November 2003
Let's start out the journal this month with a Phoebe update. She has started doing so much this month that we haven't had time to write for every little thing. Phoebe has started crawling... everywhere. We have had to close the gates and all the doors just to keep her where we can see her. We've also brought out the multi-colored fence that we used to use to protect certain areas when Ellen was at this stage to create a soft barrier to the kitchen (there will be pictures that show this eventually). But she knows how to crawl around that. She can get herself into a sitting position from the crawling and vice versa. She's quite good at the sitting now. And she's added to the threat the ability to pull herself up to her knees to see up onto things like the couch or coffee table. She can then walk on her knees so she's closer to the object. She's been using the slide of Ellen's play structure to get up on her feet too. So far she has only been able to do this while bent over at a 90 degree angle, but we can see it coming. If we stand her up next to a table or couch, she can hold on and stand there just fine for minutes at a time. She can crawl almost as fast as Ellen can, and objects like legs, toys, or the cat are no longer obstacles to her progress. If we take our eyes off her for a second, she's gone and most likely heading for the lamp. Oh yes. Trouble's a comin'. Phoebe's vocal stylings are progressing as well. She can say her da-da-da's. Or as I like to say, dada. :) She can say mama, but when we say it to her she just laughs. However, if we say dada or mama, she seems to understand who we mean because she looks in our direction. Just in the last week Phoebe has started clapping. Ellen has been teaching her how to do it. It's been very fun. She's also just started getting the hang of waving. Foods that she has enjoyed this month include real green beans, peas, bagels, and pears. She loves the peas and pears combo meal and some times with jarred prunes substituted for the pears. She much prefers feeding herself these days to getting fed with a spoon. Even with the bottle, we'll lay her on the floor and let her hold the bottle herself. She's already learned that if she rolls over, she needs to roll back onto her back to keep the formula coming. While she eats, she has a cute little rhythmic single leg kick going kinda like a dogs tail. She's done it for a while. We think it means she's happy.
Ellen hasn't exactly been sitting still either. She got in 3 new molars all in the same week! That was some fun times, I can assure you. She is really getting good at counting too. She's been able to count to 20 for a while now, but she can also count objects correctly up to 5 consistently. She is able to recognize several letters of the alphabet in addition to showing us the sign language for "H" and "Y" which she saw pictures of in a magazine and copied. Now she just knows them. (I feel like Rick Moranis' character in Parenthood, except that we aren't drilling her on this stuff.) We're working on left and right, but she only gets it about half the time :). Now that Phoebe is using the small bowls, Jada found a cute plastic plate and bowl set that are pretty close to our kitchen set in color for Ellen to use. We've also started giving her a regular spoon, and the occasional real fork. So far she's doing very well with them. Ellen likes helping, and when she wants to she is pretty good. She helped me pick up leaves after I raked them into a pile and put them in a bucket. We also like to keep her involved with things for Phoebe so she feels like she is the big sister. She takes Phoebe's bottles to the kitchen when Phoebe finishes them, takes dirty bibs to the appropriate laundry baskets, and helps us close doors when Phoebe is on the loose. She also plays with her in the car to keep her occupied and brings her toys (and taketh away). It's so much fun to hear the giggling from the back seat when Ellen is playing peak-a-boo with Phoebe. There is the other side of the coin too, of course. The screaming continues, but she is getting better at knowing when she's done something wrong. We send her to her room for time out and set the timer. She will stay in there until the timer goes off without the need for the gate most of the time, though the gate is still a good deterrent. She's also getting some influences from her day care provider's older children. One night, when she was on the way home, she was doing "homework" on her magna doodle (thanks again, auntie Mandy, Allen, and Shelly!) like she normally does, but when Jada asked her what she was doing this time, she said "I'm just doing my math". What else can you say to that but, "Oh". The nice thing about her being over there is that even though she's the big sister at home, over there she'll always be the little sister. Hopefully it'll help her keep from going mad with power.
Ellen has imaginary friends. We don't remember when it started. Maybe last month, but we've been slowly getting a little bit more information on them. Ellen's imaginary best friends: Keeter and Kotter. They're sisters who, as far as we can tell, live near her baby sitter. She also has a job and works with them doing something with computers. They do a lot of paperwork. She calls them on the pretend phone to keep them in the loop about what she's doing occasionally. Sometimes Ellen has to clean up her toys because they're coming over. We also think that they are a little older than her, but it's hard to tell sometimes. We'll keep you posted on anything else we find out.
This Christmas is going to be big one for Ellen, we think. She's really getting into it. Ellen got to help with Christmas present wrapping, and she has been with both Jada and I on our separate Christmas present acquisition sortie's. We think it'll be difficult to keep the presents under the tree for long this year.
The big event for this month was, of course, Thanksgiving. We all spent the morning at home enjoying each other's company. We had a small breakfast, and a few snack times throughout the morning. Since we were going over to the Manghelli's (Phoebe's Godmother's parent's house) for Thanksgiving dinner during the kid's nap time, we were trying to figure out a way to get them some rest since neither of them slept all night. Phoebe took her normal morning nap, but what to do with Ellen? Jada took El into her room and got her setup with some books on her bed. Jada turned the lights down, and asked Ellen to read quietly for a while so that she could rest. Much to our surprise, Ellen stayed in there and read her books quietly to herself for more than 30 minutes before she decided that she wanted to get up. We brought Jada's mom with us as well, so there were 10 in all around the table. Thanksgiving dinner was wonderful. We had traditional turkey dinner with all the fixin's. Everything was very good. Our contribution was 1 pie (my famous chocolate/peanut butter pie), the green bean casserole (the midwest Thanksgiving staple), and our 2 little girls. Ellen and Phoebe were the hit of the afternoon. Ellen did a very good job at the dinner table, though we couldn't get her to eat the turkey. She did eat the cranberries, mashed potatoes, green beans, and her roll. Laurie's mom and dad's grandchild was over seas, so Ellen and Phoebe stood in to get all the attention. They had a great time. They only had 4 pies that were provided by Laurie's grandmother in addition to the one we brought, but they were all excellent. Ellen enjoyed her first pumpkin pie with whipped cream. When we finally went home to get the girls in bed, we gave them a light snack, and a story. It was a fun day for all, and we owe the Manghelli's our thanks for allowing us to share the afternoon with their family.
The night after Thanksgiving is traditionally the members only preview of Zoo Lights at the Oregon Zoo. And with it came rain. This is our second year attending this gala event. The rain was very light when we arrived at about 4.30pm for the 5pm kick-off, so we waited in the gift shop browsing for a little while until the lights were turned on. Even with the rain, it was a pretty good turn out. We had already decided to skip the train ride this year if it was raining, and we're glad we did. Instead we wandered down the main entry walk to the Stellar Cove overlook where you can see many of the lights. It was very nice. However, the rain soon started to, BAM!, kick up a notch, so we headed to the holiday buffet at the Cascade Grill. I picked out a corner table with 2 full windows of view overlooking the train depot. The dinner was very good. Jada and I both went with the ham since we had had turkey the night before. This was Phoebe's first mashed potato experience, and she really enjoyed it. Ellen had a nice assortment of food with some ham, peas, mashed potatoes, yams, and a pickle. She ate most of it, but the pumpkin bread was her favorite (that's my girl!). She also enjoyed the little bites of chocolate pie that I let her have. It was pouring by the time we left, so we were very happy that we had done our walk down the promenade early. We still managed to get the kids home and in bed by 7pm. We all had a good time, and we figure we'll try it again on a dry night.
Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend was another day of socializing. In the morning, we had one of the couples from our child birth class come over for a play date. It was the mom's birthday so she brought a really good cake. Ellen and Paige played for a while, and then we each had a piece of cake. Ellen quietly finished off her cake completely. It was melt-down time shortly after for both kids and Phoebe so it was time for nap. Neither of the girls napped for very long though. During the abbreviated nap, I started baking my famous deep-dish Chicago-style pizza for Phoebe's Godfather Pete's triumphant return from his sabbatical oversees. We hadn't seen him in 2 months. Jada's mom and dad came (and we missed some prime footage of them playing with Phoebe together because we just weren't on the ball) as well as Phoebe's other Godparent, Laurie. After dinner, Phoebe had difficulty going to bed again, so Ellen didn't fall asleep either. When Phoebe would stop crying, Ellen would stop, then Phoebe would start. We finally got them both calmed down around 8:30pm, but they were awake just before 5am off and on until we finally got them up up after 6am. We're not sure if Phoebe is just testing us, or if she is started to get some separation anxiety at night. It could also have been that the bed-time routine was altered because of the guests and that threw her off. It was still nice to see everyone.
Now's the time in this journal when we discuss Ellen's potty progress. Ellen finally pooped into the potty today (11/30/03)...once. But some progress is better than no progress at all. There was much rejoicing and M&M's. We then lived up to our promise to let her wear panties as long as she told us when she needed to pee or poop. Well, about 5 minutes later, she came out of her room and told us that she had pee'd. Sure enough, her pants were soaked. So we moved her into some pull-ups on the condition that, again, she tell us if she had to pee or poop. We did errands, and when we got home, she informed us that she had pooped. Sure enough, she had pooped in her pull-ups. ***WARNING : If you do not have kids and/or are squeamish to the poop stories, read no further *** So I went in to change her, and the poop had apparently stuck to her behind, for as I pulled down the pull-up, the turd fell into my hand. I think I handled it with great aplomb, and completed to change after wiping my hand off with a wipe. Now she's back in regular diapers, but she knows if she poops in the potty, she'll get to repeat the process. (I think part of the problem right now is a touch of constipation brought on by pressure to perform. However, I did not go to school to become a medical doctor, so that's just a hypothesis.) So we'll continue to work on it as will her daycare provider.
Journal Entry: November 30, 2003