biTe!

Ella at Toddler Time. We go every Tuesday and Thursday morning. She loves it so much. She gets a huge smile on her face as soon as we walk in the door.

This is what happens when Mommy and Daddy turn their backs on an open dishwasher for two second. The little monkey is climbing on everything and she has definitely figure out how to use something shorter to climb up on things she can't otherwise reach. I see lots of bonked heads in our future. Speaking of which, one of her favorite new games is to gently bang her head on something and then come running over to me holding her head saying "bonk, bonk, bonk!".

Ella trying to share her banana with her Daddy. She started saying banana, although the ba part seems to be optional. She's also saying "wawa" pretty clearly when she wants water. Her big accomplishment is learning to say t's. So now instead of "biii" when she wants a bite, it's "biiiTTTTes". Her t is a little lispy, so it's more like "bithes", but it closer. She says "uh, oh" too.

She's found her appetite for solids lately. She loves fruit, pretty much any kind- bananas, grapes, raspberries, blueberries, clementines, pears, cantaloupe, watermelon, mango. The only things she doesn't seem to be too crazy about are apples. She also likes pretty much any cheese and anything with tomato sauce. We make her a lot of whole wheat pasta with tomato sauce and mozzarella. She'll eat a little bit of chicken, but she's not really a fan. Occasionally we can get her to eat carrots or sweet potatoes and Erin said she was gobbling down some peas for her, but in general veggies are difficult. We're trying to find ways to get her to eat more vegetables, but at least she likes fruit.

Leaving for work has been a little better so far this week. Monday Ella and Erin were playing on the floor when it was time for me to leave. I was able to just give her a kiss and walk away and she was fine. I'm crossing my fingers it'll stay that way. It's been really busy at work (New Year's Resolutions....) and my scheduled break has not been happening. So I haven't been able to come home in the afternoons for the last few days and probably won't tomorrow either. I've asked them to rearrange the schedule a little bit, so hopefully next week it'll work out better. I'm not happy about this since that was a big selling point on me taking this job. Hopefully it'll all work out, we'll see.