Up, up, up!

It's amazing the things that pass for toys considering what we spend our money on. $50 for a new tent/tunnel structure? No problem and she does like it. She has spent just as much time, however, on my shoeboxes that came with 2 new pairs of shoes. Her latest and greatest big fun time is spent with...wait for it...a fork. 'Tab, tab' is what we hear all day long and it's not her asking for that retro cola drink (do they still make it?), it's Elianna saying 'stab'. She will eat anything as long as she can stab it with a fork. She even tries to eat things I'd normally say called for a spoon but she makes it work.

Her latest thing is 'okay'. Not, yes but, okay. Elianna, do you want to go outside? Okay. Do you want to eat? Okay. Sigh, so much for not teaching her slang. But I guess I know what we say a lot. Only ourselves to blame...

She's starting to make sentences. Short ones and Mike, the stickler, would call them two word utterances but there're there. Mama up. Eat hungry. Dada work. Dada car work. It's so cool to watch her put thing together. She even knows words we haven't taught her: away, office, truck...she just picks them up.

So after being Elianna's mom for 18 months, here are some observations. I wonder if they'll hold true as she grows up.

She's an independent little soul. If she gets hurt, her first reaction is to go off, by herself and lick her wounds. She's not the type who wants to be comforted, to have mommy make it all better. She seems almost angry that she's been hurt.

That being said, she does seem to know who her people are. In the most recent plane trip in the midst of flirting with fellow passengers she was always quick to let them know who Momma and Dada were. She also loves being carried although I'm not sure if it's because she's interested in being with Mom and Dad or she likes the view. Either way she comes over and demands, "up up up!" and unless we're cooking or doing something else she usually gets her way.

She wants things to be easy. She'll try something once and ask for help instead of trying to figure it out herself. But, if we guide her to figuring it out she gets this big smile on her face like she's so proud. I have to remember this when she's asking for help with her multiplication tables.

She has no fear. She'll stand on her little rocking chair, stand up, start rocking, all the while admonishing us, 'Careful!' Upside down baby is a favorite game and she's still a climber.

More please!

Okay, I've got to start getting some of this stuff down. I know I promised I wouldn't make this a litany of Eliannaisms but some of them are just too cute so...

She has started saying 'Mmmm' when she eats something she likes. But it's not just 'mmm', it's: "mmmmMMMMMMMmmmm!" It starts out low, goes up an octave or two and then goes back down.

Bye-bye is now 'ba-bye-yah' and said for many things, including goodbye.

Mama and Dada are said very differently. 'Mama' comes out plaintive and questioning while 'Dada' is more like: DA-da!!!. The first syllable is very high and excited and the second is more calm.

She's almost running now and she does it all the time. She loves feeding her bear (cow, bear, doll, parents, whatever) and does it a ton. When she does it to Mike and I we have to pretend to eat and make yummy noises or she gets mad.

She figured the swimming thing out and will start actually learning how to swim in the next weeks. She finally likes being in the water and doesn't cry at all when we hand her to Jolene (swimming instructor). She still is a climber and has little to no regard as to whether she can get down or not; she knows someone will rescue her!

With all the snow we got over the last few weeks we tried to take her sledding. Major FAIL. She got dressed in all her cold weather paraphernalia, we went out, put her on the sled and she immediately started yelling, "all done, all done!" We got a few minutes out of her by carrying her around but that was it. I don't think I'd like being outside either if I couldn't move. It's warmed up a bit here (high 30's) so maybe we'll get outside more.

Sorry for the boring post, just wanted to get some of this stuff down. Love you!

Elianna yelling, "Anna!" as she sees the camera and makes a beeline for it!

I survived!

Okay, we all survived the trip to Nammy's with a subsequent leaving of the tyke while Mike and I went off to Vegas to party hard. Partying hard is all relative, you understand; I felt positively raucous for being out at 1030 with no real need to go to bed because there would be no 630 am wake up call from a little cutie. But yes we did leave Elianna with her Nammy and cousins who seem to be rather infatuated with their live doll. Zoe (Zisi) kept picking her up and swinging her around, legs a dangle which Elianna tolerated quite well. Mira (Mimi) yelled at Elianna for trying to go outside without an adult (no worries, we were right there) which was either a stunning display of protective instinct for her cousin or a feeling of, 'if I can't, neither can you!'

Elianna seemed to not be fazed by our absence which made me feel both relieved and a little mournful. My baby doesn't even notice I'm not there? What kind of crappy mom am I? When we got back, however, for the first day if I was out of sight, she would meltdown with frantic screaming until I came back into view. I wasn't happy she was so upset (what kind of trauma did I inflict on her by leaving??!!) but a teensy, teensy portion of me was glad that she had noticed and was worried. I know, crappy mom. Next day all was good and we've left her with Nikki since and she's been fine. She appears to have picked up a cold (4 plane rides, multiple toddlers, it would have been surprising if she *didn't*) but it's a small one and she seems to be riding it out okay.

Happy New Year!!!

Can't believe it's already 2011, 2010 just flew by! The beginning of the new year is the time for resolutions so I've got a couple: 1) keep this updated in a more regular fashion. I'll shoot for every week but that might mean not every post has pictures. She is so interested by the camera it's become near impossible to get pictures of her. Oppi got her a toy camera but she definitely knows the difference and wants to do the 'real' thing.
Here's an example of what happens when I don't let her behind the camera.


Oy vey.

Second, I want to learn my camera much better so I can start taking it out of auto mode. It takes dang good pictures but if I know it better, maybe I can sneak up on her and get some, heck, ANY shots.

Right now, while Mommy plays on the computer, Elianna is flipping through an Athleta catalog. Just for fun, I asked her who one of the underwear models was: 'Mama!" That's my girl. *snicker*

Elianna and I made an impromptu trip to NM for the holidays and managed to surprise Nana despite Poppa's discomfort about deceving his wife. Such a good quality! I wish we could have captured it on video; we walked around the corner and the look went from confusion to absolute shock. Then came the tears, I'm assuming of happiness. :) We had a great trip, and Elianna proved that she is, indeed, a rockstar traveler

This year should be full of changes: we'll have lived one full year in Spokane and through one full winter. Hopefully we'll be in a house of our own with a little more room. Elianna will turn two (we're already working on her being able to say it) and maybe I'll be back to work or in school. Looks to be an exciting time...stay tuned!

Super duper travel baby!

We just got back from Vegas; Elianna is becoming quite the little traveler. I think we counted she's flown almost 20 legs so far and she isn't even 18 months. We do a lot to keep her occupied and we pass her back and forth a lot. The leg back we had an extra seat so she dozed a little in her car seat.

We got a fun little routine in the mornings. I'd get dressed, she'd stay in her pjs and we'd go down the the lobby for coffee for me. Sometimes she'd be in her stroller, others she'd push the stroller with a stuffed animal along for the ride. Along the way she'd stop at the fire extinguisher (Dis?), a heating grate (dis? and run her fingers up it) and an electrical outlet (no, Elianna, not for babies) and then we'd go in the elevator. Once in the lobby, she'd cry out, "Ball! BALL!" and run over to the Christmas tree, trying to take off the ornaments. Her latest thing is also spinning so she'd do that while looking up at the mirrored ceiling which got *me* dizzy! One time on the way back to the room, I got ahead of her, noticed and turned around to see her, stopped, looking at me with a big smile on her face...about to put her fingers in the outlet. She knows exactly when she's doing something she's not supposed to, it just blows me away.

Her first night of sleep at the hotel was less than stellar. We couldn't get where she was sleeping dark enough and I think it kept her awake. Then we moved her in our room which seemed to help but she woke up pretty frequently which is very unusual for her. At one point she started yelling, "Unry, UNRY! (hungry) so for the 1st time in probably over 8 months I nursed her and she finally went to sleep and stayed asleep until 630 (normal). I used to worry about doing things like that in case she got used to it as her new normal but she's not a 'give an inch take a mile' kind of kid which is nice.

Last night I nursed her before bed, she seemed sleepy so I took her off. Usually if she's not finished she'll let me know right away but she just looked tired. I laid her down and she went ballistic! I tucked her in, told her I loved her and went out of the room. Five minutes later I went back in and she was sitting up in the crib, yelling and signing 'more' and 'milk' over and over. I could have nursed her a little more but I decided to try something. I picked her up, rubbed her back and talked with her for a minute. I told her it wasn't time for milk anymore but she could have more tomorrow. Then she asked for Baby Signing Time and I did the same thing, we'll do it tomorrow. Then we turned on her star turtle, looked at the flowers on her wall, told her all the things we'd do tomorrow and laid her back down. Not a peep! I was so amazed and impressed by her.

I was kind of impressed by myself too. My biggest problem in being a mom is that I'm such a rule person. I want to do things the 'right' way and there's really no such thing. There's a lot of wrong ways but no right one so to be a success you have to be open to that and I just wasn't before. Last night showed me I could go with the flow, I could pick her up and soothe her without worrying I was creating a monster (which so many of the parenting books will scare you that you will) and I could try something new. If it hadn't worked, we'd have tried something else but it felt right and it worked!

One of my favorite things is listening to Elianna talk to herself early in the morning. You can hear her chatting away and then she'll start listing people who might get her out of bed: "Dada! Mama? Oppa! Nini (Nikki)?" Then, if she doesn't get any response she will get a bit more strident, the tone increases in pitch until she's yelling, "Ah dahn! Ah Dahn! "(all done) and our day begins.

The language is exploding (still). Show her a sign and odds are she knows it. She has started using more signs that she never did and taking it to new levels. In the hallway outside Mike's office there are cartoon sandals on the tile floor. Today, for the first time she got very excited, started banging her fists together saying, "Ooooo". Well, banging fists together is usually how she says 'more' but that wasn't what she was saying this time. Then she banged her fists together again and bent down to touch the sandals on the floor. "Ooooo!" It hit Mike and I at the same time: "SHOES! She's saying shoes!" And she was. Fists banged together is, in fact, the sign for shoes. But she's never signed it before and she did it at a representation of shoes, not actual shoes. This seems crazy intelligent to me but It's probably just par for the course. I'm just her mom and impressed at little things.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Anyone looked at the forecast for Spokane lately? Oy vey, it's cold and wet here; last week the temps barely made it into double digits. Poor Elianna, she wants outside so badly but it's just been too cold. We have gotten her a sled though so now that it's hit 20 degrees and it feels practically balmy, we'll be headed out.

So that was written last week and we've still not been outside. Elianna had this runny nose which morphed into a hacking cough, complete with post cough puking so we've been indoor people these days. It doesn't help that the snow has kept coming and coming. We got a 2 day respite, but now we're supposed to get up to 8 inches more through the next couple days. Oy vey!

Speaking of oy vey, Elianna can say it and it's pretty understandable! It's so cute to see this little person and hear 'oy vey!' come out her mouth.

Murray (AKA Oppa) came for Thanksgiving and we had a wonderful time. He bought an iPad and we got to share our Apple knowledge with him and he let us play with it. We decided to get iphone 4s for us and have been Facetiming ever since. That technology is just awesome. I've been too nervous to drive Elianna to see Mike when he's working so we just call each other, turn on the video and she gets to see her daddy. Pretty cool.
So Oppa came during the cold snap (high of 11 degrees anyone?) so we did a lot of indoor stuff. We did drive to Coeur d'Alene for Thanksgiving dinner which was an adventure. The snow turned from a light, dry one to heavy, thick Flagstaff type flakes. Made for some interesting driving back but we made it safe and sound.

Elianna seems none too impressed with the white stuff. First off she can't move very well in the snow suit with parka we got her. Second, she's too small for snowboots so her feet get cold and wet. She liked kicking at in while in the safety of our arms but the first time she fell down into it, there were many tears along with "ah dahn ah dahn!" She does like the sled in the house so I'm sure outside will be much better.

Verbally she's exploding. I get a lot of the things she's saying because she signs along with it but she's definitely getting more understandable even without it. She's still a good eater, eating cauliflower, garbanzo beans (she's my kid for sure!), broccoli, pasta and hummus. She squeals with delight at the dogs outside the window, tries to mimic things we say and overall is a chatterbox.
Picture wise, it's getting harder and harder to take them. She sees the camera and immediately she's headed for it, trying to take her own pictures, not that she knows what she's doing. I need to learn my camera better so I can sneak up on her. Or get a telephoto lens.