Mama, is a hundred the last number?

This past weekend, I took Ella on a trip to Philadelphia to visit my dear friend Kate and her two-year old son.  I'll write about that adventure soon because it really was just that, quite an adventure.

But a quick story now that happened while we were in Philadelphia.  Ella and I were both sleeping in a double bed in the guest room (a topic for yet another post) and when I opened my eyes on Saturday morning, there was Ella's smiling face, not six inches away from my own face.  Her first words were not of the "I love you, Mama, and <in my fantasy> can we go back to sleep for another two hours?"  but rather "can I have candy corn for breakfast?"  After a quick explanation that pure sugar is not considered an acceptable growing food, she then, in her very Ella way, looked at me and asked very seriously "Mama, is a hundred the last number"?  

Quite the question for a dark, cold, early morning.

I mumbled something about a million, billion, trillion, and then infinity.  And then I suggested we go downstairs and make some cinnamon toast.

A fantastic drawing

The other day, Ella spent quite some time working on a drawing on her easel.   She called me over to see her very elaborate drawing and described all the parts to me.  There was mommy and daddy, Ella and baby Dash.  She not only drew each of us but wrote our names around the edges.  Then she drew our beds (at the top in the big circle) and our house (at the bottom in the big circle). 

I love seeing the art she comes up with on her own.  This is the finished product:





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

The Art Table

Ella working hard at her art table in the dining room

There are a lot of things about parenting for which I have no idea if I'm doing the right thing.  One thing that I do think I've done right, though, is to give a large portion of my dining room over to Ella's art corner. 

When I was pregnant with Ella and in her early infancy, I entertained fantasies about how my house wouldn't be taken over by kid stuff.  I thought I could neatly tuck away every last toy, blanket, and diaper so that my living spaces at least, would never look like the inside of a Babies R Us. 

Then of course Ella got bigger and the tiny rattles morphed into play kitchens, and the one little lovey became a gaggle of a dozen large stuffed animals.  I kept buying more and bigger crates and bins to contain the STUFF, but eventually I admitted defeat.   Within 0.2 seconds of walking into our house, you will know that children live here. 

And then there are the art supplies.  I don't know if all children share Ella's proclivity for art projects, but what began as a small box of crayons and some paper has become massive piles of markers, colored pencils, play-doh, construction paper, glue sticks, scissors, chalkboards, paint sets, and more.  Early on, probably before she turned two, we invested in a small wooden table and chairs for her.  We got them at a local wood furniture store, had them stained the color of our dining room furniture where they were put in the back corner, and for a time, I continued to operate in my fantasy world where they would be a barely noticeable bit of kid-dom in our otherwise grown-up (and only) dining space.

Quickly, though, we realized that Ella LOVED her art table.  The art table was joined by a large easel for chalk, painting, and coloring on a huge roll of white paper.  A set of shelves was installed to contain the supplies.   And truly, more than anywhere else in the house, Ella occupies herself for long stretches of time at the art table.  Rather than try to limit her ever-expanding supplies, I have given in to the belief that the never-ending piles of colored paper and hundreds of marker colors are imagination boosters.  She will sometimes take 30 pieces of paper and draw the same shape on each one.  One little circle, over and over.  Is this a waste of paper?  Should I be encouraging her to conserve her resources?  Maybe.  But I like to see how her brain works and I think those repetitive pictures must be her version of practice-makes-perfect for new letters and shapes.

She draws elaborate pictures these days to send to her friends and family far away.  She makes all sorts of food out of play-doh (she recently made me pretend to eat a whole mess of carrots made out of orange and green play-doh.  Does she actually eat carrots?  What do you think?).  Guests to our house are often found sitting in the little chairs engaged in an Ella-directed painting project or sticker extravaganza.

There have been art table fails, too, of course. There was a day fairly recently when Ella and two of her buddies were quietly playing at the art table while the moms were chatting in the living room. After awhile, one mama jumped up and ran into the dining room. She said later that she heard the silence and knew it couldn’t mean anything good.  She was right.  The quiet kids had been quietly drawing on the dining room walls with markers, an activity Ella had never done by herself but was perfectly happy to engage in with her friends. Ah, the negative power of peer pressure.  As an aside,  I would like to say a public thank you to Crayola for making washable markers.

Overall, though, I think the opportunity for endless creativity, developing fine motor coordination, and self-directed play have made the Art Table, no the Art Corner, no, really, the Art Room, a success in my parenting book.

Just before her second birthday, Ella plays with playdoh on the uncluttered art table

Making elaborate Valentines for out-of-town friends and family

Big people in little chairs

Fortunately last summer's gluestick obsession has subsided somewhat

Mama friends

Last week I wrote about the trauma of Ella's first ballet class.  I am working up the emotional fortitude to write about the second week.  I'm not sure whether there will be a third or fourth week.  But that's for another post.

Tonight, I'm thinking about how amazingly grateful I am for my fellow Mama friends.  I am lucky, so very lucky, to have many friends who are amazing mothers, and I learn so many things about parenting from all of them every single day.  After all the ballet angst of late, I desperately needed someone to help me decide what to do next.  Fortunately, after my book club gathering tonight, I walked out with a few of my dearest mama friends and within moments of standing together in the darkened suburban street, I had been regaled with multiple stories of other children having similar challenges with dance class, swim lessons, music class, and a soccer team.   It took only a minute for me to unload the basic details of my situation and only moments for my friends to respond with everything I needed - validation on the emotional challenge, personal anecdotes of similar situations with positive endings, and some really helpful practical advice.  I wanted to dance under the streetlight. "I am not alone in finding it hard to navigate a shy child's interaction with the world! We will get through this and Ella will not sit on the sidelines of life and cry for the rest of her life! I need to go home and Google 'Exposure Therapy'!" As I drove home, I felt lighter than I've felt in a week.

Thank you, Mama friends, near and far.  I am so grateful for you all.