Are_ kick for a while, but that’s toned down since. And she finally noticed my action figures up on the sci-fi bookshelf and demanded that they be brought down for her examination. The verdict: Not much interest in “Giles”:http://www.buffyguide.com/players/giles.php; initial fascination with “Marcus”:http://www.sadgeezer.com/babylon5/marcus.htm and suspicion of “Londo”:http://www.sadgeezer.com/babylon5/londo.htm, but just tonight, Londo was the one that she decided to kiss. I hope this doesn’t mean she’s going to have a thing for tragic heroes . . .
