Look Who's Two!

Ellie turned 2 on Thursday. We have had quite a few family birthdays recently, so she has been getting the idea of what exactly that meant for a while now.

She really liked having candles and getting sung to. After we put her to bed that night, I heard her singing "Happy Birthday" to herself through the baby monitor.

Brady gets credit for finding the perfect gift: The Wonder Pets stuffed animals. She has slept with them every night since. Here's a video of her introducing each one and saying Ming-Ming's catch phrase ("This is sewious"--Min-Ming has a bit of a speech impediment). She is still working on getting over a cold, so might be a little hard to understand:

Her birthday kind of got spread over three days since we had a family party the next day, and a delivery of a big present from Brady's parents the next. Ellie has been enthralled with far too many new toys, and may think this is going to be a daily tradition from now on. Her gifts this year are bringing out her more nurturing, feminine side. She occupied herself for quite a while with her little kitchen from my parents.

And she's pretty excited about her new baby with accessories from Brady's parents. She had just gotten up from her nap and found this new arrival, but went right to work feeding and caring for her new baby. A nice, well-rounded diet of ice cream. Such a good mommy.

A Nationally Declared Month

This month has been declared "National Blog Post Month," or "NaBloPoMo." The idea is that people are supposed to post on their blogs every day of the month. Why? I have no idea. I'm not sure that all two of my readers would want to hear from me every day, although this particular month does seem a likely candidate to present enough blog-worthy moments.

It is also "National Mustache Month," or "NaMuMo," I guess. Following on the heels of October's big push for breast cancer awareness, someone declared this as a real thing to raise awareness about men's health issues. Apparently people sponsor this. We have a good friend who has the tradition with his brothers of always growing mustaches for Thanksgiving. Apparently they were ahead of the trend. As for Brady's participation in this nationally declared event, well, I told him no one is paying him to grow a mustache, so maybe not this year.

It is also "National Novel Writing Month," or "NaNoWriMo." I'm not making these abbreviations up. People really use them. Apparently everyone is supposed to try to write a novel this month. The challenge is to write a little over 1500 words a day to get a roughly 50,000-word novel complete by the end of the month (which is actually a pretty short novel). Brady told me about this last year and my first response was, "That's the worst idea ever."

You'd think, given my background as a writing instructor, that I'd be all for this. You'd think wrong. Yes, I think people should write, and should hone the skill. Everyone would benefit from doing more of it. It's a great form of communication, learning, expression, exploration, and so much more. But not everyone should write novels.

For me, the thought of so many novels being written in November conjures the image of an overflowing submissions pile on some poor editor's or intern's desk in December. My inner-editor cringes at the thought. I used to be that person, the one who had to wade through the "slush pile" looking for potential acquisitions. Sometimes it was an entertaining part of my job as an editor to take a break from the computer screen and red pens, kick my feet up on the desk, and read submissions for a while. But sometimes reading manuscripts that ranged from the preposterous to the infuriating to sometimes the just plain boring was less than enticing, and often low enough on the priority list that the pile of submissions just grew and grew faster than I could keep up with. The thought of so many more people getting it into their heads that they should be novelists doesn't sound so great to me. I mean, I guess it's okay if everyone writes a novel, but in my experience, not everyone should presume to be a novelist.

All these national month assignments made me wonder just how one gets a month declared something, and on a national level too. I suppose their ambition is laudable at some level, but who decides these things? Who makes it official? Today I was amusing myself with some abbreviations of activities that should be declared and nationalized into their own months. Then I thought, who am I kidding? Between the discomfort and nausea while I wait for this baby to come, I'm not doing much of anything. Once the baby comes, I'm probably going to be recovering and adapting to a growing family, I probably won't be getting out and doing much either.

So, I finally arrived at declaring it "National do Nuthin' and Nap til Noon Month," or as I like to call it, "NaNuNaNoo(Mo)." (Yeah, it was a stretch to get to that one. Thanks for hanging in there on this one.)

Lucky Duck

It would seem that Ellie has something for duck costumes, although I think technically her previous venture as a duck she was technically supposed to be a baby chick. Either way, she is pretty cute as a duck. For those readers lucky enough to get to watch the animated series "Wonder Pets" on Netflix streaming several times a day, you will understand why ducks are near and dear to Ellie's heart. She adores the wonder pets. She talks about them, sings about them, pretends to play with them all day long. Her favorite character is the duck named Ming-Ming. So nothing would do for a Halloween costume but for Ellie to be a duck so she could actually be Ming-Ming. (To be honest, some of this insistence was as much on Daddy's part--he gets a good dose of "Wonder Pets" most days.)

So we got Ellie all pumped up for going to the church to "trunker-treat." I had been feeling bad about how little I have been involved in Ellie's outings during this pregnancy. It's become such a novelty for her to have me along that when she knows I'm going somewhere with her she gets all excited, running around the house and announcing to anyone who will listen "Mamma's coming! Mamma's coming! MAMMA's COM-ING!" So I felt like I really needed to put forth the effort and go. I took an extra dose of nausea medicine, crammed my swollen, Fred-Flinstone-like feet into some real shoes, and got myself out the door. I even managed a costume.




(What I should have put on the sign was "about two weeks" since that's all anyone asked me that night, but I've never seen a magic 8 ball with that answer. Also, this is not actually a maternity shirt, so not very flattering at this point in pregnancy--the things we go through for our kids)



The duck head was so big, Ellie looked like she was perpetually about to fall over as she walked. She talked quite a bit about wearing the costume and knew that the primary goal of wearing it was to "get candy." The whole night, though, we could barely get her to look at anyone, or anything other than the ground for that matter. Might have been the costume, but she was a strangely shy duck. Of course over breakfast the next day she managed a very cheerful, articulate "trick-or-treat!"

Halloween candy has proven to be a bit too nauseating for me this year (which may be a good thing), but I have learned the true value of a roll of Smarties when dealing with an almost-two-year-old who has a bit of a cold and is starting another round of teething.

In the good old summer time

We've finally started having colder temperatures and the leaves are changing color. I, for one, have been looking forward to the change. Other than the fact that the only shoes that still really fit on my swollen feet are the summer-loving flip-flops, I welcome the cold weather. It's that much more comfortable for me, and it's a change I knew would have to take place before this baby would come. So it makes it all seem closer.

Ellie, on the other hand, sometimes misses the summer weather, I think. She would live outdoors if we let her. She doesn't quite get the reasoning that it's too cold, too wet, or too dark in response to her numerous requests to go outside. I have been pretty out of commission with this pregnancy, so haven't been able to do as much with Ellie as I would have liked this summer. But I think she still had a good time.



She lived for "swimming," which was really anything she got to put her swimming suit on for.


This included anything from running through the sprinkler, to playing in the sidewalk fountain downtown, to actually getting in a swimming pool (where she was fearless to both our delight and trepidation).


Unfortunately, these are the only "swimming" pictures I got this summer.

She also enjoyed an anual trip to the zoo with some cousins.

She wore that clashing hat and sunglasses almost the entire time like a good little tourist.


She found her "Ellie-phant." Not sure how much we should really push that joke, but she likes it for now.

I love how in this video she is simultaneously delighted and terrified by the goats.

I notice at one point she says "horsie." Perhaps we need to be a little more proactive in her farm animal education

So Ellie did have a good summer. I can see why she misses it. She still gets her outside time. During the last good rainstorm Brady took her "puddle whomping." You could hear her yells of "Wha-hoo!" all over the neighborhood every time she got a good splash. Brady has promised pictures of Ellie dressed in the froggie raincoat and boots the very next time we get a rainstorm (one of my many frustrations for not being up for tagging along on some of their outings). By the end , Ellie decided she wanted to sit in the puddles, though, so I don't think she has gotten over our broad use of the term "swimming" yet.

Ellie's Wisdom

As the countdown for this pregnancy slowly winds down, it's a comfort to me every once in a while to see just how grown-up and independent Ellie is becoming. People are always telling us that we will be amazed at how big Ellie will seem when the new baby arrives. But as I look back at her growth and progress from the time we found out Baby Brother was coming last spring to now, I am already amazed.

Tonight she surprised me with her self- sufficiency once again. There are several things that I keep thinking I need to work on with Ellie and never seem to remember to do on a consistent basis. One is drinking from a regular cup (as opposed to a sippy cup). Whenever she is offered a small cup of water at nursery, she first dumps the contents on herself, then puts it up the her mouth. So some weeks she comes home from church pretty soaked. Tonight at dinner she grabbed my mostly empty cup of water and took several moderated sips. No big deal. Just did it. Drinking problem resolved (though probably still in need of good supervision). Evoking less pride but probably just as big of a milestone was her mastery of the ice cream cone last month.

A few weeks ago I heard her wake in the middle of the night with blood-curdling screams. Since I can barely get her in and out of the crib at this point of my pregnancy, I was feeling pretty useless and was about to wake Brady when she suddenly stopped and started talking. Over the baby monitor I heard:

"Okay, okay, Ellie-belly. Okay, Bo Bear. . . blanket. Okay, Mommy, Daddy. Grandma. Okay. [yawning] Go night-night, Ellie-belly. Okay, okay . . . Go to sleep Ellie." It was quiet for a few minutes, then a murmured, "Ice cream, Ellie-belly," as she drifted back to sleep.

The kid talked herself down from a nightmare. (She has also taken to calling herself "Ellie-belly" lately.) I don't know that I have the skills to talk myself down from such extreme anxiety, and here my almost-two-year-old calmly got herself back to sleep.

A few days later she was standing on a chair, playing at the kitchen table. I told her to be careful because the way the chair was tilted she might fall down. Her response was a matter-of-fact, "Ashes, ashes, we all fall down, Mommy." It would have seemed like talking back if she hadn't said it in such a profound way. Indeed we do all fall down, Ellie. I guess she is learning a thing or two at nursery after all.

Ellie's Eccentricities

Loyal readers will know that we have been waiting a long time for Ellie to get enough hair to do anything with. Her 2010 new year's resolution was to grow some hair. She's finally making good on the goal and I bought the tiniest hair clips I could find, hoping we could maybe do something with her hair. I got them out the other day and thought I would just put two in to pull her hair back on the side. Just two. Ellie had other ideas. Once she saw the clips, she insisted that each one be put in her hair.





She kept them in all day. Can't wait until she starts dressing herself.

She definitely has enthusiasm for life. Her constant narration of her day cracks us up. She's picked up a few phrases that she likes to try out, though they come out different every time. "Whoopsie daisy" has several iterations, but my favorite so far is "dopsie boop!" And the best "okey-dokey" was "donkey-donk."

By far Ellie's favorite topic of conversation, though, is herself. She constantly carries her "guys" around, which are whatever small plastic toys of animals or old Disney cartoons she can dig out of the toy box, and makes them play while she talks to them about herself. It's a constant stream of "Okay, Ellie, walking, walking, ah-ha-ha-ha, climb up, yay, you made it Ellie, go night-night, oh no, Ellie, get down, Ellie . . . ." I'm not sure if she's naming the "guys" Ellie, or if she just wants to make sure they know what she's up to. Either way, it seems our little girl is very secure with her identity.

Little Chef

It turns out that Ellie takes after her daddy when it comes to cooking.


She can spend forever mixing, pouring, stirring. Nevermind that it's all just water. She is in the zone. Invariably she is always making and pretending to eat "I-cream."


I had never before realized how essential the tambourine is to cooking. Perhaps this is why some of my own attempts lack that "wow factor."