Maybe it's because Ellie is my first of (hopefully) several children, maybe it is my none-too-sentimental personality, maybe I am just too busy with the present to think about the past, but I never really find myself missing Ellie's "baby days", wishing she would stay the way she is, or feeling sad that she is growing up. Instead I find myself loving each stage and age so much better than the one before it and celebrating every developmental growth and little step of independence.
I am always saying, "Ellie is more fun now than ever before!" Today she is 16 months old, and things are no different, she gets more and more fun every day and is doing so much new stuff I felt a big update full of pictures was in order.
TalkingI recently posted about Ellie
starting to talk. Of course I forgot things and Ellie has learned words since then. Her budding vocabulary also includes: "deh-deh" (dirty), "jih" (jump), "k-ck" (kick), "shz" (shoes), "boo" (umbrella), "kyew" (thank you), "chee" (tree), "buh-buh" (bug spray), "ah" (hat). She also knows that the owl says "hoo hoo", the bee says "buzz" and will call a sheep "baah".
Most words are said with a rising inflection, like she is asking a question. Then, when I affirm that the "boo?!?" is indeed an umbrella she does a little head bob, as if to say, "I knew that." So funny, this head bob action.
Here she is telling me about a "spot" on her t-shirt:
Ellie finds spots everywhere, and shows them all to me. There is one particular spot, a little sunspot or mole on her arm that is a some concern to her. If she happens to notice it she will point to it, get a worried look on her face and say "chee?!?", meaning she wants me to put some cream on her spot. We put the cream on at least once a day. Oh Ellie.
DoingRecently Ellie has really been experimenting with what she can do with her body and different ways to move it.
For example:
Looking between her legs!
She is also really into walking backwards, spinning, and trying to jump, but these are a little harder to capture on camera.
(Maybe one day I will figure out how to get video from our video camera to the computer...or you guys can start peer-pressuring Jason to help me!) She will spin 5 or 6 rotations until she is almost dizzy, then start trying to jump, saying "jih, jih", then spin some more, then "jump", usually until she falls down, either because she is dizzy or because she can't make the landing of an overly exuberant jump. She still can't get any air yet, but she is working really hard on it.
Some more stunts:
Doing it the hard way!
Ellie can now climb into our chairs and reach "things she's not supposed to get". For awhile we kept her from it by pushing the chairs all the way in. That worked for, oh, about 30 minutes until she figured out how to pull the chair out for herself, as she has done here to try and reach the napkins.
Testing out the chair properties of anything shorter than she is, like her block or this little basket turned upside down.
Ellie has learned to walk up and down the stairs in our garden all by herself. They are easy stairs, short and wide, but the other day I was talking with a lady while Ellie played with some other children. Ellie must have decided she wanted to go home because she said "bye-bye", and a moment later I look up to see that she has climbed 4 or 5 stairs up the stairwell to our apartment, holding onto the wall for support. Yikes! Much too brave for her own good.
More Silliness...
And here are even more pictures of the silliness and fun we have every day.
Our apartment is shaped like a "L", and when Jason or I are in the main room Ellie likes to say "bye-bye" to us, then go into her bedroom, climb on the little shelf there, and say "Hi!" to us through the window. She really gets tickled doing this.
She also likes climb onto the couch to watch cars and people go by from this window that looks out onto the street.
Ellie takes most of her naps on my bed (until recently she slept there at night too, but we are working on getting her used to her crib again). Usually when she wakes up she comes straight out to find me. This time she plundered my dresser first: emptying out all the clothes in two drawers then accessorizing herself with three headband-necklaces.
Trying on my rain boots. I was working on dinner and she carried my boots into the kitchen. Then I look down and she has managed to step into them!
I was planning to wash these then pack them away. Ellie decided to *rescue* them out of the laundry and they are now her favorite dress-up items. It is insanely hot yet she still loves to wear them. Funny, this winter we had a month of cold windy weather and not once could I get her to wear her mittens
(and had countless old ladies on the street admonish me for her cold hands!). She can get the hat on herself, but is always taking the mittens off to play, then bringing them right back to me so I can help her put them on again. I lose track of the number of times in a day I help her put on her mittens.
...and More Fun
What fun it is to get packages from her Grammy! Well, maybe I'm the one who loves getting packages--but Ellie gets in on the excitement too.
As always, Ellie's favorite activity is playing outside. Here she is inside the tunnel.
Another new favorite activity is helping me. It makes her sooooo, oh so happy to get a little chore she can do: carrying a stack of diapers into her bedroom to be put away, throwing a piece of trash away (the best chore ever!), helping to bring things the table, wiping up "spots", and helping me stir when I cook. I don't have pictures of her helping, because my hands are usually full helping her help me. But this is one of those things that makes my heart smile, and we have lots of fun doing our chores together.
So there you have it. When I'm not in Chinese class I'm busy keeping up with my girl who is running full speed ahead into toddlerhood.
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