Elsie is a two-year-old

I have a renewed desire to keep record of our lives and especially to try to remember all the adventures of Elsie. Every now and then, Aaron will mention something that he says "needs to go in Elsie's journal" to which I say "what journal?" She is growing up too fast, and I've already missed and seem to have forgotten so much. Perhaps there is a way to live with such a zen-like, in-the-now mental state that it doesn't bother you if you forget things from the past, but I have not reached such a mindset. I guess, actually, Elsie is the epitome of that mindset, though her memory is getting more impressive--not to mention her astounding sense of direction. Recently, someone asked us what Elsie's first word was, and we couldn't even remember! We guessed either ball or dog, but we weren't sure. And so, here goes another push to be better at keeping record of our lives, if not for anyone else but ourselves.

So Elsie turned two in October and I didn't post about it. It was a beautiful morning on her birthday and I took her "up the mountain", as she says, to a spot along the Provo River Trail and followed her around snapping pictures of her and the beautiful colors.

Her first activity was gathering handfuls of gravel to throw off the bridge and into the river. What could be better! Down the path a little further we found more gravel, eventually a nice puddle for jumping in, and a perfect fence for posing on.

When we were done taking pictures, and the clouds took over the sun, Elsie went down the slides on the wet playground a million times. And because it was her birthday, I tried not to care that the slide was wet. 

The rest of that day consisted of, I'm not sure what until dinner at Gramma's house, a slew of Elsa themed presents, and a bunny and an owl cake (I don't know what got in to me). 

Now November is almost over, and I can't distinguish the October 18th Elsie from the November 28th Elsie, so here are some thoughts on Elsie now:

--She can put lots of words together to make pretty decent phrases and sentences. One that she learned from a Baby Signing Time video is "Nice to see you again" and "How are you doing". For some reason she switched to calling us "mom" and "dad"...she seems to be dropping the baby-ish "ee" and the end of every word. Aaron and I cracked up laughing the first time she said "poop" instead of "poopy". I guess we are childish, something about it seemed so funny.

--She can use the potty. Sometimes (rarely) she wants to use the potty. Potty training mainly seems like my burden--like it will take more time and effort on my part than hers. But we keep saying that she's practicing for her Elsa undies...because we bought her a 3-pack and sometimes she just likes to hold on to them and take them with her to places. Like the restaurant for Thanksgiving dinner.

--She also likes to speak jibberish, thanks, I'm certain, to Aaron. Right now her jibberish word is "ga-goose". At first we tried guessing what it meant by asking her--Goggles? Bad goose?--and she would just laugh at us like it was a secret we would never know.

--Elsie is, I won't say picky, but selective when it comes to eating. Her current go-to foods are Life cereal and scrambled eggs, though those seem to be on their way out. She hates meat--she's never tasted it except for in mashed up baby food, but she won't even let us put it near her. Sometimes we can get a vegetable bite in her. The biggest issue there is mainly just that I need to actually make vegetables.

--Somehow Aaron started the "Hug Song" with her. He would just hold her in a hug and sing "hug song, hug song, hug song" over and over as long as she would allow. Now it's turned into the family hug song, so I get to be included in the love. And Elsie likes to sing the song herself!

--She is also really good and singing her ABC's, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and Rock-a-Bye Baby, but she won't sign them for anyone except me quite yet. Just a little more practice then they'll be perfect :)

--She loves swings, slides, parks, being outside, throwing leaves off our front threshold through the fence and watching them fall (this is a ritual that seems to be necessary before every entry), Inside Out, Snoopy, playing Play Doh, coloring with crayons, playing sneaky or chase or any rough housing game with daddy.

--She has recently experienced a serious leap in her dancing power. Katy Perry's "Roar" is her favorite and will get her grooving instantly. She even jumps and gets both feet up off the ground!

I guess there are probably endless bullet points that I could write. But endless is frightening, so here I shall end.

18 months!

Elsie

18 Months

(How can I even keep up with all the new things Elsie knows how to say and do!?)

--Words: "mouse", "house", "moose", "shoes", "juice", "bath", "blueberries", "cheese", "socks", "tights", "hat", "kitty", "doggie", "daddy", "mommy", "eat", "milk", "dirty", "potty", "poo poo", "pee pee", "sneeze", "nose", "eyes", "duck", "baby", "blue", "pink", "balls", "more", "help me", "bird", "bow", "boy", "glasses", "happy"... and lots more thing.

--New signs: "banana", "ice cream", "laugh", 'happy", "sad", "cry", "rain", "airplane", "hurt", "lion", "cold", "hot", "apple", "bread", "cracker", "mommy", "daddy", "flower", "tree", "bird", "duck", "cereal", "dry", "wet", "read", "soap", "dirty", "clean", "help me", "boy", "girl"...and probably some others I am forgetting.

--Teeth count: 7.25

--She created her own sign for "phone".

--She has used her little potty a handful of times.

--She likes to peel stickers off of things, twist lids and caps off of things, open all the drawers, dump out all of her bows or Gramma's rubberbands, dump out the contents of her bowl of food. She is great at mess-making.

--She loves to climb on everything--she can get all the way on top of our table without any help.

--She basically doesn't eat anything except cream of wheat and bread.

--She gets really excited when we make jaaaaaaah-ooooze.

--She is addicted to technology, Flappy Bird, and Signing Time--not the baby version anymore.

--She only likes coloring with the blue crayon that doesn't have its wrapper anymore.

--She likes to try to do things by herself--like go up and down stairs, put on clothes, blow her nose, and brush her teeth.

--She is taking shorter and shorter naps and I am very much not ready for that.

--She has started sometimes giving 5 second hugs--arms wrapped around and all. It's pretty glorious.


**UPDATED: I forgot two very important words in Elsie's vocabulary--"night-night" and "sneaky" :)

how old is she?

My attempts at capturing Elsie's personality.

1. Showing me to tiniest things she notices, like fuzz on her hands. 

2. Being cute and hugging stuffed animals.

3. Using sign language. I think she was trying to say "daddy".

4. Being really distracted by technology such that she simply stares at the camera. 

 5. More snuggling stuffed animals and big smiles :)

6. Dropping to the floor at any time to lay down for a 3-second rest.

7. Climbing up into the chair in her room and asking for books. Or "boo boos", as she says. 

 8. Reading "boo boos".

9. Standing up on chairs. Not all chairs that she stands up on are this safe.

10. "Oh!"

11. Giggles.

12. Pointing to koala's nose.

13. Trying to rip off koala's nose.

14. Standing on anything.

15. Being cute.

16. Climbing on everything.

 17. Playing with her iPad.

18. Closing (and opening) doors.

Elsie

16 months

--Her favorite foods right now are blackberries and cream of wheat, and she will usually eat scrambled eggs like a mad woman. She tried to shove them in her ears once--perhaps in attempts to get even more eggs inside of her.

--Her vocabulary includes daddy, doggie, bubble, boots, kitty, apple, diaper, icky, uh-oh, all done, and night-night (usually said while squeezing her eyes shut). AND.... "No".

--Elsie's signing vocabulary includes: tree, cookie, bath, baby, bike, fire, food, kitty, bird, shoes, potty, bear, milk, hat, all done, more, book, food, doll, ball, sleep, coat, please and thank you. You can pretty much teach her a new sign each day, so she basically knows daddy, mommy, doggie, and pig, too.

--Elsie LOVES to go outside. She is kind of like a puppy--if I just say "outside", she will go look for her boots, coat, and hat, and go knock on the door.

--She also has started making little "ruff" noises like a dog, but not in response to "What does a dog say?" She will only make dog noises out of her own free will and choice, not on command.

--Elsie started Kindermusik! It usually takes her quite a while to warm up, but by the time we are leaving, she is usually running around the room screaming :) 

--She has gotten really great at cleaning up her toys, which is wonderful, since she loves making messes. One of her favorite things is to spill a whole deck of cards out on the floor and then either throw them in the air, swim around in them, or start gathering them up and putting them back in the box.

--Her fourth bottom tooth has just started to make it's appearance--bringing her to a whole 6 teeth now!

--She is a super pro at using her own spoon. Any by super pro, I mean she still gets really messy...and the walls really messy, too, sometimes. Especially if she doesn't like what I'm feeding her.

--She loves when you throw things up high in the air. She can't quite watch it fast enough for its whole path, so generally she'll just keep her neck craned back and wait for you to throw it again so she can see if way up high.

--Aaron taught her how to log roll. That's pretty awesome.

--Maybe you noticed in the list above that she learned the sign for "cookie". That was thanks to Kindermusik--she learned it right away, and then shortly after happened to be Valentine's Day...there were cookies around the house...one thing lead to another and now she thinks she can ask for cookies whenever she wants. And I guess she can ask...

elsie: 14 months

Elsie

14 months

--She is a walker! This past week, especially, she is totally done with crawling. She can walk wherever she wants, even out of the photo set :)

--She has three, almost four teeth! Finally the bottom two appeared, followed by one and top, and the other top middle is on the brink. If you ask her where her teeth are, she usually gets very shy, but happily points to her mouth. 

--She is getting sillier everyday. She likes to stick her spoon in her mouth and hold it in the air with no hands. She also pulls a good trick when I'm feeding her from a spoon--she will open her mouth really wide, I will stick the spoon in, and then she just doesn't close her mouth. That makes us laugh. 

--She really enjoys her belly button, and gets a bit confused when she is in an outfit that can't be pulled up to expose that little outie.

--Her signing vocabulary has grown and become refined. She finally learned "more", and has really perfected the twisting-wrist motion for "all done". She also knows potty--but not in the "I need to go potty way", but the "Hey mom, you are on the potty" way. I guess that's still a good step!

--Her speaking vocabulary is still limited to "doggie", "daddy", and "mama". She really likes trying to say "vacuum" though.

--She has become a uni-napper. The transition to get there was pretty muddy, but it's great now!

--She is a technology addict already. When she wants an iPhone, nothing else will appease her.