Our convo right now

Elise: I wish we had a baby in our family.

Me: Aww, you want a baby in our family?  Why?

Elise: Because I love her.

Me: You already love her?  Awww.
  

Bryant: that's how we were with you.  we already loved you before you came out of Mommy's tummy.

Me: Tell me more about why you want a baby.

Elise:  No.  I don't want a baby in our house. 

Me: If we get a baby, can you share your baby toys and clothes with her?

Elise:  No!  They're too big for her!

 ----
In other news...Elise has hand foot mouth disease.  So sad.  She has painful ulcers all over her mouth and tongue and can't eat anything.   She doesn't want to drink, either, but we have to find creative ways to do it in order to avoid dehydration.  She also has a rash all over her body with some painful sores on her feet.  Bryant and I caught a mild version, Bryant worse than me, and so we're all kind of under the weather.  This is awful!!!!!!!

Fish mouth

Elise says the most hilarious things right when she wakes up.  This morning, she said, "A fish's mouth is like this" and made her mouth like a pursed "o".     :)

Doing her own thing

OK, I can't link the video from the flickr page, but you can see Elise bouncing a ball on the blanket with the rest of her class and she is the only one who decides to go under the blanket.  This is so Elise.  Deciding she wants to go against the grain and do her own thing.  Love her personality!!!

Plumplums and dance

It's so fun to see Elise's imagination and creativity at work.  She's the most creative when she's playing outside in our backyard (realizing having a yard is a must for families!).  Today, she picked up little seeds that fell off of our oak tree and created a dish called "plumplums" with it.  This occupied for a good hour.

OK, she just coincidentally started talking about the plumplums right now.  I'll record the convo as it happens:

Elise: The plumplums are staring at us.
Me:  They're staring at us?  Why?
Elise:  Because they're bad!  Ahhh!!  (lies down on the couch)
Me: Why are they bad?
Elise: Because they're sad.
Me: Why are they sad?
Elise: They're sad because they're amas.
Me: What's an amas
Elise: Because they are grandmas.  They don't like grandpas.
Me: How come they don't like grandpas?
Elise: I'm too big for dance class.

OK that was random!  Speaking of which, she had her second ballet class today and she just loved it.  The most hilarious part of the class was when the teacher set up 3 cones for the kids to jump over and she took each kid one by one and instructed them on what to do.  By the time it was Elise's turn, she just ran to the cones, skipping the teacher's instructions, and hopped on her own, cracking up the whole room.  The teacher gave me a priceless expression of, "What just happened?!"  Hahaha. 
 

The stage

Forgot about this..

As soon as we entered her ballet class on Sunday, she looked around (the class was already in session with girls sitting in a circle) and she said, "Where's the stage?!"  She asked me again as I brought her into the circle.  I showed her a few youtube videos of toddler ballet recitals and I think she was imagining that she would be performing in front of an audience.  HAHA!!

Why?

Elise is asking a lot of why questions these days, which is great but can get tiring because the line of inquisition never ends.  She needs to know how everything works and demands comprehensive answers.  So far, they have been good questions and not just why for the sake of asking why.

Last night, Elise was stalling bedtime and making all sorts of requests.  Her last request was to play legos together "just for 1 minute" and after I said no, she said had a very serious look on her face and said, "WHY do you always say NO?!!!  WHY do you always say that?!!" 


It's so hard being 2 years old!

Always need to be ON

Elise had her first ballet over the weekend (after much begging) and she loved it!  She was REALLY shy in the beginning and sat a little separated from the rest of the group.  I sat down with her at one point and she got embarrassed and told me to go back to the parent area, haha.  She eventually warmed up to it and towards the end of the class, they had a little ballerina obstacle course.  Every time each kid completed a task, all the parents clapped.  Elise did a great job and there's a video on our flickr.  Anyway, Bry and I drove separately because he had to leave early to help with something at church.  While I was driving with Elise, I asked her if she liked her class and she immediately said, "Dada didn't clap for me" and was pretty bummed.  I told her that he did clap for her and she said, "No, I looked at him and he didn't clap for me."  I, of course, had to assure her that he did and Bryant later told her, too.

It's incredible that even at such a young age, parental approval can be so crucial.  I think we can all remember a time when we were at some kind of performance or event when we looked for our parents in our nervousness.  We just realized that we always have to be ON in showing her our support, even if it means clapping and smiling at every appropriate moment in a ballet class. 

This little girl!  She still feels like a baby to me and amazes me everyday with the things she says and does.  Parenting is so much better, more satisfying, and more rewarding than I could have ever imagined.  She's such a happy kid with a sweet and laid-back disposition.  Words to describe her at 20 months: happy, spunky, creative, funny, curious, thoughtful, and opinionated.  True to her baby self, she does not like to be alone and still does not like to play independently.  I never see her living alone as an adult, haha.  She still crawls into our bed most evenings while we're asleep and as soon as she wakes up, she cuddles us and tells us she loves us over and over.  It's too much cuteness.