From yesterday, actually. Ella gets up from her morning nap, crying and still a little bit drowsy. I pick her up out of her crib and she rests her head on my shoulder. I walk slowly around the apartment that way for a while, not sure whether her eyes are open or closed.
Abruptly, she lifts her head, as if something has just occurred to her. She swivels and sticks her finger way up my left nostril.
“Nose,” she declares (pronouncing it with an ’s’ and not a ‘z’).
Another word in the hopper.
Crap! Forgot to take a picture today. So “here’s one”:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella289.jpg from a few days ago. For the record, yes, she did in fact move the TP package over to the desk specifically so that she could climb up on it and get at the treasure trove of stuff up there (compass, wireless card, etc.) she’s not supposed to touch.
Ella misses her Mama.
Early yesterday morning, I was on the couch resting my eyes (just for a second, of course) when she came running up to me excitedly. “Ssssss!” she said, holding her finger up to her lips. “Who’s sleeping?” I asked. She smiled and scampered back toward the bedroom.
I followed her and then realized what was going on: I had closed the door to the bedroom, and now Ella thought that Suanna was in there, sleeping in. Unable to resist the temptation, she pushed the bedroom door opened and ran in, only to find that the bed was empty. She stood there for a while, puzzled and forlorn.
This morning Ella spied an airplane out the window and, as is her wont, waved at it excitedly. “Eh-pane!” she said.
“Ella, do you know who’s coming home on an airplane tomorrow?” I asked.
Her whole face filled with joy, from the eyes out. “MA!” she said triumphantly.
Here’s Ella “counting”:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella287.jpg. Not actually, of course, but she’ll point to successive objects and make sounds in vague imitation of when we count for her. Funnily enough, this often ends up sounding like she’s counting in French.
And here she’s “puzzled”:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella288.jpg as to why I’m sticking the camera in her face.
So far today: Farmer’s market, grocery store, playground, nap. And still to come: “Rock n Romp”:http://www.rocknromp.com/, dinner with friends (mine, not Ella’s, though she’s partial to them too). I couldn’t do it without the caffeine.
But in the meantime, “this”:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella286.jpg. I can’t explain it, so don’t ask.
Ella is currently in the liminal state between one nap a day and two. Consequently it’s hard to predict just _when_ she’s going to be drop-dead tired. Yesterday it happened at 10:30. Today it wasn’t until 2:00, so by the time “this picture”:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella285.jpg was taken, we were _both_ pretty exhausted.
And so it begins. Suanna is in Orlando for ASCO’s annual meeting, which presents a challenge for her — being apart from Ella for almost six days — and for me — doing the childcare thing by myself, 24/7, during that time. No one to relieve me at the end of a long day. No one to trade off with when it comes to getting up at 5:30 in the morning. Even just contemplating what the next several days will be like, I am reminded that the single parents who do this all the time as a matter of course are superheroes. All of them.
I promised Suanna a picture a day, and I’ll fulfill that promise by posting them here. In the “first installment”:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella283.jpg we find Ella fresh from trying to draw all over the wall. The only thing that saved the wall is that she hasn’t figured out how to click open the pen yet.
UPDATE: “Bonus picture!”:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella284.jpg Ella walked up to me with the box and knock-knock-knocked on the side, then looked at me expectantly. “What do you want to put in there?” I asked. “Peeeeeeez,” she replied plaintively. It took me a few guesses to realize that it was _herself_ she wanted in there.
Nate gave me the best present imaginable for Mother’s Day — the gift of sleeping in. He offered on Friday night to wake up early with Ella BOTH days on the weekend. I jumped on the offer without hesitation. And with 5:30 and 5:45 wake-up times, the present turned out to be very valuable. The amazing thing is that both mornings I got out of bed at 7:30, and felt like I was living the life of leisure … it’s amazing how much an early-rising child changes your perspective!
The day was absolutely great. First and foremost, I got quality time with Ella. Second, the weather was outstanding, which made my choice of what to do with the day a no-brainer. After leaving church, I announced that we would be eating lunch at a restaurant with outdoor seating. We went to Shirlington with a plethora of outdoor eating options. After lunch, we stopped at a park on the way home. Ella was delighted to find a train and a few other kids to follow around.
This evening, I loaded up Ella in the backpack and took a walk to Iwo Jima. She was happy as could be with easy access to my hair (her alternative to a blanket) and plenty of things to look at. When we got to the statue, I let her run around. I deliberately unloaded her in the middle of the lawn. Her first instinct was to run, but then she remembered how much she hates the grass. She went running back to me and tried to get me to pick her up. I gave her a hug, but didn’t pick her up. After a few minutes, her adventuresome spirit got the best of her. She spent a good 5 minutes pointing at airplanes taking off from National and waving and yelling “Bye” as loud as she could. I had to coax her back into the backpack after 20 minutes. She was very upset when we didn’t stop at the playground on the way home, but I promised to play with her in the bathtub, instead.
All in all, it was a great day. So good, in fact, that I decided to finally give in to Nate’s persistent pleadings and play X-Box with him. We had a fine time playing tennis …. I might even do it again some time.
For the first time in a while — maybe the first time ever — the changes in Ella over the past month don’t feel quite so huge. They’re more of degree than of kind this time around. Patterns of sleep, eating, and drinking are all pretty much the same as they were a month ago.
“How many words does she know?” A tricky question. What counts? If, in order to count, a word must be:
1. Spoken in any context, including direct imitation of someone else
2. Recognizable as an attempt at pronunciation, even if far from the mark . . .
. . . then Ella is spouting words left and right. “Look, Ella! Flowers!” “Flaa-aa.” That sort of thing. At this level, her favorite word of the past few days has been “obre.” Yep, that’s Spanish. Thank you, Dora the Explorer. She actually pronounces it better than most of the English words she pronounces, but I’m certain she has no idea at all what it means. So far she’s only said it when Dora has asked her to and when she’s overheard me telling the story of her saying it.
If, in order to count, a word must be:
1. Spoken without prompting in a way that indicates comprehension of its meaning
2. Recognizable as the word by an unbiased outside source . . .
. . . then her word count is much much lower, though there’s still a few to add to the list, including “slide” and “swing.”
Ella’s main development over the past month has been The Scowl. It’s really just a furrowed brow (which Suanna insists she gets from me), but man, does it look surly. The funny thing is that she uses it when she is genuinely surly and/or suspicious, but also when she’s just concentrating hard on something or confronting a new situation. Consequently she convinces a lot of strangers that she’s wary of them these days, when in fact she’s just shy and observant as always.
Among her favorite foods, I don’t think I’ve mentioned the baked snap peas that we get from Trader Joe’s. I don’t know what we’d do without those things. And, for those of you who live near a Chipotle, did you know that they’ll make a small cheese quesadilla for $.50 or so? Perfect for someone like Ella, plus you get to feel all in-the-know ’cause it’s not on the menu. Like I needed another reason to go to Chipotle.
Ella now has a Big Green Ball, a mini-basketball, and oversized bouncy balls. Which she’ll decide to take with her into the hallway is anyone’s guess. She’s always trying to take things with her whenever we leave the apartment. This morning she wanted to follow Suanna to the elevator to say goodbye, but right before she got to the door she turned around in order to fetch as many of her Little People toys as she could possibly carry. Yesterday she insisted on taking the Table of Contents insert from the _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ Season Two DVD Set with her to the car, where it has remained as her preferred car seat reading material.
