Elinor Pants

If it makes her laugh, you just go with it.
And then Scout comes in and helps you.










And then you pull out the camera.
(Then when Scout watches it later, Elle hears the song and laughs all over again.)

Elle's favorite thing in the whole world right now

 Is this sticker.

She got it for being a big girl at Primary Children's Hospital this week.  When we got home, Scout put it on her crib so she could look at it and she hasn't stopped looking at it since.

She LOVES it like crazy.  The second I get her to her bed she is craning her neck to see it, even before she is out of my arms.  She laughs at it, talks to it and just simply gazes at it.  

I also have to prop her bottle up in a way that she can drink and stare at it, 

and when it is dark, I've now been keeping her lamp on

 (the first night I didn't and she weighed in with her opinion about that).  

It's really cute- she REALLY REALLY loves that Fozzie sticker.

The Secret Life of Elinor

The other night, I left Elles sitting on my bed while I handled Scout's bedtime routine including reading her a story.  When I got back, I found this little scene.....

  

She had managed to reach my ipod, turn it on, turn it up, and have the earbuds next to her head.  She was listening to Frank Black with a huge grin on her face.

She was very proud of herself.

Octo-baby

  Apparently, this is what happens when you give Elinor Cheerios after she has eaten waffles.

Time to break out your violins and pipes

(Or nicotine patches if you're a fan of the latest adaption.........and I am)

Alright all you Sherlocks-- the detective that is able to best piece together the events of this little crime wins.

When I bent down to check her out she raised her head and giggled.  Someone was mighty proud of themselves.......

The game is afoot!

(Or "on" as it were)

A Love Letter to Ikea

Dear Ikea,

This is my baby:

She's a nice little girl. Mild mannered, happy, funny.

Here she is again, eating a harmless Cheerio:She is a sweet little thing, but she has a condition. Neurologically, she struggles. She struggles to use her hands like other babies do. She has one thing down pretty good- and that is eating. I am so proud of how well she eats and the variety of foods she eats and how well she handles big bites and different textures. She is a champion chewer. She will chew something forever until she knows she can swallow it. She never chokes because she won't try to swallow something she can't handle. But anyway, that is really neither here nor there. What I really wanted to tell you is that yes, she is a great eater........ but I never said that her excellent self feeding skills didn't come with a price.

This is my baby eating:


This is what I clean up 3 times a day. It's ok, because she is a little angel all the time and doesn't get into things she shouldn't cause she can't crawl or walk. She is a 22 month old toddler that stays where I put her (try to find another one of those easily). So, I can handle cleaning up after her meals, like I said, I am just thrilled that she can feed herself so well.
The real problem lies with her clothes. She LOVES pasta so much and that as you certainly know, comes with a red sauce that stains. Even if it isn't pasta sauce, it is something else all over her clothes. Breakfast is easy, I make sure she is still in her dunglees (that is our word for pj's, I'm sure you have those in Sweden), then after breakfast I dress her for the day. Dinner is ok too for the most part- I can change her into her dunglees after dinner. Lunch, however is always a problem. Sometimes I do what I did in one of the pics and take her shirt off. WHY did I struggle with this problem day in and out? Because this:is what passed for a bib in my house until I made a recent visit to your fine store. These bibs served Scout just fine, but Elinor laughed at these bibs and showed me what a fool I was for even putting them on. While shopping at your store, I came across this:I was just wondering........HAVE YOU MET ELINOR? Cause I am thinking that you made these bibs especially for her. Full sleeves and a pocket? Are you kidding me? What a wonderful product you have made. You have solved a huge problem in my life and have saved many a shirt and pant.
I am telling you- it is perfectly clean under there!!!!!

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! I LOVE YOU SO VERY, VERY MUCH.


Sincerely,

Ms. Emily Pugh








P.S. I was wondering if you can make a similar item for my walls and floors.


Just asking.

Elinor Shenanigans II

Elle's has starting trying to scoot a little bit while sitting (let me emphasize "a little bit"), she was scooting while sitting on the couch and I moved her back a few times, but while in the other room a few minutes later I get the shout from Scout that Elle fell off the couch and that I better hurry. I didn't hear any crying I expected to hear, and walked into this scene. She caught herself and then just continued watching tv, calm as can be. SO Elles.
(Yes, she had just had her diaper changed and was waiting for mom to get her some clothes and out of her dunglees if you were wondering).

2 Cute church stories:

A few weeks ago, Rob had her on his lap and she was looking through a sesame street board book. Rob leaned over to me and told me that she was kissing all the pictures of cookie monster. I watched her for a while and sure enough! When she'd turn the page she would zero in on cookie and give him kisses. It was so sweet, she loves her Cookie so much.
(Kisses are a consistent thing we have been able to get Elle to do on demand and also unsolicited. When she has a stuffed animal, you can frequently see her leaning over and giving it kisses over and over.)

Last week, Elle didn't get a nap in before church (we go at 1). She was super tired (started rubbing her eyes at 9 that morning!) It came time for nursery and we debated whether to take her or not and we ended up deciding to just try it. We told the leaders she was super tired and if she got fussy to just bring her in to us. I was filling in teaching a primary class and Rob was just doing his normal thing and when re joined up at the end of church, I saw that Rob had a sleeping Elle in his arms. I asked when they brought her to him and he said they didn't and that at some point they looked at her, thought she looked so tired and just laid her on the floor with her blanket and she conked right out. I just laughed at the thought of Elles just sleeping right on the floor in the midst of the mayhem that is nursery. Only our girl!

Here is the new thing her physical therapist is having us do:

I love her little left hand in this pic. It's the classic left hand pose she holds when it doesn't want to participate in what the right hand is doing)

It's helping her balance (she tends to spread her legs out really wide when she sits and they want her to be able to balance without that maneuver so we have to turn her into a little mermaid for a while each day. She is so amazing. This would probably make most kids so annoyed and mad. Not our Elles. It doesn't even phase her. She just does her best to balance, topples over now and then, and continues to play or watch tv or do her little Elinor things.

(Sorry for the quality, these were taken with my phone, I couldn't find the camera.)




Here is a little sample of Elle watching Sesame Street.
This show makes her so happy! Yesterday she was on the couch and it was four minutes into one o'clock and I knew it was on, but didn't know if the tv was on the right channel. I walked into the room to make sure and the first thing I see is Elle with a giant grin on her face and I knew then that it must be on the right channel (it was turned down really low, and I couldn't hear it). I looked and sure enough, there was Elmo on the screen.

Elinor Shenanigans I

These pictures are back:
(Yes I know I already posted these, but astute readers will have figured out that I removed them and replaced them with others.)
(Why? Cause they didn't fit the post and these pics need to fit the post.)

These were taken in Wyoming when Elle had her hair up in a pony tail, had it removed, took and nap and woke up thusly.

Total Kodak moment.

Elle went to the eye doctor to rule out eye problems (or get them fixed, so they would not be a problem).
Turns out, doctor's words: her eyes are perfect.
(But part of the process of finding that out was getting them dilated, which landed her a pair of sunglasses to wear that afternoon. We mostly just kept the house dark and she was just fine, but the glasses were pretty cute.)

Story:
Scout and Elle spent a little time hanging out in the polar bear tent one afternoon. Scout with a lantern, book and an oreo cookie. Elle with nothing except feeling the tent sides and hearing the zip zip zip sound (a wonderful past time for Elles).
After a while though, Scout kind of forgot about her cookie and Elle saw an opportunity:

Look at how far she had to stretch to get that cookie!
(You can see where the pieces are that she hadn't stolen yet.)
Her therapists would be so proud.

She was pretty proud of her cookie thievery at least.

Does this look familiar?
It happened within like 2 days of the last incident.
This time though I was well aware of how tired she was, but knew she'd have a much better nap with some lunch in her belly.
She got much ravioli down before she succumbed.

FACT:
one or two bites of sandwich is MUCH easier to clean off of a sleeping baby then ravioli all over the face and up to the elbows and squished gloriously through the fingers.
Good thing daddy was home for this one, clean up was a two person job.
She kept opening up an eye or two and giving Rob a look like, "just let a girl sleep!"


Here is just a cute moment the girls had last Sunday morning.
By the way, "Peaches" is a baby wooly mammoth from Ice Age 3, so that comment wasn't quite as random as it sounds.


For the record: Elle was NOT stinky.


Momma's got your back baby girl.