September 2004

    I know, I know.  I'm late again on my journal entries.  So let's just get started.

    First the relieving news (only a slight pun intended), Ellen is pottying again.  She's actually doing very well.  She poops and pees without us reminding her most of the time now.  Her pull-ups are less and less full after nap.  She calls us in the middle of the night to go to the potty.  We're not sure if she's ready to walk there herself yet in the night. (well, I'm sure she could walk there, i'm just not convinced she'd willingly get back into bed.)  But we're very proud of her for finally getting this far.  We've been getting her activity books after her delight with the first one she received.  Now she has a connect the dots book and a tracing book.  She really enjoys them.  She really enjoys the feeling of getting to use a pen on them.  As a result of this, she can write her own name.  (The first time I saw her do it was in October, but I know she was doing it in September, so I'm going to brag about it here anyway).  In the midst of all this learnin' at home, Ellen started at her pre school 2 times a week.  She loves it.  I think she'd be even happier if she were going every day.  I took her on her first day of school for a getting adjusted day.  It was only supposed to be a half hour, but once the classroom part was over, the kids were allowed to go play in the gym, and that was that.  Ellen appears to be one of the oldest in her class, and it's pretty evenly split boys and girls.  There are only 12 kids in the class, and the teachers are really nice.  The second day, Jada took her for an hour on her own.  Ellen was just fine on her own.  I think she would have preferred me to leave on the first day.  Finally on the 3rd day, it was a full day on her own.  The teachers said she had a really great day.  At home, she is still always 2 seconds away from a tantrum.  But for the most part, she's happy and giggly and fun.

    Phoebe is talking up a storm now.  Some of it even makes sense.  She's fast as lightning, and she's still climbing anything she can...which is everything.  She's been playing with a lot of new things at home.  She's been really enjoying playing with playdough.  She's taken to water colors quite well also.  Grandma has been helping her with this quite a bit.

    As a family, we've not done all that much this month as it has been back to school for Jada, and I've been working constantly lately.  Somehow, though, we've managed to get out and do a couple things.  On Labor Day we made a trip to the zoo.  It was a lovely day as I recall.  We spent quite a long time there and were able to talk with the volunteers that were stationed around for the holiday.  We talked to the volunteers at the elephant house while the handlers were performing their cleaning.  We also found out something interesting about the bats over there.  It turns out most bat's eye sight is quite good since they live in forest canopies where being able to see the fruit helps them find it.  Later that afternoon, Jada stained the deck while I went for a bike ride.  (Is she awesome or what?)

    The following week, we went to the zoo again.  This time for a special invitation only event called Zoofari.  It was a behind the scenes tour of the zoo.  We got to go in and look at a couple of the exhibits behind the bars.  We hit the giraffes first.  Jada fed one of them carrots.  It stuck it's big tongue out and grabbed it.  Ellen didn't want to actually get close enough to feed it.  I was holding Phoebe, and she was shaking if I even stepped towards the cages.  It was interesting to see how they put them in a device called a "squeeze" with multiple doors at different levels to administer the different tests or shots that need to occur.  After the giraffes, we went over to the elephants.  We were within a trunk length of 2 of the elephants, Chendra and Rama.  It was a really neat experience.  Afterwards, we stopped by the gift shop.  They had a table full of marked down animals, and Phoebe walked over as soon as she saw a black and white cow.  She picked it up and hugged it (it was almost as big as her).  It was too cute.  We had to get it for her.  Ellen picked out a polar bear (her favorite).

    We had Jada's birthday dinner this month.  Jada requested one of my yummy Chicago-style pizzas.  Ellen helped me with the pizzas this time.  I made the dough while the girls were napping, but when Ellen got up, she helped me make the sauce.  She stirred in the ingredients for me and helped me measure them out.  Then she helped me grate the cheese.  Finally, she helped me layer the cheese on the smaller pizza, lay the sauce on, and then put the rest of the cheese on.  She really did a nice job helping.  She was very proud of her achievement.  Jada had a lovely ice cream cake for desert which the girls both loved (Jada, too!)

    This was the month for birthdays as we took Grandma Freeman out for her birthday dinner too.  The girls really love getting to see their Grandma. (And, they loved yet another opportunity to eat ice cream!)

Journal Entry: October 6, 2004