Meeting the "polieeshman"

The police department visited Elise's school today.  Here's a photo that her teacher took.  One thing I love about her school is that they regularly take photos and post them for parents.

Good morning

I just dropped off Elise at her school and her teacher told me that when she says, "Good morning, class" during Circle Time, Elise is the only student to respond and she yells, "GOOD MORNING MS. GINAAAAA!!!"  I so wish I could watch it happen.  :)

Laughing while tantruming

Elise has started to do this really funny thing where she gets really worked about something and wants to tantrum, but when she starts, she finds the behavior really funny and starts laughing.  So for example, she will be crying in bed because I won't read whatever book she wants me to read (to stall sleep) and then she'll start thrashing her body and immediately start cracking up and then realizes she's still upset, thrash, and laugh again.  It is so hilarious. 

Singing

Elise loves to "sing".  She is learning songs at daycare and today she sang "Jesus loves me" with hand motions.  Bryant and I were SHOCKED!  We had no idea that she knew the words to the song.  She was also singing another song I don't know.."walk walk walk to Jesus" or something like that.

Being a parent is incredibly fun right now.  It's also the easiest it's ever been.  Elise is very easy going and happy.  Even when she is crying, we can easily make her laugh.  Her teacher says that Elise is her little helper because she is the most verbal one in the class and therefore either reiterates what she says to other kids or tries to redirect kids herself.  If a kid is acting mean, she will say, "be nice" or if a kid is crying, she says, "be happy!".  So hilarious.  Her teacher also mentioned to me that Elise has a really great memory.  She most definitely did NOT get that from me!  

Now that parenting is so easy now, I can't imagine plunging myself back into infant days again.  But when we do have a #2, it looks like we will have to name him or her "Carr".  

Cuteness for the day

• As Elise was falling asleep tonight, she was singing "Open, shut them" to herself and doing the hand motions.
• Her favorite phrase is "No my turn" and needs to do everything herself
• She is no longer frenemies with Kiara and now runs over to her and they start a silly gigglefest together.  So sweet to see her actually playing with other kids.
• As soon as she wakes up, she asks for "peanut buh waffle".  She licks all of the peanut butter out of the waffle grooves and refuses to eat the waffle.  Drives Bryant crazy.
• Her favorite activity consists of putting all of her stuffed animals to sleep with their individual "bankies" (blankets).  She does this over and over again with each stuffed animal because she has to get the blanket just right.
• She loves anything birthday related.  When I asked her the other day if she wanted a hello kitty birthday cake, her eyes got really wide and she started screaming "yeah!"- as if it were the best idea in the universe.  Hello kitty + birthday + cake = win. 
• Nana and Baba visited last week but Elise got sick on day 2.  She vomited for days and poor girl lost weight.  Several people (with no knowledge of her sickness) mentioned to me today at church that her face looked skinnier.  Seeing her throw up is hearbreaking.  She just repeated gags and cries.  I can't get the image out of my mind.  :(
• She still likes school.  Thank God.  She still cries at life group and I usually have to retrieve her so that she is not taking up the babysitter's energy watching other kids
• Still very much a mommy's girl.  I am still nursing and I really thought I'd be weaned by now.  I have too much on my plate right now to tackle weaning...will do it over winter break.
• I have several friends who are pregnant with their 3rd.  Just thinking about it exhausts me.  I feel like I should really start thinking about #2 now that I'm 33, but I can't even fathom it.
• But all in all, being a mom is much less exhausting than I had anticipated.  The first few months were rough, but things have been pretty smooth since then.  I am actually sleeping better as a mom because I have to force myself to sleep in order to have energy for her the following day.
• I love Elise's strong personality.  She is definitely our child, hahaha.  She also has a great sense of humor and she knows it, too.

So behind on blogging

I think this might might be coming to its end.  I just have no time to update.  I'll poke in here and there because I want to try to remember some of the funny things that Elise does.  Elise has been sick so I stayed home with her today.  I really wish I could have more days like this, not her being sick, but just the two of us spending the entire day together.  A few funny things:

• Elise likes to notice all the humorous things of life and says "funny" when she sees it.  Unfortunately, this also includes things she knows she shouldn't be doing.  For example, she dumped out her piggy bank and started throwing her coins all over the room.  They would make different sounds as they hit different surfaces and she got a kick out of it.  She would throw a coin and say "funny" each time.  Right now, I can hear her saying "funny" as she watches Bryant water the plants.  Who knows what is amusing her right now.
• We went to the grocery store and at the entrance was a bunch of stuffed animals.  I picked out a few for her to play with in the cart while I shopped.  When it we put them back, she grew especially attached to one small bear and wouldn't let it go.  I had to talk her through it for a few minutes, explaining that the store was the bear's home and that she had a lot of animals at home.  She was pretty sad but made peace with it.  We came home, ate lunch, and she took a nap.  When she woke up from her nap, she immediately started talking about the bear and started crying sadly a little about, saying "bear home", because she wanted to bring the bear home.
• Last week, we were hanging out at the Liang's and I was holding baby Caselyn.  I asked Elise if I could nurse Caselyn (as a joke) and she immediately proclaimed NO.  Since then, she has been saying "baby Caselyn no mama neh-neh.  mama neh-neh elise.  baby Caselyn Judy neh-neh" and then asks to nurse CONSTANTLY EVERY DAY.  I think I traumatized her.  And then one day, I repeated the phrases to her, and she was so happy that she almost started crying.  
• She is FINALLY playing more independently now.  Hallelujah.  We can finally get little things like cooking and cleaning done
• She is obsessed with Hello Kitty.  She also loves Mickey Mouse and Elmo.  She seems to have laser vision when we are shopping because whenever she sees like the tiniest character item from a distance, like a Mickey balloon or Hello Kitty napkins, she goes crazy and wants it.  
• Her personality is definitely very spunky, excitable, happy, talkative, social, adventurous, curious, and funny.  Whenever I see her with other similar aged kids, whether at church or other play areas, her personality definitely stands out.
• She still hits other kids if they get into her personal space.  She also seems to hit Kiara every time they're together.  :(  But surprisingly, she doesn't hit other kids at daycare and other kids hit her. 
• If we ask her where we work or where the other parent is, she says "APU" or "dada work APU!" and then laughs to herself
• She's been sick and has been vomiting a lot at night.  Elise is very prone to vomiting.  This is the main reason why we are still co-sleeping because every time we try to sleep train her, she cries so hard that she throws up.  
• She is still pretty mellow in the sense that she does not tantrum or cry much.  Other than having pretty major separation anxiety, she's always pretty happy!

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.