Ella’s got a little bit of a cold again, so she’s been listless and hasn’t had much of an appetite. Just now I picked her up out of her high chair, where she had been sitting forlornly after barely touching her snack.
“Oh my poor baby,” I crooned.
She rested her head on my shoulder and lay there for a while.
“No,” she said.
“No what?” I asked.
“No baby. I’m big girl.”
Yes, yes you are . . .
Ella officially had her first throw-up experience last night. It was one of those “oh, so that was the problem” realizations that I’m sure will be duplicated over and over again. She just finished drinking her bottle on the futon. She laid her head on one of the pillows and became very quiet. This is very unusual for Ella at bedtime, but we just figured she was tired. We then proceeded to try to give her some cold medicine. She had her mouth clamped tightly closed and wouldn’t budge. I finally got most of the medicine in. No sooner did she close her mouth than it opened again and her entire dinner and the curdled milk came gushing out. I got drenched. Fortunately, the futon did not. We quickly stripped her down, and Nate walked her to the bathroom to clean her up.
I know …. it seems so obvious now, but it didn’t then. Fortunately, she immediately felt better after clearing out her stomach. It didn’t seem to be the flu because no further vomitting ensued.
It was definitely not a cute experience, but one very sweet thing happened. As Nate was walking her to the bathroom, she stopped and looked back at me and said, “I’m sorry, Momma.” It broke my heart. I quickly assured her that it wasn’t her fault and showered her with hugs and kisses. Hopefully, we won’t be reliving this one anytime soon, but I won’t hold my breath on that.
Once again I let too many pile up before updating. For shame.
“338″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella338.jpg — Too bad this one is a little dark. It’s from a bunch that Suanna took with Ella down by the Potomac.
“339″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella339.jpg — Here’s Ella and I at our annual romp at the pumpkin patch. She asked me just this morning if we could go back there.
“340″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella340.jpg — Ella and Papa, Halloween weekend.
“341″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella341.jpg — Suanna and Ella, Halloween night. Ella had pink leopard-spot pajamas and a fuzzy ear headband. She steadfastly refused to wear the ears or put on the whisker makeup. So instead they made a cat between the two of them.
“342″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella342.jpg — We have entered the era of the Cheese Smile. It is now difficult to get a natural smile out of Ella if she’s aware of the camera.
“343″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella343.jpg — Here Ella contemplates her birthday present from Aunt Sarah and Aunt Kate. Sarah and her boyfriend visited for Thanksgiving.
“344″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella344.jpg — Here she is in the hallway with her birthday boots, staring into the light.
“345″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella345.jpg — Helping out with Thanksgiving dinner.
“346″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella346.jpg — A slightly more natural-looking Cheese Smile from the couch.
“347″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella347.jpg — Another early birthday present, the Bag O Play Doh. A big hit.
“348″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella348.jpg — Marmar and Gumpa visited right after Thanksgiving. _Kitten’s First Full Moon_ isn’t Ella’s favorite book, but it’s probably in the top ten.
“349″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella349.jpg — She was not happy about the coat. She was very happy to clamber around the World War II Memorial in the cold, though.
“350″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella350.jpg — Ella, Marmar, and Gumpa.
“351″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella351.jpg — I don’t remember what I was pointing at, but it’s a nice picture.
“352″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella352.jpg — Suanna and I got Ella a little trike for her birthday. She’s not up to entirely self-reliant locomotion yet, but she still likes it. Yes, that’s Dora up on the handlebars. Another birthday present. And now Christmas just a couple weeks away. The kid is going to start thinking this is normal. Fortunately we are very good about maintaining a roughly steady number of toys in the apartment by cycling older stuff out to Goodwill. There will no doubt be another big purge after the holidays.
“353″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella353.jpg — Cheesee Smile #3.
“354″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella354.jpg — Birthday breakfast. I must take responsibility for the smiley balloon, which I thought was just freaky enough to be interesting. Unfortunately there were no decent group shots of the whole party — Ella had just a few friends over for waffles and hanging-about. The adults drank coffee and/or mimosas.
“355″:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/ella/ella355.jpg — Ella and me reading one of her new birthday books.
“Daddy, you have to help me – I can’t reach the little mermaid!”
Ella said that to me the other day. Contained in that sentence is everything that is wonderful about having a two-year-old. First and foremost, she’s talking – sentences of that complexity are rare, but they do happen from time to time. We can have actual conversations. Surreal conversations, to be sure, in which frequently some key element is unknown to me because I have no idea what word she is trying to say. But we talk about stuff, which is pretty incredible in and of itself. One of the other cool things about the above sentence is that I’m pretty sure a complete stranger would have understood it. Ella’s words actually have _syllables_ now. Suanna particularly likes it when she says library: “LIE-bwaya-wee.” I’m a total fan of being called “daddy” instead of “da” these days. She says with two fully stressed, fully distinct syllables: “Da Deee.”
And then there’s the other part of that sentence: the fact that she actually _was_ able to reach the little mermaid, which was perched on top of a tower she had built out of Lego-like blocks. The tower was on top of something she had just built and called a “house.” The mermaid was no higher than her chest, but it was on the top of a _tower_, you see – she was fully imagining the space she had constructed, where, of course, she _wouldn’t_ be able to reach.
This is all run-of-the-mill developmental stuff, I know. But when you see it happening to your own kid it blows your socks off, every time.
Ella is at that stage where people who haven’t seen her for a couple of weeks say she looks totally different from the last time they saw her. Older, taller, more hair. I’m heinously overdue for posting pictures, which I’ll let speak for themselves. For me, the cool thing is getting little glimpses into what she’ll look like as an older girl, or even an adult. You can see that now where you couldn’t before.
Naptime is now officially once a day, though the timeframe for the nap is still pretty variable. The odd pattern that has asserted itself over the past several days is: 1) fall asleep in the car at some point during morning errands, which leads to 2) a nap from around 2ish-4ish. She could probably take the nap at around the time she was falling asleep in the car, and then wouldn’t take it later. I am a fan of the new nap regime, even though it results in a little less naptime overall – it’s a bigger chunk of time that I can do more with.
Ella’s favorite game right now is to play “zoo.” The zoo is located in the vicinity of her toy box, on top of which perch all her stuffed animals. “Home,” by contrast, is at the other end of the room. The ultimate objective of “zoo” is to have me “play mouse,” “play cat,” “play rhino,” or otherwise take on the role of one of the animals and have it engage in Antics. To amuse myself through all of this I have been giving each of the animals distinctive behaviors and personalities; Ella remains frustrated that the cat and the lion are able to speak, but the dog only barks and licks things.
Ella has taken to expressing displeasure in the form of “I don’t like X.” Things she does not like have included, just in the past couple of days: supper, the laptop, snappy peas, apples, wearing clothes, and naps. “I don’t like X” is followed by “I want X” frequently enough that we know not to take it very seriously most of the time.
Her latest obsession is Blue’s Clues, which we watch on DVDs from the library. The show features “clues” in the form of pawprints left by Blue, the dog, whose master (Joe or Steve, depending on the era of the episode) dutifully jots down in his Notebook. So Ella is now constantly singing fragments of songs from the show, seeing clues/pawprints everywhere, and hauling a notebook around the apartment. Her first “notebook” was a crusty old hardcover of Herodotus that she yanked off the shelf. We have since picked her up an actual notebook, which she likes to scribble in, though today the real notebook lost out to a Tolkien paperback.
Here’s another sentence, and the reason why I must cut this short: “Da Dee. NO laptop. Get up. I want to go to the bookstore!” The Strewing of the Goldfish comes next, I know. So I guess there’s one part of her being two I could do without.
Ella is two years old today!
I’m speechless.
Speechlessness will hopefully give way to a thing or two to say on the occasion, either later today or tomorrow.
Not too much going on on the day itself. Ella got to see her Aunt Sarah, and grandparents Marmar and Gumpa, over the course of Thanksgiving weekend, and consequently has already opened a _lot_ of birthday presents. And her own birthday party (small this year– just a couple of her friends and their adult escorts) will be on Saturday. But we’ll check out a new playground late this afternoon and then all go out to dinner. Her dream birthday would probably, at the moment, consist of a Blues Clues marathon whlie sitting in a vat of Cheez-Its and croutons. Don’t think that’s going to happen, but we’ll try to make her day special just the same.
The new look comes from upgrading Movable Type (the blogging software) and its templates. Hope you like it. I still need to get the sidebar back into shape.
