22 Months

Ella trying to dress herself. She still spends most of her time at home naked, partly because she's hot, partly because of potty training. We've had some regression with the potty training. She fights us a little bit about taking her diaper off (I think she's afraid of having an accident) and she's been having a few more accidents. I'm guessing this is normal and she's just got other things on her mind than sitting on the potty right now. She still does, in fact the only time she really uses her diaper is at night and when we're away from home. I'm not too concerned about it, I feel pretty lucky she's doing as well as she is with it all.

Ella and Aubry. Ella's memory is just amazing to me. She remembers pretty much all of her family members, even those she doesn't see often, and most of her friends. Any time we see another little kid, she will talk about them for weeks afterward and if we go somewhere she saw them before, she will remember and ask for them. For example, Sunday we went to the splash park, which we go to several times a week. Ally and Joe showed up with Brooke about 10 minutes before we left and even though she and Ella didn't pay much attention to each other, Ella has asked about her every day since then. Especially today when we went back to the splash park. She also groups people together. Like if I tell her we're going to see Nana, she immediately asks about Gran, Aunt Carrie, and Maggie.

Ella in Mommy's apron. We decided the toy situation in the living room was getting a little out of hand, so we moved almost all of her toys into her room. I got rid of a bunch of stuff she's outgrown and was able to fit all the rest of it on her shelves, etc. This has been great for getting rid of the clutter in the main rooms, but it also means she gets into the cabinets in the kitchen more often. We have quite the collection of aprons and she loves making Mommy, Daddy, and Ella all put one on.

The "before" picture, the day before her most recent haircut. She still has a bit of a mullet going on. Her hair grows so fast in the back and on the sides, but she has this little patch on top that started out much shorter and seems to grow slower than the rest. It's too far back on her head to make it part of her bangs, but it's always falling in her face. If she'd let me put a clip in it, it would be easy to keep it out of her eyes, but she refuses to wear one for more than a few minutes.

Ella and Nana right after the new haircut. Our hairdresser cut it a little shorter this time than I had expected, but I think it came out pretty cute. She says one more haircut and the shorter bit on top will catch up, yay! It's already long enough to go behind her ear, so it has been a little easier to keep out of her face.

Ella going up the ladder at the park. This is her new favorite thing to do at the park. She's such a good climber and she's so confident in her ability. Sometimes her confidence outweighs her ability though. I'm afraid we have some (more) bumps and bruises in our future. We go to the park almost everyday now and it's usually one of the first things she asks for in the morning. I can't wait until it cools off some! These last few days of cooler weather have been nice, but I know they're not here to stay yet.

Can you guess who dressed Ella this day?

I told her to smile and say cheese, this is what I got....Popeye.

Every time we take a picture, Ella insists on looking at it immediately and always declares "oh, cute!". I showed her how to take pictures and she got a few of me and the dog. I eventually erased them and she was less then thrilled the next time she looked at the camera and they were gone.



22 months



Well, I thought I would be less busy once I went back to my normal schedule, but I'm not. Part of it is work, we have a new owner, so we've been busier and I've been working longer hours on my regular days. The other part of it is Ella's utter lack of tolerance for me doing anything that isn't directly paying attention to her. I think she's still rebounding from me working so much. Unfortunately for her, my work schedule isn't going to get any lighter any time soon. In fact, my new boss is sending me to Tampa for corporate training in two weeks. I'll be gone two nights, about 50hours total. This will be my first time away from Ella. I'm excited, but mostly freaking out. I'm glad that Jeff will be home with her at night (as opposed to us both being gone), but his work schedule will be really busy those days too. I know she'll be ok, but I'm still dreading the whole thing. We're supposed to go to Santa Barbara for a wedding the first weekend in October, but I think if this doesn't go well, I will have to cancel.

I read on Baby Center that toddlers are able to learn up to 10 new words a day, and I believe it. Ella says new words every day and her ability to understand what we're saying is amazing. We can pretty much carry on a conversation with her. Without any help she can sing Itsy Bitsy Spider (which she sang to a little spider in our kitchen yesterday), Happy Birthday, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and Rock a Bye Baby. With a little help, she can sing ABCs, My Lion Lies Over the Ocean (which is her Daddy's rendition of My Bony Lies Over the Ocean), Old MacDonald, Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed, and many of the songs we listen to. I tease Jeff that she's just like him in that she will try her best to sing along to a song even if she doesn't know any of the words.

Speaking of being like her Daddy, Ella has developed some OCD. She just can't stand it when things aren't where she thinks they're supposed to be. If we leave a door open that's usually closed, she will either go close it herself or say "Uh, oh, close the door" over and over again until we do. I think she probably says "uh, oh, Mommy, fix it/clean it up/put it back" twenty times a day. She's also grasping the concept of and a little obsessed with "later". If she asks for anything and the answer is no, she either has a fit, or says "later" and we have to assure her, yes we will get it/do it/have it later. Actually, this has been really nice. We've been able to stop a lot of temper tantrums but promises of later.

I had possibly my worst parenting moment to date today. We were coming home from the park, which Ella was not happy about. I pulled into the garage in the Trailblazer which, when you put into park, all the doors unlock. So I opened my door and tossed my keys into my bag, got out, closed my door, and walked around to get Ella. But her door was locked. I knew immediately that I had either hit the lock button when I was getting out, or the lock button on the key fob had been hit when I threw it in my bag. Either way, Ella was locked in the car. I ran into the house and called Jeff and started searching through the junk drawer for extra keys. Again, I knew Jeff had the extra key with him, but I looked anyway while I was calling him. He confirmed that he did have it and said he was walking out the door to come unlock the car. I ran back into the garage and attempted to keep myself and Ella calm for the 20 minutes it took Jeff to get home. It was hot in the garage, but nowhere near as bad as it could have been. Ella was pretty unhappy. She was still strapped into the car seat and kept straining against it reaching for me. It was awful. I kept trying to calmly explain that I couldn't open the door and we had to wait for Daddy to come open it. I made lots of silly faces and tried to play games, which helped a bit. By the time Jeff showed up, she was a sweaty mess. She got over it really quickly, but I felt terrible. Mother of the year!