Blizzard 2013

As I am writing this, I'm realizing that since I began this blog, I've written a lot of weather related posts. It's pretty amazing that in less than three years Ella has already lived through two hurricanes, a blizzard, and two Halloween snow storms. I don't know if it's global warming, but I do know that we've had some crazy weather up in here lately.

The blizzard may have been the craziest so far, at least where we live. I know Sandy did quite a number on some coastal towns, but for us, this was a bigger deal. Mike and I have never seen so much snow in our lives, and I guess that's what made it so exciting. We're use to watching her experience things for the first time, to see that glint of awe in her eyes, but this time, we all had that glint.The three of us couldn't stop staring out the window, watching the snow pour down from the sky, all of our eyes wide and our mouths dropped open.

Once the storm was over, the reality of three feet of snow set in. Ella wanted to go outside immediately, but Mike had a lot of work to do before that was possible. It took him about nine hours to snow blow the driveway, and Ella and I had to entertain ourselves with baking, and dancing, and painting, and coloring, and a whole lot of Toy Story and Ice Age. When we finally made it outside on Sunday, Beezer couldn't contain herself. She was so excited and immediately scurried on top of the three foot snow pile and proceeded to roll and flip and somersault her way into snow ecstasy. Mike decided to build her a snow fort, one my father would have hated, complete with secret underground tunnel ready to collapse at any moment. I watched from the house as they dug tunnels and threw snow balls at each other until he had to drag her inside for nap. She would have stayed out there forever.

The only bad part (besides all the snowblowing) was that Ella woke up on Friday with pink eye. So, there we were in the middle of a blizzard with no way to get any medicine. Luckily, I was able to get out Sunday morning, and I am so glad I did because I had never seen the world look like that before. It was so weird to see unplowed roads on every side of us, snow piles almost ten feet high, and more white than I could ever imagine.

A couple of warm days have melted a lot of the snow, and I can actually see some of our grass again. I'm glad it's almost over and I'll be getting back to work tomorrow, but I'm kind of glad I got to see the world looking so still and picturesque. I'm glad I got to see the world like Beezer does, full of wonder and amazement. The world through a three-year-olds eyes is pretty incredible.

Our first cooking adventure- Eggplant Parmesan. She was so serious about her jobs.

Yep, that's the snow line. Two feet.

That driveway takes a loooong time to snow blow

Inside the best fort ever. I'm kind of bummed it's all melted now.

Young Grasshopper

So, this was a big week for Miss B as she graduated from the Beetle class into the Grasshopper class. She is now in "junior preschool," which, I guess, is like "junior high school," but without all the braces and awkward French kissing (hopefully). The truth is her school created this pre- preschool group this week mostly, I think, because there are several preschool age kids who are developmentally ready for preschool learning, but haven't mastered the whole potty training thing. Sad trumpet music. Ella is one of those kids. It's frustrating because I really think she belongs in the next classroom, but she's holding herself back with this whole pooping in the potty thing. So, this is like preschool prep school, I guess. They're taking the year off to figure out what they really want to do with the rest of their lives. Something like that.

Anyway, I was a little nervous about the transition from the relaxed Miss Meghan and Miss Christina to the more professional Miss Cheryl. Even on the first day, Cheryl told me that Ella had given her a hard time about taking off her playtime dress during snack. Oh, you mean the dress that she always wears, all day, every day while she's at school? The dress no one has ever told her to take off before? Yeah. This is going to be interesting.

Mike thinks it will be good, that she needs someone who is a bit stricter in her life, to reign in those wild child tendencies. I'm excited that they've starting teaching them how to hold a pencil and write their names. In the past week she's become obsessed with letters, and since Friday, she's already written "A, E, l, and p" on her own. Well, the "p" was really a backwards "a," but I think that still counts.

At this rate, the girl's going to be reading and writing before she's wearing underwear.

I now present to you, Ella writing her name for the first time:

Transformers Ballerina

The other day one of the other moms at daycare who has a little boy and is now expecting a little girl asked me, "Does Ella always dress like a princess?" I looked over and saw that as usual she was wearing the Cinderella costume she puts on every day as soon as she gets to school and wears the entire day until I pry it off her unwilling body. I nodded and smiled, and the mom said, "I just don't know what I'm going to do. I'm just not a girly person." It was funny because I realized that she sees my daughter differently than I do. She sees the little girl in polka dots and pink who is always wearing a princess dress or a tutu and twirling around like a ballerina and thinks to herself, "There's Ella, the girliest girl there is." This is so funny to me because I don't see her that way at all, and I don't think Ella sees herself that way, either. Now, I'm not saying she's a tomboy. Does she love girly things? Of course. She loves makeup and nail polish and clothes and all the other "girly" things appropriate to her gender, but her likes and dislikes do not end there. She loves superheroes and transformers and Thomas the tank engine. She loves turning over rocks and looking for worms. The only thing she asked for on Christmas was Spiderman slippers. Today we went to a knight themed birthday party, and I bought her a Sleeping Beauty dress to wear there, but as soon as she saw the dragon costume sitting out in Emmett's living room, she pulled off her dress to put it on. She spent most of the party using pretend power tools to fix Emmett's playhouse. A lot of her interests come from the kids she hangs out with at school. Her class is made up of mostly boys, so when they want to play Captain America and "Save the Day!" she gets sucked into the excitement. Perhaps if her classroom was full of girls, she would never know about Power Rangers or Batman and wouldn't be interested in "boy" things, but her environment is what it is, and she doesn't seem to notice these discrepancies.

It's like that scene in Friends when Rachel makes a dessert and accidentally mixes two recipes together, one for a fruit trifle and one for Shepard's pie. Joey continues to eat it, and explains himself by saying, "What's not to like? Custard, good. Jam, good. Meat, good." I think that's how Ella feels about her interests, as in, "Magic wands, good. Sparkles, good. Worms and dirt, good." She can't see any reason why all these items can't compliment each other in the trifle dish of her life. 

The truth is that beyond all the "stuff" I see much more "boy" tendencies in her than "girl" ones. Her friend Kate is like I was as a kid, content to sit and color or play Play-doh for hours, carefully choosing the right crayon and meticulously adding a speck of glitter here or there. Ella would much rather be finding the highest thing to jump off of, or asking us to chase her or watch her run "really, really fast" or jump "really, really high!" She loves speed and danger and excitement. She loves being physical and rolling around with Mike, and I think that because she is a girl, he subconsciously doesn't play as rough with her as he would a boy, even though she would love it.

I think we spend so much time worrying about gender stereotypes that we end up putting our kids into these categories without realizing it. If she likes princesses, then she must be girly. If she likes baseball, then she's a tomboy, but none of this matters to Ella. She has no idea what boys are supposed to like, or what girls are supposed to like. She just likes what she likes, and that's the way it should be.

I think this really hit home for me the other day when she and I were at the grocery store and I let her pick out a balloon. At the time, she was wearing a sundress (yes, in January), sparkly tights, and pink boots. She looked at all the balloons- pink, purple, sparkly, heart-shaped- and out of all of them, she chose the Transformers balloon. On the way home, she held her balloon in the backseat and said, "Mom, when I get big, I'm gonna be a Transformers Ballerina."

And I said, "Ya know what, buddy? That sounds just perfect for you."

Oh, hello again and Christmas part 1

Wow. One blog post in December. And it was a real downer. Sorry about that guys. Between work and the holidays, I just couldn't make this whole blog thing happen lately, but I'm back, and I am glad I had at least one blog post in December, because as bad about blogging as I can be sometimes, in almost two years, I've never missed a month, and that sounds like a pretty good accomplishment to me.

So, where do I start? I guess I'll start with Christmas and fill you in on the rest later, or, on second thought, it's almost 10, so I might have to break Christmas down into multiple parts. Let's just get started and see what happens, shall we?

So, this was the first year that Ella was old enough to really get excited for Christmas. Once the old-school holiday specials started playing on the T.V. and it seemed like everywhere we went there was a Santa (like even at the diner), she started to get that Christmas itch, and, I have to say, I got a little bit of the itch, too. I loved watching Frosty the Snowman with her and talking about what she wanted for Christmas (Spiderman slippers- the only thing she asked for was Spiderman slippers). It was the first time we did the Elf on the Shelf, and the first time we put cookies under the tree for Santa and carrots for the reindeer. We even sprinkled some special reindeer magic dust on the lawn and spun around three times and made a wish. When I asked Ella what her wish was, she said, "Mommy, Daddy, Ella, Nene, PopPop." I figured that sounded like a pretty good wish.

On Christmas Eve she went to bed knowing that Santa would be arriving soon, and I can so remember that joy and anticipation. It was always so hard to sleep that night, but something in the air just felt so good. I remember how my parents always put those fake candles on all the window sills, and I would go to sleep by that light and feel so warm and happy. This was the first year I got to see that joy in her eyes, and I realized that it means I get to live that feeling all over again. Once you grow up, but before you have kids, the holidays can become this tedious time of shopping and cooking and cleaning, but then, when a little person in penguin pajamas asks you if Santa came last night and her eyes are all sparkly and sleepy, the holidays become something else entirely. This is the first year in a long time that I'm really bummed that Christmas is over, but I'm so looking forward to all those fun years ahead.

Well, I barely told you anything, but I have to go to bed. Stay tuned for more Christmas stories later. Oh, and here is a video of Ella singing her favorite song, Frosty the Snowman.

Ella B Babysitting Survival Guide

Our friends are babysitting tomorrow night, and this is the list I compiled for them today. I didn't realize how insane we are until I finished writing it:

Ella B Babysitting Survival Guide

Here is your mission should you choose to accept it:

1.       Please feed the child dinner around 5-5:30. I have placed a box of macaroni and cheese on the counter. I would make her that, but if she refuses to eat it, she can also have hummus (straight up with a spoon), string cheese, a cheesy roll-up (slightly melted cheese in a tortilla), or basically whatever else you can get her to eat. Tell her she can only have a Popsicle or other treat if she eats dinner first. Have her sit at her table in the living room, and turn the TV so she can see it (Yes- I am aware that this is ridiculous. Thank you).

2.       Bring her upstairs around 6:15 and stop acting crazy! Transition into quiet time so she can wind down.

3.       Her pajamas, nighttime diaper, lotion, cream, and hairbrush are on our bed. You’ll need to set up her bed after she destroyed it during nap time. She will show you how it goes. She might ask you to face her pillow and everything else in the opposite direction. That’s fine. You’ll need to get a bottle ready. I left one for you on the counter. Fill it with 1% milk and heat it in the microwave for 20 seconds.   

4.       (If you decide to give her a bath) The water is temperature controlled, so it can’t get too hot. Turn it up all the way and fill the tub.

5.       You’ll have to chase her to get her clothes off and get her in the tub. Tell her, “Fine. I’m going to take a bath. Don’t come in the bathroom!”  and she will follow you in. Try to get her to pee on the potty before she gets in the tub, but if she says no, don’t make a big deal of it. Sometimes she likes to “pee like a boy" and face the other direction. That’s fine. I’m assuming you know how to give a bath, so I’ll leave the specifics out.

6.       After her bath, lotion her, brush her hair, put her diaper/cream, and jammies on. Ask her if she wants to watch a show or read a book before bed. She will probably say, “Watch a show.” Lie down with her and give her a bottle. When she’s done, brush her teeth, then let her brush her own teeth, and give her a sip of water. She’ll say she wants to watch another show, but don’t let her.  Let her press the button to turn off the TV.

7.       Bring her in her room and let her turn on her humidifier. Try to avoid letting her stall too much. Don’t turn on the lights. Keep it quiet. No goofiness. Give her three hugs and kisses. If she asks for a wipe to hold, that’s fine. If she asks for a band aid, she can have one. If she wants her hair in a ponytail, that’s fine. She’ll come up with as many things as possible to keep you in there, try to leave within five minutes. Leave the hall and bathroom lights on and ask her how much she wants her door open. She will make you adjust it several times. Ask her if she wants you to blow kisses to her on the way downstairs. Keep blowing them until you get to the bottom. Then say goodnight. She will ask you a few questions once you’re downstairs. Answer them from the bottom, and try not to go back upstairs. Answer and then say, “Okay, I have to go do my work now. I love you, goodnight.” You may have to just cut her off at some point.

8.       Close the French doors so she can’t hear you.

9.       At this point, try not to judge us too much.

10.  Dinner, dessert, and wine have been provided.

Be the Bigger B

I got some parenting advice after school today from a former teacher and current colleague of mine. He was talking about the difficulties of having a thirteen-year-old daughter and how much attitude and sass gets tossed around his house on the regular, and how he has to put the kibosh on it almost everyday. I said that I feel like Ella already has thirteen-year-old attitude, and I'm a little afraid of how much worse it can get.

Her newest thing is when she tells me something and if I say, "What?" she gets all upset and says, "I already telled you!" and refuses to repeat herself.

I was telling my colleague about how she refuses to sit at the table at dinnertime and will only eat sitting on the living room floor, or how she has to approve her outfit choices in the morning, or how every night we have to close her door the perfect amount- not too much, not too little, and how when we leave, we have to blow her kisses all the way downstairs. Sometimes we are allowed to use our hands to blow kisses, and sometimes we have to do it with just our lips.

Believe me, I know what you're thinking, but the truth is that these things just develop somehow. Kids are smart. They push you little by little, until one day you find yourself feeding a two-and-a-half year old a Popsicle on the couch.

I explained to my colleague that Ella is a lot of wonderful things, but she can also be a brat. If we went to high school together, she would have been that tough, pretty girl I was kind of afraid of. She might have been Parker Posey's character in Dazed and Confused, or Regina from Mean Girls. Okay, maybe she's more like Hermione Granger or Ferris Bueller's girlfriend, but still, she's an alpha female. She's Daphne, and I'm Velma. She's Kelly Taylor and I'm Brenda Walsh (Though in real life I think she'd be Shannen Doherty- that girl is scary).

The point is that sometimes Miss Ella B is kind of a bitch, a way better bitch than I am, to which my learned colleague replied, "Then you need to be a bigger bitch."

I realized in that moment that this is some of the best advice I've ever gotten. This light bulb went off in my head about what I need to do to reign this girl in. I have to learn how to be the bigger bitch. But realization is not enough here. I have to actually do it. I'm not sure how that's going to look yet, but I wanted to let you guys know that I'm going to work on it and see what I come up with. Stayed tuned for updates on my bitchiness. 

Elf on the Shelf: Creepy or Cool?

So we've started the Elf on the Shelf tradition for the first time. For those of you who don't know, the elf on the shelf is a manipulation tool to keep your kids from misbehaving...I mean, a cute holiday tradition to last throughout the years!

Basically, you read this story called The Elf on the Shelf and it explains how this elf will come to your house and watch you and then report back to Santa every night about whether you were naughty or nice. Each morning he flies back and reappears in a different part of your house.When you first see him, you have to give him a name, and you can never touch him or his magic will disappear.

So, we read the book, and then Mike and I chose a place to hide the Elf after Ella went to sleep. The next morning I said to her, "Let's go see where the elf is hiding!" to which she replied, "Does he have really sharp teeth?!"

When we found him, she asked if she could wave to him. I said yes, and then she said, "He's not waving back," all annoyed. She also wanted to know why he didn't talk or walk or move. She even made a creepy smiley face like the elf and said, "Why he go like this?"

When all the questions were over, I told her we had to give him a name.

"What do you want to name him, El?"
"Um...chair."
"Chair?"
"Yeah, chair."
"Well, chair's not really a name, buddy. What about something like Pedro?"
"No, his name's chair."
"Okay."

Luckily, she kind of forgot about the whole "chair" thing and ever since he has just been "elf." Most of the time, I think she knows he isn't real, but if I say, "Wait until I tell Chair what you did!" she just about loses it. "No, Mommy! Don't tell him!"

So, yeah. That's a thing that's going on in our house.

S is for Sass

Here are a couple of quick Ella B-isms from this week. As far as I can tell, she put the "s" in sass.

Me: "If you're not going to finish that cupcake, bring it in here please."
Her: "No, I can't. I'm relaxing."

Me: "Can you please pick up those flashcards before we go?"
Her: "No, Mommy, but I can do it tomorrow, okay?"

Also, P.S., who doesn't finish a cupcake? Sometimes I'm really not sure she is my kid.

Wordless Sunday: Full Punky Brewster

She insisted on every piece of this outfit including the striped leggings you can't see. Also, she wore an Easter basket as a hat at the grocery store today. Her father was thoroughly embarrassed.

Our little Helper

In preparation for "Thanksgiving Extravaganza Year Three" at our house on Thursday, Mike and I are frantically trying to clean the house this weekend. This means that a certain someone is either spending the weekend watching T.V. (don't judge us), or trying to "help" in her own special way.

She loves to think of herself as a helper, and often asks if she can "help" me make dinner, which usually translates into her eating a pile of shredded cheese while sitting on the island and mixing broccoli and uncooked rice in a bowl. Totally super helpful.

So we often try to divide and conquer when it comes to big projects we need to accomplish, meaning, one of us accomplishes the goal while the other distracts the child. I planned on taking Ella to the store this morning so Mike could clean, but she insisted on staying home with Daddy, so I wasn't sure how much he would be able to get done.

He said that she was fairly helpful. While cleaning the dresser, he kept handing her things to put away. She is good with a task like this. If you give her something and tell her where to put it, she will usually follow through, but eventually being a helper gets boring and the idea of "going camping" in her bedroom becomes much more appealing.

The same thing happened this afternoon while I was folding laundry. She came in and asked if she could help, so I asked her to find all the socks and to put them in a pile. She went about her job dutifully and when she'd found every last sock, she carried them into the livingroom leaving no sock behind, and I showed her how to match and fold them. She was very excited to find the matches and even made an attempt to actually fold them. I left her to her task, confident that she could complete it. By the time I got back to the laundry room, I could hear her laughing and telling Mike, "Daddy, these are my sock puppets." She ran into the laundry room sporting two different socks on her little hands. She was quacking like a duck, so I guess the sock puppets were ducks? I'm not too sure of the specifics, but, needless to say, the socks did not get folded.

Hopefully we will soon have a little girl who both likes the idea of being a helper and can actually be one.

Sidenote: I just wrote a blog post about folding socks. This is what happens when you challenge yourself to write one blog post every day for a month. Good God it's only November 17th. Pray for me.

Potty Training 2.5

So, remember way back in the beginning of the summer when I talked about how one of our big summer goals was to really work on this whole potty training thing? Yeah, well, we're still kind of working on it. Now I know that it's totally normal for a two-and-a-half-year-old to still be in diapers, but the problem is that being fully potty trained doesn't even look like it's on our horizon.

She knows how to pee in the potty, and if you take her diaper off and leave it off, nine times out of ten she will remember she has to pee and run to the bathroom like a good little girl. I have gotten so confident about this that I've even let her ride home from school with no diaper on (if I know she already pooped and she pees one second before we leave). She pees pretty regularly at school, and we've set up the whole sticker chart thing with the promise of some sort of prize when she fills it up.  She likes to go to the bathroom alone, and she also likes to "pee like a boy" meaning she turns around and sits facing the back of the potty. Whatever, it's fine.

The problem is, she's really just not that into it. She loves the idea of wearing underwear, and she's very pleased with herself when she goes on the potty, but for the most part, she seems fine with the idea of wearing diapers for the rest of her life. 

I was looking at a development chart the other day and noticed that it says that most girls are potty trained at around thirty months. I did the math on my hands and realized that means Ella, right now. I think a little bit of egotistical panic set in because although I've always complained about how difficult Ella is, I've also always praised how early she did everything. She crawled before she was six months, she walked before she was eleven months, and she's been speaking in full sentences for what seems like forever. I have always felt a little secret pleasure about how "advanced" she is, and that's why this whole potty training thing is such a blow to my parent ego. This is the first time she isn't "early" and at this rate, she not only won't be right on time, but she'll be the dreaded "late." I'm used to so many difficult things with Ella, but I'm not use to worrying about when she's going to reach a milestone.

I think the problem is that potty training requires cooperation. You can force your child to be sleep trained (with a lot of screaming), or to sit for time out (with more screaming), or to wear a coat when it's cold out (sort of), but there is no amount of bribing, pleading, yelling, or dancing that will make a child pee or poop on the potty if she doesn't want to. So I guess it makes sense that this is the developmental roadblock for us, because Miss Ella B understands that this is something she has control over, and this lady likes to be in control. 

So, we're working on it, but I know my little girl, and pushing the issue is not going to work with her. Perhaps the promise of a trip to the chicken nugget store or a new set of batteries for her flashlight will do the trick. She may be stubborn, but she's not made of stone.

Fashionista

Here is little miss fashionista. Or at least that's what she'd like to think of herself as. Beezely McBeezlington has always been an opinionated girl to put it mildly. She likes to be in charge of everything: what she eats, whether or not I'm allowed to put her hair up, whether or not I'm allowed to sing in the car. You get the picture. Recently, this has extended into the realm of clothing. Now, this isn't an entirely new phenomenon. For about a year I've been required to offer her multiple outfit choices. "Do you want to wear this shirt, or this shirt?" And that was usually enough of a choice to keep her satisfied. But now that she is a bit older and can articulate herself a little better and remember what clothes exist beyond the choices I am presenting her with, she has all kinds of opinions about what she's going to wear. I introduce to you the dress-over-pants-with-mismatched-socks-I-look-like-the-random-kid-you-find-at-the-Phish-concert look.

The funniest part is that I actually brought her matching socks and she said, "No, I want different socks!" She also insists on wearing pants and pajamas that are too small for her even though they look extremely uncomfortable. I put an old pair of Elmo pajamas on her the other day that were bursting at the seams, and I swear she wore them just to spite me. She wants to wear a rain coat when it isn't raining, shorts in the winter, a sweater in summer, "Not that sweatshirt, Mommy!" God forbid that sweatshirt. You know, the only one she would wear last week.

Tonight she had to change her clothes for dinner with Grandpa. Her choice? Her super girl Halloween costume, of course.

Most of the time I really don't care, and I have honestly encouraged her to be a bit of a Punky Brewster, but I want her kooky outfits to look intentionally kooky. I don't, on the other hand, want her to look like her mother is a vagabond.

The head of our daycare, Kathy, was teasing me about her outfit the other day and then told me a story about her own daughter. She said her daughter insisted on wearing different shoes to school and would go around limping until Kathy finally just bought her several pairs of the same shoes in different colors. "You pick your battles," she said, "and different colored socks ain't worth fightin' over."

So if you see my kid walking down the street looking like a very small bag lady, know that I tried, and that, if she'd totally had her way, she'd probably be wearing just a tutu and rain boots.

Fantastic Gymnastics

Here's that girl again doing what she does best, which is all the things I'm too afraid to do. Fantastic Gymnastics to you too Ella B.

First Snow

Yesterday we had an unexpected snow storm. Well, it wasn't totally unexpected, but when it started coming down in gentle wisps around fourth period, I had no idea that it would end up meaning dangerous driving in the afternoon and a snow day today. I also didn't know it would turn into a magical afternoon of snow games for me and Ella B.

When I picked her up from daycare, she had just woken up from her nap and didn't know that it was snowing yet. When I told her she lit up and ran to the window. I don't know how this is possible, but I am positive that this girl remembers last winter, and since the summer she has been asking me when it is going to be "snow time" again. We haven't talked much about snow time lately, so it was a totally unepxected way to wake up.

The whole (treacherous) drive home she was enthralled with the snow and couldn't wait to get home and build a snowman. When we got there, I realized I had no idea where any of her snow clothes were, and we were lucky enough to at least find her boots. I threw on Mike's snowboarding clothes and we headed out the door. 

Once we got down to this whole snowman business, I realized that I actually have no idea how to make a snowman. It turns out I'm completely inept when it comes to snowman building. I guess I'd never attempted to do it on my own, and really, I should never be allowed to do it again. Ella insisted that our decrepit snowblob have a face, so I ran inside and grabbed the first thing I could find, some multicolored goldfish, and set about giving old Frosty a mouth, button nose, and two eyes made out of, well, like I said, goldfish.

This all happened while the storm was actually going on, so it was windy and cold and wet and both of us were actually pretty miserable, but that stubborn little girl refused to admit it. I finally coaxed her inside with the promise of hot chocolate, but once we got in there she kept asking for more snow. So, I scooped a bunch of snow into a plastic cup and handed it to her with a spoon. She couldn't have been happier. She went and sat in the living room and finished every last drop of snow. She kept yelling into the kitchen, "Mom! This tastes like water!"as if this was very surprising.

This morning she decided to wake up at 4:30 am, so we spent a few hours snuggled on the couch and watched as the sun slowly illuminated the front yard. And whether you're two or thirty-one, or ninety-five, there is nothing so beautiful as a blanket of snow on a New England town.

Happy Snow Day.

Cold, wet, and loving every minute

Our sad, sad, snowman

Entertain me

During Hurricane Sandy our family was very lucky to have sustained no damage, no power outages, and no injuries. We did, however, deal with the difficulty of spending several days stuck in the house with a 2 1/2 year old who wasn't allowed to go outside. The weather started to turn on Monday morning, and my school, Ella's daycare, and Mike's office all closed in anticipation of the storm. Mike and I both had work to do so we switched on and off between Ella duty and work duty throughout the day. Ella was generally thrilled that we were all home for another day (mostly because it meant she could stay in her pajamas), but also because she had the two of us to interchangably entertain her, and entertain her we did. By 9:30 that morning she had already fingerpainted, played with Playdoh, played catch, changed into a tutu, and ridden her quad in the living room.

At some point she got into her bin of play clothes, and she kept coming into the office to show me her latest costume. She would come in wearing sunglasses, a scarf, and a hat, or her safari outfit, or her waitress outfit and announce what she was about to do. "Mommy, I'm going on a camping trip!"

I wondered how we were going to survive so many hours stuck in the house, but for the most part she surprised me with her new found ability to play by herself. This is a truly magical moment in the life of a parent, when you suddenly realize your child is not pulling at your pant leg, and in looking around realize she isn't even at arms length. You perk up your ears for a moment and hear the quiet nonsense noises of a little girl talking to herself. You quietly peer around the corner and find that there she is, nestled among her dollies, or surrounded by her kitchen supplies playing happily without you. You tiptoe away as quietly as you arrived and bask in the freedom of the next five minutes. You go to the bathroom, have a cup of coffee, watch a few minutes of the Cooking Channel, or make a phone call. You know it will end soon, but after so many years of doing everything with one arm, one eyeball, and one pant leg focused on her, you stop to enjoy this moment of not being pulled in any direction.

Of course, this doesn't last long, and before you know it you hear her yell, "Ready or not! Come and find me!" even though you never agreed to a game of hide and seek. At first, you can't find her, and for the first time you are actually impressed with her hiding abilities. After a minute you start to get a little nervous until you hear that unmistakable giggle coming from the bathroom. You look around until you see a tiny hand peeking out from the cabinet under the sink, and you are reminded once again that a 2 1/2 year old is pretty good at entertaining herself.

Ella B in NYC (the remix)

This weekend, Ella B took her second trip to NYC and this time she got to sleep over. The anticipation of this almost destroyed her. When I told her we were going to stay at Aunty Jessica's apartment and sleep in Aunty Jessica's bed, she just about died. I, of course, was dying to know how this was all going to work out.

We made plans to run/walk/stroll in this charity event for Big Brothers Big Sisters that Jessica's boyfriend, Alan, is apart of. I decided it would be easier to go in Friday night and sleep at Jess's than to take the train Saturday morning. Of course, this meant that Ella would have to sleep somewhere other than her crib. It also meant she would have to sleep in a regular bed in an apartment that is about the size of her bedroom. There were some very real fears about how this was going to work out.

We decided that it was best if she and I slept in the bed and Mike took the couch. The problem was how to get her to bed and whether or not I would be able to get up again once she was down. Luckily, she went down pretty easily. We took a bath, read a few books, had a bottle (I mean, what? My two-year-old doesn't drink out of a bottle. That's ridiculous. Anyway...), and then I shut out the lights and pretended to go to sleep. We told her that daddy had to "go to work" so he wouldn't be forced to lie down, too. This meant, however, that he had to sit in the living room/ non-functioning kitchen and occupy himself while remaining fairly silent. Every time Ella heard him clear his throat, she'd say:

"I think daddy's downstairs."

"There is no downstairs El, go to sleep."

She also kept putting her hand on my face and whispering, "Mommy, open your eyes."

Eventually, she gave up, rolled over and fell asleep. I was able to stealthily sneak out and sneak back in undetected. She slept through the night with no problems. I, on the other hand, kept waking up to find a tiny hand draped across my face, or a foot in my crotch. Now I know why she always wakes up with a huge knot in her hair. That girl doesn't stop moving.

In the morning, we headed over to Alan's apartment where Ella couldn't wait to tell Jess, "I slept in your bed last night." We went to Riverside Park and got ready for the race. Ella was especially excited that Dora was there and we got to take a picture with her. Mike narrowly avoided a traumatizing moment when he and Ella were following Dora as she went into a little tent. Suddenly, Dora started to remove her head, and Mike quickly turned around telling Ella, "Dora has to go potty right now."

We ran/walked/and strolled our way around the park and ate a few Whole Foods sandwiches at the end. Ella was excited to see "a lot of Franklins" which were really just Ninja Turtles, but she didn't know the difference.

The highlight for her was probably when we started and impromptu parachute party. She desperately wanted to hold up the parachute lying on the ground, but with only the three of us, it was pretty difficult. A few people joined us and before we knew it, we had formed a group and the kids were running and laughing underneath the parachute every time we lifted it up. Ella was afraid at first, but soon she was running underneath between Mike and I, laughing the whole way.

She never napped, so we called it a day soon after that. She fell asleep in the car on the way home and went to bed pretty early. All in all, it was a successful trip to the city, and Ella had another first. Her first sleepover in NYC, something I didn't do until I was probably 18. Ella B, you are so much cooler than me.

My muse

 Yesterday in Creative Writing I asked my students to write a poem in the style of Gertrude Stein. If you know anything about Stein, then you know what a difficult task this is. If you don't know anything about her, then, well, you aren't really missing much. The overall point was to write a poem that was experimental in form and word choice and didn't follow the usual conventions of what we think a "poem" is supposed to be.I asked them to write about someone or something that seems indescribable. They grew increasingly frustrated, so I decided to write a poem about the person in my life who cannot really be defined by words alone, Miss Ella B. I think you'll see that even though this poem doesn't technically make sense, it sums up Ella B quite well.

Ella B Let her be and be and b

Ella B let her be and be and believe and live and buzz yellow wind

Let her swift run electricity

Carbonated lightning

Let her be of a squeal squawk run

Let her be zipper clang and scream of trumpets blaring

Ella B Ella B Ella B be be beat thump crash and swish splash

Be bathtub and belly down and up and down and up

Let her be a heat in winter a ship dives deeper

A wild thunderclap will be her and b and b and b

Believe and Live and Ella B

Really, really, bigger

 Recently, Ella has joined the ranks of all the other toddlers, preschoolers, and older kids who cannot wait to "get bigger." Whenever I haven't seen her for a while- when she is at school or has been sleeping- she will look at me and stand as tall as she possibly can and say, "You want to see how really, really bigger I got?"

What's funny to me is what getting bigger means to her. The first part is that she will literally be bigger and this will allow her to reach things that are higher (that I, of course, don't want her to reach), and do things that are difficult, like reach the pedals on her bike, or throw a ball as high as Daddy. The more interesting part of this is that she understands that getting bigger also means becoming more grown-up, a status that affords you more privileges. So what kinds of privileges is she interested in? She desperately wants to use grown-up scissors instead of her frustratingly dull ones. She also wants to go to a "big kid" school like Izzy and Arlo and Robby and Joey. She wants to swing by herself and swim without floaties. While I was driving the other day she told me, "When I get too big for my car seat, then I can drive."

To her, being bigger means freedom and broader horizons and new possibilities and I can't deny that being bigger does offer all these things. Ever since she was born, she has always been ready for the next thing: crawling, walking, talking. What's next? What's over there? What are those kids doing? Her fearless desire to know, and see, and do is what I admire most about my big/little girl and I never want to take that away from her, but there are times we all wish children could appreciate the beauty of being little, the freedom that comes from having no responsibilities in the world beyond playing, eating, snuggling, and sleeping. If only I could switch places with Ella B for one day so she could be really, really bigger and I could be really, really smaller and we could both appreciate the benefits of each existence. For now, I guess we'll just have to live our own lives, enjoying our own freedoms, while longing for those of the other.

What a pip

I thought I'd give you a few of Ella B's recent gems to make your Tuesday a little funnier:

I asked Ella if she had a dirty diaper. She replied, "It's a mystery."

One day, when I found her moving her arms and legs very slowly, I asked her what she was doing, and she said, "I'm doing Tai Chi Mom."

After reading a story where a worm is reading a book, the following conversation ensued:

Ella: That's silly
Me: Can worms read books?
Ella: No, they don't have hands!

You're welcome.

"Why that's an airplane?"

 It has finally happened. We have entered the "why" stage of childhood development. At this point, she is clocking a good 200-300 "whys" a day for sure. This makes my parents very happy because as legend has it, I was the queen of the why. I even had to stop going to catechism because all the questions were making the nuns a little nervous. And I'm telling you, I really don't mind all the questions. Questions in and of themselves are great and, really, I am happy to answer them. Here's an example:

               
                "Mom, why is that man outside?"

                "He's mowing his lawn."

This is fine. The question is straightforward, and I can easily answer it. The problem is that it doesn't end there.

               

                "Why's he mowing his lawn?"

                "So it will look nice."

                "Why it will look nice?"

                "Because when the grass is short, it looks neat and clean."

                

 Even up to this point, I feel confident that the questions and subsequent answers are logical and possibly even valuable, but it doesn't end there.

               

                "Why it looks neat and clean?"

                "Because...because when you cut it, it becomes more even and flat."

                "Why it does that?"

                "Why does it do what?"

               

 We inevitably end up in this place where we both sort of forget what "it" is referring to, and she gets frustrated because she wants the line of questioning to continue, but we've both pretty much forgotten what we're talking about.

                 

This is the part that drives me crazy. The questions that have no answers, like, "Mom, why that's an airplane?" Why is that an airplane? Because it's an airplane! How am I supposed to answer that question?! Ask me about God. Ask me about sex. Ask me about the meaning of life. But please don't ask me, "why that's an airplane?" because really El, it just is, and that's going to have to be good enough.