dentist

Elise had her first dentist appointment today.  We showed her youtube videos to prepare her but when we got there, all they did was take photos of her teeth with a tooth camera.  Elise was pretty nervous about the whole thing and right before we left, she said, "I'm sad" and when I asked her why, she said, "Because of the ladybugs".  As we were driving there, she said that she was scared of the ladybugs.  When I asked her if she was scared of the dentist (the tooth doctor), she said no.  I don't know if she was embarrassed or shy to say that she was actually scared of the dentist.  Toddler psychology is funny.

Milk

I saw one of my student's babies today (taught my last 10 hour class of the semester, yay) and saw her signing for "milk".  I totally forgot about that.  When I came home, I asked Elise if she remembered the sign and when I signed it, she said, "milkies".  That is the word that her babysitter Pati used for milk when Elise was a year old.  I can't believe she remembered that as she was not even talking at the time.

When I came home from work, Elise wanted me to turn on the music, hold her, and dance like a maniac.  I was soooooo tired when I got home but her non-stop giggling and dancing was just totally worth it. 

Where's Dada?

Sorry for all the posting (to all 3 of you reading this), but this is more of my own personal journal to record all the new things Elise is saying and doing.  Now that she's so verbal, I want to record as much as possible, but still feel like I am only able to remember like 20% of it.  I read several months worth of entries the other night and I couldn't remember things that happened like 3 months ago.  Like I barely had a recollection of it.

Anyway, Elise LOVES reading books together and a lot of them feature the main character and the mom.  Now whenever we read books like that, she always says, "where's her dada?" and is really concerned about it.  There is definitely a major mom bias in children's books!

Her favorite books are "Hug" and "Yes" in the Bobo monkey series.  These books are so simple (with no words) but they play into a child's biggest life dramas (missing mommy and getting timeout due to not going to sleep).  I found another Bobo book, "Tall", and decided that the mama would in fact be a dada.  So now Bry reads the books to Elise and Bobo now has a daddy.  She loves it and does the cute Elise smile with nose crinkle that she gets from her dad (and nana!).  She totally looks like nana when she smiles like that.  :)

Every month truly gets better.  I wonder when it starts to plateau.  4?  :) 

School

I am taking the morning off to clean because we have some out of town guests coming in today.  I let Elise stay home and I was planning on taking her into school around 11.  She was bored and kept asking me, "Mama, I want you to play with me!  Mama, read this book with me!"  I told her that she had the choice to either play by herself or go to school, and she finally decided that she wanted to go to school.  When we got there, around 10:30, the kids were in the middle of their snack and she was really confused because it threw off her schedule.  The look of confusion on her face is so cute.

Bird death

A few days ago when I went to pick up Elise from school, all the kids were in the playground and one of them came up to me and said, "bird!  bird!"  Then another boy named Luca came up to me and said, "The bird is dead!  The bird is dead!"  It was big drama for the kids and they all (about 5 of them) crowded around me to tell me the drama of the dead bird.  Then Elise said, "The bird is sleeping in the napkin!" 

I looked at the teacher and she kind of gave me a wink and said, "Yes, there was a bird that had to go to sleep in the napkin".

Elise doesn't really understand the concept of death yet.  When she first experienced the phone or Ipad power dying, I tried to refrain from saying the word "died" and instead say that there was no more battery and that it had to be charged.  Feels a little weird for her first concept of death to be for an electronic device.

She watched Frozen (her first movie) and when Elsa and Anna's parents die in the ocean, she kept asking, "Where is Elsa's mama and dada?" and I would say things like they went on a long trip or other things, but she wouldn't buy it.  During the funeral scene, she keeps asking "What is that?  What is happening?"  I think she knows something is up but I'm not sure when to best introduce the death concept.

I'm not crying

I regularly ask Elise if she likes school, to which she always responds with an emphatic yes.  I just need to check in to assuage myself of my ongoing mom guilt.  :)  Anyway, here was our conversation today:

Elise: (playing with her hippo) Hippo, don't cry!  It's OK!  You want to see your mama?
me: Where is Hippo's mama?
Elise: Hippo's mama is at her house.  Hippo is at school.
me: Do you like school?
Elise: Yes, I like school.  My friends cry because they want to see their mama.  I'm not crying! 
me: Awww.  Who cries?
Elise: Russell, Leah, Charles, Isla (she says these names very quickly), ummm....  They cry.  They're sad.
me: Are you sad at school?
Elise: No!  I'm not sad!  I'm not crying!!

She says it is in the funniest way and Bryant and I are dying of laughter.

I'm not sure when this started but Elise is constantly talking now.  Constantly.  And she wants us to actively engage with her.  If we just respond with "okay" or "uh-huh", she gets upset and says, "No okay!  No uh-huh!" because she knows that we are not giving her our full attention.  So now I've reached a new level of tiredness because now we suddenly have this 3rd person in our house that I have to interact with rather than just take care of.  From the moment she wakes up to the moment she goes to sleep, it's just constant chitter-chattering.

Another funny story (of course there are way more but I can't remember them)...

The weather has suddenly become quite warm.  Yesterday, Bryant and I both changed into shorts when we got home and Elise thought it was the funniest thing.  She kept saying, "You're not wearing any pants!" and starts cracking up.  I guess she always sees me wearing either work clothes or yoga pants, haha.

weather

- elise went to the screen door and said, "i have to see if the weather is cold"

- when elise plays with her stuffed animals, she will tell them, "don't cry" and hug them.  she was telling her stuffed ducky "don't cry" right now and she also said, "are your mama and dada at APU?"  awwwwww.  thankfully, she doesn't cry at daycare when she misses us but i do wonder if she ever gets sad that she is there.