35 months

So I've decided that her 36 month/3 year post will be the last monthly post and after that I'll do a long, detailed post every 3 months (along with other random posts in the middle). I feel like at this age, most of the content in these posts are in the "nothing has changed" category, and all people are really interested in reading are the funny sayings :)

Everything is still great in the eating and sleeping departments. She has done a fabulous job during our trip to Texas. She is in bed from roughly 8-8 and sleeps for probably 11 hours on a normal day. On a very active day, she will fall asleep sooner. She takes a two hour nap from about 1:45-3:45. She had one day this month where she talked through her nap, but other than that, she has slept great and I usually have to wake her up. She still wears a pull up at night and pretends there is a potty in it when she sleeps. She loves her crib but sometime in the next few months I think we will convert it to a toddler bed. I don't remember if I put this on the blog or not, but Elise basically stopped drinking milk a few months ago and only drinks water. She'd had a perpetual runny nose for probably a year (maybe since we started cow's milk, maybe not... we can't remember but we know it started when we lived in Texas), which we kept blaming on moves and climate changes. For a few days in September, she was sick and we didn't give her milk during that time, and we noticed that her runny nose went away. We experimented a little bit and determined that the nose running was in fact associated with milk. She still eats yogurt and cheese but usually only has milk when we get it as part of her meal at Chipotle, or if I buy it for part of a recipe (Mike and I are not milk drinkers).

She's been such a pleasant person to be around the last few weeks. She has been much less challenging and less clingy. The hardest part of the day for us is probably getting ready to go somewhere. She doesn't like to get dressed and she especially doesn't like wearing a coat/hat/mittens, to the point that she won't want to play outside because she doesn't want to put them on. Newsflash, sweetheart... it's about to get really cold in Maryland! When we get back home, we're going to finish organizing the basement and bring in her slide/climber so that we'll have a nice indoor place to be active. She'a also getting a Schwinn Roadster for her birthday that we will keep down there.

Her vocabulary, pronunciation, memory, and conceptual knowledge continue to develop so rapidly. It is quite amazing what a toddler can understand and learn. Here are some funny sayings from the last week:


(the Saturday before we left to go to Texas)
E: "Today is Saturday and we are going to the zoo. Tomorrow is Sunday and we will go to church. After that is Monday and we will go to Texas!"
(a few minutes later)
E: "We will not take naps [while in Texas], we will just play."


(while eating breakfast and wearing her pajama shirt with her sweatshirt and sweatpants because she was being difficult and we were late leaving the house...first time she's worn any part of her pajamas out of the house)
E: "You can't see my shirt. It's hiding."
Mimi: "It is?"
E: "Yeah... 'cause I'm wearing my sweatshirt!"
(pause)
E: "When you wear your pajama shirt all day long, that's what you have to do!"


Mimi: (walks in the bathroom to find Elise, arms folded, sitting on a stool in front of the open cabinets)
E: I'm not going to touch anything. I'm just looking.


(after going to many places to see many people in the days leading up to Christmas)
Pop: "Elise, what are you going to do today?"
E: "I'm going to play with... somebody."


Mimi: "Is your nose running?"
E: "Yes... I don't know why it's running. I think it's running from my cold I got when I went to the Baltimore Zoo but I don't know why it's running... I think it's 'cause I think too much."


E: "When I cough, I have to cover my arm so I don't get dirt on everybody."


E: "I just went potty all by myself. And I pooped. That was my option."


(I accidentally cut Jack's finger when I was using inferior nail clippers a few weeks ago)
Mommy: "Thank you for cooperating while I cut your nails, sweetie. Jack doesn't cooperate that well, because he's a baby."
E: "Is that because you cut his little finger?"


(We met some friends to eat at Chick Fil A today and she was staring at the logo and shocked me by saying this...)
E: "Chh Chh Chh. C H says Chh, like Chick Fil A!"


(while trying to get her to say long words, like 'anethesiologist')
Daddy: "Can you say 'arachnaphobia'?"
E: "Is that an animal?"


E: "Donkey Donkey duh duh duh... It starts with a 'd'! Is that similar to a 'k'?"
(going to the potty and asking Pop to leave because she likes her privacy)
E: "Leave, Pop. You can go play with the old people."


(randomly pondering the logistics of airport travel)
E: "Who is going to pick us up when we fly back to Maryland and Baltimore?"
Mommy: "Nobody is going to pick us up because we left our car there. We'll drive our car home from the airport."
E: "How are we going to get to the airport if we don't have our car? Are we going to take Mimi's car?"


E: "Mom, go wait in Mimi's bathroom while I go potty."
(pause)
E: "Do you have any questions for me?"


(reading with Daddy and not wanting The Night Before Christmas)
E: "I will crawl under the bed so I can't hear you."


(talking to Daddy)
E: "Go check on your son, Jack. You know, the one in the other room."

E: "Look at Mommy because she's your family."

E: "I misplaced Jack. I don't know where I put him!"


She also will say anything to prolong going to bed, like "Pop, you have pretty hair!" and "We forgot to do somethin'... what did we forget to do? We forgot to do SOMEthin'!"


I can't believe she's almost 3!! We love you, sweet girl!