Preschool!

Elise started preschool this week and I have been a ball of nerves because of it.  When we dropped her off yesterday, she cried hard for one hour straight.  When we picked her up at noon, she seemed happy but she was still doing the post-cry sniffles and it broke my heart.  However, when we were going home, she kept saying, "No home.  More school.  More Ms. Gina".   Yay!

Today, when Bryant dropped her off she cried again.  So I was kind of nervous all morning.  I picked her up at noon again, and she seemed happy again!  Ms. Gina said that she only cried for a few minutes and then went to go play.  She also didn't want to go home and wanted to stay at school.  I really didn't think it would be this easy. 

Elise is super social and loves being stimulated by new things.  The school has a pretty active curriculum, including dance, music, story time, art, snack, and playtime.  I think she loves it!  You could tell she was so proud of her first art project, a blue whale with a big stick-on eye.  She wouldn't even let me hold it initially. 

Elise is really spunky, giggly, energetic, and curious.  I see her compared to other kids her age and it is really neat to see how her uniqueness is emerging.  She is definitely not a wallflower.  A part of me keeps wondering what she is going to be like when she is older but I also want to fully appreciate each moment now because it is already flying by so quickly. 

Here's a snapshot of her daily report.  

  

Elise's sweet tooth

Make no mistake, Elise is definitely a girl and she loves her desserts.  Last week and the week before, Bryant and I each took turns taking Elise to our favorite ice cream shop, Scoops, after picking her up from Angelica's because it happens to be just down the street from her home.  And since this is Elise's last week there, we want to take full advantage of it.  When I picked Elise up today, she said, "Ice Peem" a few times and I told her that we would go tomorrow. 

Elise LOVES being home and knows exactly where she is right when we turn onto our street from Lake Ave.  Usually when we make that turn, she starts to excitedly say, "Home!  Home!'.  But this time, when I turned, she said, "No home!  Ice Peem!" 

Luckily for her, I had some leftover chocolate chip bread pudding.  When I gave her a bite, she smiled and shouted, "Yeah!".  You could see the wheels in her head turning as she was chewing on it, as she was thinking to herself, "Nom nom nom nom."

Instagram

I just joined Instagram.  Since I'm so horrible at posting photos here, maybe I can make up for it for posting over there.    http://www.instagram.com/elisemath

Some photos:

 

 

 

19 months

Oh man, keeping up with this blog is so hard!  And I know that it will be even harder once my job starts, so many apologies in advance.  :) 

Elise is now 19 months and she is just becoming more amazing, joyful, and cute everyday.  How is that even possible?  She's been sick the past few days and so we've been getting A LOT of cuddle time in lately.  When she's sick, all she wants to do is nurse and cuddle for hours straight.  It's amazing.  She also hates taking her medicine, which we've been giving her every 3 hours (alternating between Tylenol and Motrin) and she says "all done medicine" all day long everyday. 

She's been speaking in sentences now.  It was funny, one day she woke up and realized that she could put words together.  Those first few days, she did a lot of experimenting and it was so cute.  For "mama bybye" she would be like "mabybye...mamabye...mamamabye...mamabyebyeb....mama byebye!  mama byebye!"

When she's sick, she also gets REALLY talkative and so she's just been a little chatterbox.  It cracks us up.  She says the sweetest and funniest things.  She has such a sweet and tender personality that is really emerging.  I don't think she's had a full-blown tantrum yet and she's mostly a very good-natured kid.  Other than wanting mommy, she rarely cries, even when she gets hurt.  She is still incredibly clingy and attached to mommy and has a lot of separation anxiety.  I think this is just part of her personality and will be sensitive to this part of her as she develops.  I used to think these things were cultivated by the parents but now that I'm a mom, I know that Elise has been this way from day 1.  I'm always amazed when I see other infants sitting happily in their bouncy seats because Elise would never tolerate those and always needed to be held.  Of course as a mom, I don't mind.  :)

There are soooo many funny stories that happen every single day but I'm too busy to document them.  But here's one at the top of my head:  Yesterday, Bryant took Elise to the zoo.  It's their thing.  She wanted to pet all the animals, especially the bears, and she had a hard time coping with the fact that she had to enjoy them from a distance.  Later that day, I took her to her new daycare to check it out, and there were 2 huge stuffed animal bears sitting on the ground.  I think she thought they were real because she asked me if she could pet them and I said yes.  She tip-toed up to them, and stared right into their eyes for a good while.  Then, she started to gently pet them while saying "hi".  When they wouldn't respond, she stared into their eyes again, and then walked away and told me, "beoh night night".  My heart melted.

At her 18 month old appointment, she was about 25 pounds and 32.5 inches.  My doctor refuses to tell us what percentile that puts her in because she thinks that knowledge makes parents neurotic, haha.  I think Elise is on the heavier side, at least compared to the other girls her age at the church nursery.  That's a surprise to me because she's still a picky eater!  But she loves what she loves (carbs) and hates what she hates (vegetables).  Just recently, I've been allowing her to enjoy sweets more, including ice cream and cookies.  She has a hard time saying the "k" sound so she calls them "ice peen" and "doodies".

I am loving this age the best, but I've been saying that about every stage!  

Waiting for the Liangs with Church's Chicken!

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"Waiting for the Liangs "

Water table fun

Judy gave us their water table and I introduced it to Elise today.  Given her obsession with pools ever since swimming at Grace's, she desperately wanted to swim again.

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Confusion

So Elise's favorite thing to watch is STILL Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Today, I decided to surprise her and play the Mandarin and Dutch versions. When I first played the Chinese version, she was so confused and mesmerized by Mickey Mouse speaking Mandarin. It was so funny...wish I got it on video. She kept asking to watch it over and over again.

After that, I played the Dutch version of the Mickey Mouse "hotdog" song.  Here's a video of her dancing along.  (BTW, she is shirtless because she had just gotten soaked with her new water table and she needed to eat dinner before taking a bath).