I wish I had a picture of this cute little snowman that causes so much distress for poor E. He's really a cute, little, stuffed snowman that stands a foot or so tall. You would never see him and think that he could cause a 1.5 year old so much trouble. But, he does.
We were out at my mom's house on Monday evening. My aunt and uncle had just arrived from Kentucky and so we were all sitting in the living room chatting. E was showing off as usual for the guests. She can be such the little ham. Anyway, she walked over to this little stuffed snowman sitting on the floor. Grabbed his nose and pulled. I'm not sure what her plan was, but she certainly didn't intend for the nose to come off in her hand. Everyone had watched this happen. I said 'uh-oh' and I think someone else had a sharp inhale of breathe.
E turned to my uncle, who was sitting on the floor next to her, dropped that nose in his hand like it was a hot potato and ran toward the kitchen like her pants were on fire. She dropped the evidence and ran for the hills! She ran out to the far side of the kitchen table and when she saw G'pa coming after her, she ran out to the back door. G'pa was just coming to comfort the poor little girl, but she would have kept running if she'd been able to open the door.
Meanwhile, the rest of us were busting a gut in the living room because it was so funny. Her facial expression was priceless. She panicked. Her eyes were as big as saucers...it was a complete deer in the headlights expression. It shouldn't have been so funny because she was very distressed, but it was just too cute. G'pa collected her and took her to the family room and tried to calm her down. She clung to him like a barnacle. Eventually, the horror of the broken nose faded and she was able to play with her puzzle and other toys. However, she did NOT willingly come back into the living room for the rest of the night...and when she did she clung tightly to the adult that forced her back in.
By yesterday, the nose was fixed...good as new. But, E still wouldn't go into the living room with that snowman. He had to be hidden. She saw him and got all distressed once again.
Fast forward to today. The snowman had been hidden in my old room where Stacey had been staying for the past 4 days. She was in packing up and so E was 'helping' her. E turned around, saw that snowman and ran out of the room terrified and had to be comforted. Three days later and she hadn't forgotten the incident. Such trauma for a little one...all because of a carrot nose.
We won't be at G'ma's tomorrow or Friday. Hopefully when we go back on Saturday, the snowman won't cause so much distress!
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Merry Christmas!
E has done so many cute things recently, but our computer has been in the shop and so blogging about them wasn't an option. However, the most memorable was last week Wednesday. I was making homemade tortilla shells for dinner. I had the dough all made and sitting in a bowl on the kitchen counter. E was standing up on the footstool next to me watching me make them. I turned my back to flour the table so that I had a surface to kneed the dough and in the 10 seconds that my back was turned E had grabbed the glass measuring cup dunked it in nasty, soapy crock pot water (it was still soaking from last night's dinner) and dumped in into my tortilla dough! Ugh! Luckily she poured it down the side of the bowl...so I just left the dough in the bottom that had the nasty water on it and used the rest of it. She's just so helpful sometimes!
People ask if she's excited for Christmas...the answer is that she doesn't have a clue what its all about. She really likes our Christmas tree. The lights have to go on as soon as she sees it. She likes to play with the bell on the bottom of it. She thinks that the bows and ribbons on the packages are fun to play with (consequently they are NOT under the tree anymore!). A couple of people from the church have given her presents, which she loves to unwrap and tear apart. But really, she just doesn't understand.
That is turning out to be a good thing for this Christmas. Jut's mom had a heart attack yesterday morning (Dec. 23). As Jut's dad and sister are both out of state, Jut needed to go to Holland to be with his mom. She's doing well. She had a stent put in yesterday and should be out of ICU today, but will still be in the hospital on Christmas. So, Jut is staying with her. Not our plan to spend Christmas apart, but it is what is best. As I stated earlier, E doesn't really understand.
Fortunately, we are so close to family that they will keep us busy for the next couple of days and hopefully E won't notice that her dad is absent too much. Tonight we are going to Mom and Dad's for church and dinner. Tomorrow the extended family has a gathering for lunch...we are very blessed to have people call and check up on us. It is all working out very well. Not ideal but it all could have been so much worse. We are thankful that Joye is doing well and Jut is able to spend this time with her.
We hope that your Christmas is less eventful! Have a wonderful, blessed Christmas!
People ask if she's excited for Christmas...the answer is that she doesn't have a clue what its all about. She really likes our Christmas tree. The lights have to go on as soon as she sees it. She likes to play with the bell on the bottom of it. She thinks that the bows and ribbons on the packages are fun to play with (consequently they are NOT under the tree anymore!). A couple of people from the church have given her presents, which she loves to unwrap and tear apart. But really, she just doesn't understand.
That is turning out to be a good thing for this Christmas. Jut's mom had a heart attack yesterday morning (Dec. 23). As Jut's dad and sister are both out of state, Jut needed to go to Holland to be with his mom. She's doing well. She had a stent put in yesterday and should be out of ICU today, but will still be in the hospital on Christmas. So, Jut is staying with her. Not our plan to spend Christmas apart, but it is what is best. As I stated earlier, E doesn't really understand.
Fortunately, we are so close to family that they will keep us busy for the next couple of days and hopefully E won't notice that her dad is absent too much. Tonight we are going to Mom and Dad's for church and dinner. Tomorrow the extended family has a gathering for lunch...we are very blessed to have people call and check up on us. It is all working out very well. Not ideal but it all could have been so much worse. We are thankful that Joye is doing well and Jut is able to spend this time with her.
We hope that your Christmas is less eventful! Have a wonderful, blessed Christmas!
Thursday, December 11, 2008
"Eh!" and "Uh-oh"
I am growing weary of hearing "Eh!" all the time. Someday when E is talking a mile-a-minute and hardly stopping for a breath, I'll wish for a vocabulary of 10 words, but today, I'm wishing she would use words to ask for things. She is very good at communicating her wishes, but sometimes it is difficult and sometimes I'm just tired of hearing "Eh!"
"Uh-oh" is the other very common sound in our home. Anything that is not as Elizabeth thinks it should be warrants an "uh-oh". Accidental events as well as purposeful events require an 'uh-oh' exclamation. A picture of spilled oatmeal or Elizabeth dumping her water all over her tray in her high chair or Elizabeth tripping and falling require an 'uh-oh' proclamation from the little one. There is about a 2 second delay time from the event to the 'uh-oh'. It is actually pretty funny when you don't hear it 1,000x a day.
When we took her in for her 15-month check, the doctor was concerned that she didn't have any words. However, Jut and I weren't concerned. She could communicate what she wanted and followed directions well. Her hearing was fine. Besides, she's really only around Jut and I and we don't feel the need to constantly fill the air with talking. So, we probably just didn't work enough with her on talking. We figured that she'd do it whenever she was ready.
Fast forward to her 18-month check, the new doctor was also concerned that she only had a vocab of less than 10 words. By 18-months, children should have about 50, I guess. He even suggested a referral for a speech pathologist. I told him that we weren't concerned and she'd develop at her own rate. He informed me that he would write a referral at her 2-year check-up if she was still lagging. I agreed to that.
In the last two weeks, she is getting more and more words every day. Her newest words are "baby" and "cup". Also, she now says "cat" instead of "meow" when she sees pictures of cats. She loves to read her books to herself. I don't understand a word of it, but she flips the pages and tells quite the story. It is very fun to watch her develop and I'm glad that I have the time to do it this year!
Word/Sound list:
1. woof 11. prune (she loves them)
2. meow 12. bye-bye
3. cat 13. hi
4. cup 14. bat
5. baby 15. yeah
6. shoes 16. no
7. coat
8. blub (walrus noise)
9. eee-aaa (monkey noise)
10. Crocs
"Uh-oh" is the other very common sound in our home. Anything that is not as Elizabeth thinks it should be warrants an "uh-oh". Accidental events as well as purposeful events require an 'uh-oh' exclamation. A picture of spilled oatmeal or Elizabeth dumping her water all over her tray in her high chair or Elizabeth tripping and falling require an 'uh-oh' proclamation from the little one. There is about a 2 second delay time from the event to the 'uh-oh'. It is actually pretty funny when you don't hear it 1,000x a day.
When we took her in for her 15-month check, the doctor was concerned that she didn't have any words. However, Jut and I weren't concerned. She could communicate what she wanted and followed directions well. Her hearing was fine. Besides, she's really only around Jut and I and we don't feel the need to constantly fill the air with talking. So, we probably just didn't work enough with her on talking. We figured that she'd do it whenever she was ready.
Fast forward to her 18-month check, the new doctor was also concerned that she only had a vocab of less than 10 words. By 18-months, children should have about 50, I guess. He even suggested a referral for a speech pathologist. I told him that we weren't concerned and she'd develop at her own rate. He informed me that he would write a referral at her 2-year check-up if she was still lagging. I agreed to that.
In the last two weeks, she is getting more and more words every day. Her newest words are "baby" and "cup". Also, she now says "cat" instead of "meow" when she sees pictures of cats. She loves to read her books to herself. I don't understand a word of it, but she flips the pages and tells quite the story. It is very fun to watch her develop and I'm glad that I have the time to do it this year!
Word/Sound list:
1. woof 11. prune (she loves them)
2. meow 12. bye-bye
3. cat 13. hi
4. cup 14. bat
5. baby 15. yeah
6. shoes 16. no
7. coat
8. blub (walrus noise)
9. eee-aaa (monkey noise)
10. Crocs
We are working on 'please' and 'thank you'...she will mimic them. She mimics a lot more words, but 'eh' and 'uh-oh' are still her favorites.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Snow day
Today was our first snow of the season. So, I bundled E up in her 'winter' garb and outside we went. She was excited at first, until she realized that she had trouble walking in it, and it stuck to her mittens when she fell in it. E doesn't like dirt on her hands...she always would wipe off her hands on my pants, and the same is true with snow. She doesn't like it on her mittens, and her mittens are fleece. Consequently, the snow sticks to them a lot. Every time that she fell down she had to come over to me to wipe her hands off, and if she fell walking over to me, life was over because then there was even more snow on her mittens! She did allow me to finish shoveling off the driveway, but by the end she was woefully wailing that it was time to be finished. She was quite pathetic actually.
The funniest moment was when she decided to go head-first down one of the snow piles that I had created. It was a very small pile, and I watched her stake it out and look it over. She must have decided that it looked kind of like a slide. I stopped watching her at this point. A few moments later, she started yelping. I look over and all I can see are her boots flailing at the top of the pile of snow. She was stuck! Head and arms at the bottom and feet at the top. Had she not been distressed, I definitely would have run for the camera, but she didn't appreciate her predicament.
She was scared of the leaf piles when we started raking this fall, but by the end of the season, she loved them. I think the same will happen with snow. Eventually, she'll love our time spend in the snow and I'll have to drag her in...instead of her dragging me in. ;-)
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