22 months

This month has been pretty abnormal for Elise, since she spent about half the month with her grandparents before we headed to Alabama (lucky girl!). It took some time for her to recover from all of the spoiling, but we are happy to report that she is back to normal. At the beginning of this month, it took about a week for her sleep schedule to adjust to daylight savings time. On November 15, we closed on our Harker Heights house, and then drove from Austin to Biloxi, Mississippi on the 16^th. Elise did phenomenally well in the car. We brought a variety of snacks and toys and planned a stop about every 2-2.5 hours to eat or play at a park. We also brought a DVD player for the car so that Elise could watch some Sesame Street. Somewhere in Louisiana, she started coughing and her voice became somewhat scratchy. By that night, she was very congested when laying down and had a hard time breathing while we were at the hotel. Add the fact that Boss found it entertaining to bark at his little hotel friends and we had a rough night. The next day, we arrived in Alabama and got settled in our new house. Thankfully, she slept well aside from coughing in her sleep but ate very little for the next several days. I took her to the doctor on the 22^nd and we found out that she had a mild ear infection. One day of antibiotics and a few days to adjust back from being spoiled while she was sick and she is as good as new. She goes to bed around 7­-7:15 and wakes up around 8. She starts her nap around 12:30-12:45 and normally sleeps for 2.5-3 hours. She’s had a great time playing in her new playroom and thinks it is very cool to see helicopters and airplanes all the time. There are FOUR playgrounds and swing sets within 50 yards of our house (including one right outside our back gate). The commissary (grocery store), post office, and neighborhood swimming pool are just a short walk away. This will be a great place to live with small children.

Elise still eats well for her age. Sometimes we have to bribe her with fruit to eat her vegetables, but she doesn’t put up a fuss (and I would give her the fruit anyway, haha).

She is starting to get interested in her lowercase letters. I bought the Leapfrog magnetic fridge set and was pleasantly surprised to discover that it also works with the capital letters that we already have. She pointed out a lowercase “e” on a store sign last week without being prompted, which is the first time she’s done that with a lowercase letter that doesn’t look like the corresponding capital letter.

Her favorite toys are her Duplos and her Green Toys tea set and chef set. I bought her some wooden HABA play food awhile back and she loves to play with it all together. She has actually stopped carrying her purses around with her and doesn’t seem too attached to any one particular thing. She has a set of 12 stacking cups from Discovery Toys and she can now nest them inside each other in the correct order without assistance. She’s so funny to watch when she does it because if she tries to put the wrong cup in, she’ll say “too big!” and then try another one. Our video camera broke a few months ago but we’re going to order another one and we’ll have to get it on video. She gets very proud of herself when she is finished and usually exclaims, “I did it!” She’s also started using one hand to hold something in place while she does something (like zip) with the other hand. She uses he/him correctly to refer to Mike and Boss and uses she/her correctly to refer to me. I will leave you with some funny things that she has said since we moved to Alabama.

(while sitting in the car in traffic)

“I see a cement mixer up there!”

(walking into the playroom the morning after Mike and I organized it with her toys that had been in boxes)

“I have toys to play with!”

(while playing in the playroom)

“I’ll go check on Boss.”

(walks into the living room to find Boss and pets him)

“Good boy, Boss.”

(at night, driving by the airplane display on post)

“There are the airplanes! It’s too dark to see them. They are sleeping right now.”

(driving through Fort Rucker where you alternate being able to see trees and houses)

“I see tall trees! I see houses! Where did they go? There they are!”

(after getting dressed in her red and pink dress… referring to the ladybug bow that she has never worn with this dress)

“Put on this bow. It matches.”

(seeing a book with strawberries on it)

“I like strawberries.”

(putting the small toys back in her learning home)

“Triangle! Pretty sure that goes right here.”

(sticks it in the triangle hole)

Before we got all of our furniture, we often sat in the playroom to eat because the carpet is more comfortable than the tile. One time, Elise kept walking back and forth from my puff-filled hand to her toys. After she had eaten a few puffs, I decided to try them and ate 4 of the remaining 8. When she came back to get more, she stared at my hand for a few seconds, gave me a funny look and said “Mama ate my puffs!”

I'll get some pictures up soon!