Wordless Wednesday: Me and my Papa Bob

One year of blogging!

That was then

This is now

Per usual, I'm one step behind on remembering important dates. I was just looking back through my blog history and realized that April 20th, 2011 was my first blog post. I've actually been blogging for one year! Go me! I'm pretty pumped about this because there are a lot of other things I could/should be doing with my time (grading papers, cleaning my house, working out), but I'm glad I've been able to carve out a little time for blogging both for me and Miss B. Looking at Ella now, it's hard to believe that she was ever younger than she is. A year ago, she'd only been walking for a few months, knew maybe 20 words, and was just figuring out how to use a spoon. Fast forward one year and the girl is "reading" books to us, counting in Spanish, and sliding down spiral slides all by herself. It's amazing to spend every day watching this little human grow, and I'm so glad you guys are watching too.

A Good Eater

Ella B is what you might call "a good eater." This is not to say she doesn't have her moments where she will proclaim, "Don't like it," when I try to get her to eat the hummus she eats every single day, but her refusal of food is more about attitude than pickiness. In general, she will eat almost anything: salad, cheeseburgers, asparagus, miso soup, and she even speared her first tuna roll with a chopstick the other night.

She also loves the preparation of food as much as I do. Each night, she "helps" me make dinner and despite the fact that she is the worst sous chef I've ever worked with, she is still pretty awesome. I recently gave her a tutorial on removing edamame from their pods. It's adorably sad to watch her work so hard at something that seems so simple to me. She couldn't quite grasp the concept of applying pressure to one end of the pod to push the soybean out of the opening. She just kept squeezing the entire thing until it exploded in any direction across the room, and I was sent to retrieve them. Cooking with a toddler is a messy process, but something I find so rewarding, especially when Michael comes home and from her little perch on the chair against the island she tells him, "Daddy, I made you dinner!" with that little grin on her face.

I'm so thrilled to already have an adventurous eater because adults or children who won't try new foods is probably one of my biggest pet peeves of all time. I'd love to think that my children will grow up loving vegetables and ethnic foods and that we won't have to order chicken nuggets wherever we go until they are 27. I also think that teaching my children how to prepare food with love is one of the most important life skills I can give them, and I hope she will always feel that pride of accomplishment in preparing a meal when she grows up, whomever she might be cooking for. Hopefully, I'll get to sit at that table with her.

Wordless Wednesday: Super Ella

Wordless Wednesday: Funny Face

It's my party and I'll sleep if I want to

So, Ella B's b-day party was last week (okay- more like a week and a half ago, but who's counting) and let's just say, it didn't go quite as perfectly as I'd hoped. And yes, maybe it was unnecessary to invite 60 people to a two-year-old's birthday party, and yes maybe it was unnecessary for me to cook Chinese food for said group of people, but I really thought I'd be able to pull it off. On top of all that, Miss B decided to take a late nap and sleep through half her party. By the time I finally went up to get her, people were ready to leave and we had to rush through the cake and presents with a sleepy, confused, and overwhelmed birthday girl.

After most of the guests left, my sister and her family stayed to play and Ella got to have some quality time with Izzy who washed her hair and lotioned her after her bath. Mike and I were lucky enough to spend the night playing a rollicking game of Cranium with Jessica and Alan, so it wasn't a total bust.

I must say that while I didn't get to enjoy the party as much as I would have liked, the kids certainly seemed to have a great time. Every time I looked around, there was another kid crashing Ella's quad into the wall and catapulting off the trampoline. So, it was still a good time.

Needless to say, my husband made me sign a contract saying we'll be serving pizza next year. I really had no good argument to the contrary.

Two

In an ideal world, I would have written a post last Friday when Ella turned two. I had all kinds of grand plans about posting pictures from the day she was born and retelling the story of her super awesome birth and all of that, but this is not a perfect world. It is my unorganized, hectic, fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of world, so instead I'll do this.

I was in a professional development workshop on Friday about poetry and the instructor gave us some time to write. I was supposed to write about someone I didn't know very well, but I had Ella B on the brain so I wrote about her. I started thinking about what my life was like before I met her and this is what I came up with.

Happy Birthday Ella B. I wrote you a poem.

Before I knew you

Before I knew you…

There were never rocks in my pockets or stickers on my face

Before I knew you…

I never saw dawn on a Sunday morning, nestled in a heap on the couch

Before I knew you…

No one ever begged to hold my hand

as if it were a dire need

Before I knew you…

I didn’t notice the way the bumblebee almost disappears when he

steps inside a flower to drink

Before I knew you…

I never knew how hard it was to form a word in your mouth for the first time.

You watch my face, your tiny lips following the path of mine

Before I knew you…

I never knew the feeling of failing when it mattered so much

Before I knew you…

I was lucky to feel the wonder of the world,

but I could never have imagined the wonder of you