Apples, apples, apples!!!

I've mentioned before how distressing I find it that Ella eats so few fruits and vegetables.  The fruits are especially mysterious to me since I see so many children her age who will eat apples, bananas, berries, watermelon, and so on.  Her fruit intake lately has consisted of raisins (sometimes), dried strawberries, fresh strawberries, and well, that's it.

So tonight for dinner, as I often do, I put slices of apple on her plate (next to her grilled cheese sandwich. I know, I know, not exactly family dinner fare but to my credit, it was on whole wheat bread and had mashed squash mixed in with the cheese, OK?!).  She and I sat chatting during dinner and she told me several times that she doesn't like apples and was only planning to eat her sandwich. 

At some point during the meal, I told Ella that starting in a few days, we were going to have a new rule, the One Bite Rule.  I told her she would need to take one bite of new foods just to see if she might like them.  This just came to me while we were talking, born certainly out of my annoyance that she wouldn't even try the delicious, mountain-grown, fresh, crisp yummy apple on her plate THAT I KNEW SHE WOULD LIKE IF SHE WOULD JUST TRY IT.  Deep breath.

Anyway, after being told about the One Bite Rule, Ella gave me a lengthy spiel about how she has a Two Bite Rule with her babies and how they don't like to try new foods and how they just take teeny tiny nibbles.  Typical Ella.  I asked her if she wanted to start the new rule tonight or wait until tomorrow.  She said tomorrow. Typical Ella.

And then she started nibbling the apple.  Tiny bites, no microscopic bites.  And then she started taking actual bites.  One piece disappeared, then the next, and as I sat there, practically tap dancing on the inside, she proceeded to eat the entire serving of apples.  She told me how it was sour and then sweet and how much she liked how it went crunch, crunch, crunch.  And then.... wait for it.... SHE ASKED FOR MORE!

I'm not entirely sure why I am so (ridiculously, some might say) excited about my three-year old eating an apple.  But I sure am!

[And in an unrelated noted, for those keeping track at home, we're on night 4 of sleeping shirtless] 

No shirts at night

Pajamas have long been important to Ella.  She has gone through several phases of 'mix-up' (i.e. only wearing mismatched pajama tops and bottoms, and mismatched socks), 'match-up' (all matching pajamas and socks), various odd layering phases such as wearing a summer nightgown with long pants and long sleeves on top, and some very specific decisions on short versus long pajamas depending on the various injuries she may have incurred and where a bandaid might be located.

Two nights ago, she woke up crying at 2 a.m. and when Josh went to investigate, he found her in bed with a wet shirt from a water cup she'd had in her bed.  She insisted on changing her shirt and everyone got back to sleep.  The next morning, however, she announced that she was no longer going to wear shirts to bed since they could get wet.  She told us that pants and socks don't get water on them in bed but shirts do.  There was no amount of arguing about how other clothing could get wet or that she could avoid all water spillage in the night by not insisting on keeping a water cup in her bed.  Nope, shirts are the problem in her mind and that's that.

And sure enough, last night, she went to bed in her pajama bottoms and socks and no shirt.

Wonder how long this phase will last.

Omar

For her second birthday, Ella received a stuffed cat from Josh's parents.  The cat didn't come with a name but as she discussed her new kitty toy with Mimi Jody, she informed us that the kitty liked to eat hummus and this eventually resulted in naming the cat Omar.   Mimi has a knack for giving Ella's toys good names.  Prior to Mimi's intervention, we'd ended up with a green elephant named Green and a pink chair named Pink.  So Omar was an improvement in the toy-naming creativity department.

Over the many months since Omar has come into Ella's life, he has taken on a level of importantance that is almost like family.  In fact, most of the time, Omar seems to be some sort of brother-husband-father-son in Ella's world.  This sounds creepy, but if you can follow the constant blurring of reality and outrageous imaginary play that goes on in Ella's world, this actually starts to make a lot of sense.  Omar is important.  Omar is family.  Omar is often the lens through which we can see how Ella is processing the world around her.

There are many many wonderful stories about Omar and Ella's adventures.  Frequently, Ella tells us that she is preparing to move across the country to live with Omar.  She always follows the moving announcement with a hanging of her head and then delivers, in her most pitiful voice, the declaration that she will no longer be living with us.  For awhile, the move was to Baltimore.  A few weeks ago, Ella's preschool teachers actually told me that Ella had informed them that she was moving to Baltimore.  I think they were fishing for information on how legitimate this claim was.  This week, Ella has been talking about a move to California with Omar.  They will be driving there, first on 15-501, then on Hillandale Road, followed by many turns in 'dis' and 'dat' direction (according to Ella).  California is VERY far away.

Today when I was feeding Dash, Ella was playing very busily and very quietly in her room.  When I went in to see what was going on, I found Ella making beds on the floor for all of her babies out of blankets and pillows.  She was busy putting baby bibs (undoubtedly taken from Dash's bottom dresser drawer) on her many babies.  I asked her what was going on and we had the following conversation:

Ella: “We are having a disagreement. About the bibs”

Me:  “Who is having a disagreement?”

Ella: “Omar’s Daddy and me. He says that the babies cannot wear bibs while they sleep. But I say “YES!” They CAN wear bibs!”

Me: <Large grin>

Stay tuned for more adventures with Omar.

Ella and Omar, December 2010