Whistle while you work, hum while you eat

This is a little quirk of Ellie's that I just had to capture.



She's been doing it ever since she started taking solid food as a baby. It's like as soon as the spoon hit her mouth, we've been re-enacting the dinner scene from What About Bob? She even does it at church when we give her crackers, mistakenly thinking it will keep her quiet. Her nursery leaders love it. You can usually hear her from any part of the house when she is in the kitchen eating, which has gotten her into trouble on more than one occasion. She has a tell when she is trying to sneak treats when Mom and Dad aren't looking. She actually hums louder when she's eating some kind of treat, she gets so focused on it, so it's even harder to hide.

Lately, though, I've noticed this unconscious habit of hers slipping now and then. She spends more time talking during meals, more time playing with her food. It makes me realize how quickly she will outgrow some of my favorite quirks of hers right now. Soon enough she will learn to say "orange," instead of "orjange." She will stop requesting "cutecumbers" with her dinner, and will stop riding the "elegator" up and down at the library. She will learn how to use pronouns correctly and no longer say, "I want to carry you me," a request that was so much more difficult to turn down after the C-section than a demanding, "pick me up!" would have been. As she is growing up, sometimes I just want to turn the camera on all the time to capture her playing, not to forget anything. If the reader will indulge me, I do want to write a bit here, as I don't have better places to keep records these days, before Ellie outgrows any more. I will reward you with a video of Charlie laughing at the end. (Or you can just skip to that, I guess.)

Lately Ellie's speech is punctuated with a sense of urgency. Lots of "have to" and "need to" phrases. "I have to go outside." "I have to go upstairs and sing a song." "I gotta play." "I need to drive the car." (Nice try, kiddo.) She has a lot of demands on her. The other day she got into closet (that doorknob has been removed and is now on a shelf in my room--interior decorating for a two-year-old is another post altogether) and was pulling out items stowed away in the 3/4s of the closet she doesn't use. As I was reloading, Ellie spotted her Christmas dress and declared, "oh, I have to wear my Santa Claus!" I told her no, she needed to wear her jammies. Before I even turned around, she was unzipped and had wriggled out down to the footies. Who am I to question her agenda?

She seems pretty comfortable sans clothes and even diaper lately. She gets pretty excited about the idea of taking a bath and gets all ready, but once it's time to get in, for some reason she refuses. No tantrum usually, just lots of excuses. "No, no. Too hot, " or "too cold." She does the same thing with food she's not interested in. I rue the day we told her the story of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears." I keep telling her that the bath is "just right," but then she insists, "No, I have to sleep," and curls up--completely naked--on the bathmat and lets out fake snores. What follows is a parade of discovery around the bathroom, playing with the scale, climbing onto the toilet seat. The other day she grabbed her toothpaste and toothbrush and did a nice little march on top of the toilet, belting out, "Toothpaste, DAH-DAH! Toothpaste, DAH-DAH!" She's getting better about going through the bedtime routine. It takes a lot of creativity, blowing bubbles in the tub, playing "Geronimo!" with the tub toys, making her tell us stories so she will keep her mouth open while we try to brush her teeth. It can be exhausting, but pretty funny if you let yourself laugh about it instead of getting frustrated.

Ellie is enjoying playing with others more and is trying to learn about sharing and taking turns. That said, I think her best friend right now is Jessie from Toy Story. Specifically, the Jessie decal on her wall close the the crib. Jessie is her friend, admirer, and confidant. Ellie tells Jessie everything. I came to tell Ellie it was time for dinner and she climbed out of the rocking chair where she had been looking at books, ran to Jessie and said, "I have to jump down and go eat dinnertime now, Jessie." She will tell Jessie when she gets a sticker on her sticker chart, about trips to the library, or have lengthy discussions with her either when she shuts herself in her room alone or after being put to bed. Over the baby monitor I've heard her tell Jessie, "I got curly hair, Jessie." Also, "I like the trampoline, Jessie. I like it," as though having a debate about the best outdoor play equipment.

In the interest of reader interest, I will wind down now. I guess the moral is that I should keep a separate journal for myself to not lose track of all this cuteness. We sure do love trying to keep up with this little girl though.

Now, as promised, here is Charlie laughing. The video is actually a couple weeks old. Brady was trying to get Charlie calmed down late one night and Charlie seemed to really like the small mirror in the hallway. The lighting isn't great, and he makes Brady work pretty hard for the laughs, but it's a pretty good moment.



I guess I should have called this post "funny sounds my family makes."